I mean, I understand that it's a terrible, terrible thing when a child dies. It doesn't matter if it's guns, or poison, or car accidents, etc, but the leaps that this guy makes in his article are simply ridiculous.
Little boys have been simulating violence since the beginning of time. My dad played cowboys and indians, and simulated fighting the Germans in old WWII surplus gear. Blaming television, or video games, is an easy target, but it ignores the problem. If you're so worried about your kids seeing this kind of violence, don't let them play the games. Don't let them watch violent shows. Don't let them play with toy guns. Although I think it's funny when parents don't allow their kids to play with toy guns, because my parents didn't either until I was older, so I made my own guns out of things like electric carving knives, sticks, and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on that looked like the shape of a gun. I've been watching violent movies, playing video games, and messing around with toy guns since I was a kid, and I've never shot anyone. I've never felt the urge to shoot someone...
The problem is the parents who ignore their children. Who ignore the warning signs. Who hide guns away like they're a secret, and never educate their children on the dangers and the seriousness of a firearm. My dad taught me about guns when I was old enough to know what he was talking about. The gun was never accessible, but he brought it out and showed it to me. Told me about how important safety was. Took me shooting and made sure I understood that it was not a toy.
I swear some of the people in this country think that hiding something, that shielding your child from something, that making it go away is going to keep your child safe. It's just like anything else, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs.... if you make it taboo, they're going to be all the more curious. It's time for this country to wake the fuck up. We're ignoring a much bigger problem. In many cases, kids are growing up without a strong parental influence in their lives. Both parents work, so the kids are at home alone or are stuck at a daycare somewhere. I had a stay-at-home mom for most of my life, and she was a huge influence in how I turned out. I remember all the latch-key-kids in school, and many of them were the trouble makers who were constantly getting sent to the principals office.
No matter how you shake it, I think the problem is that kids aren't getting enough of a positive moral, ethical, and educational influence in their lives. Blame it on the economy, blame it on television or the internet, but laying blame doesn't fix the problem.
