But a third issue which is really coming to a boil is that of the media's responsibility in all this.  Are kids killing each other because of violent video games or rock music or movies?  There are certainly those who say yes.  They argue that kids are brainwashed into thinking that violence is generally OK, and that in fact some of the games kids play teach them how to be efficient killers (one advocate calls them "murder simulators"). 

The media is a good target for such wrath.  For one, it allows those closest to the source of killings like these to pass the buck in terms of responsibility.  For another, it is a great source of deep pockets for enterprising plaintiffs' lawyers.  There is, after all, no point in suing the kids who actually do the shootings, as they are either dead or in prison.  Either way, that pretty much makes them judgment proof.  In addition, the public often seems to think Hollywood is out of touch with their tastes and standards (regardless of the fact that it is these same people who keep the media barons rolling in dough).  Outsiders are always a good scapegoat. 

I should say up front that there seems to be a certain hypocrisy involved when the media starts taking the heat.  One one side, you have right wingers who are absolutely convinced that an Oliver Stone movie of a Marilyn Manson album directly incites violence.  However, when someone dares to point out that some right wing radio hosts seem equally vitriolic and might spark a similar reaction, they retreat behind the First Amendment more quickly than you can imagine.  Similarly, conservatives seem to want the entertainment industry to be the only one which is socially responsible at the cost of its bottom line.  Hollywood should sacrifice a few millions to avoid "polluting our culture".  Those same voices are largely silent, however, when a Fortune 500 company enjoying record profits shuts down an American plant, laying off thousands of workers, in order to move to Mexico to make even more money.  What's the deal, folks? 

The industry itself, however, doesn't help its own cause.  At the hint of any suggestion that the violence is portrays might be hazardous to kids, it quickly rallies behind the "we reflect society, not shape it" argument.  That might be true.  It seems a little odd, however, that the industry can also find an issue which is near a dear to its heart, say, the environment, and do benefits and the like with the specific intent of influencing people's perceptions.  Once again, what's the deal? 

I personally don't buy into this argument that music, movies, video games and the like are to blame for the Littleton shooting or indeed any other similar act.  Mainly because I've resisted the urge to shoot, kill, and maim all my life.  Off the top of my head, I can think of a few instances of harmful behavior in my artistic orbit which I haven't acted on.  I read and saw Oedipus Rex in high school, yet have never even had the urge to gouge my own eyes out.  One of the first LPs (yes, it was an LP at the time!) I ever bought was Rush's 2112, the first side of which is a 20 minute work about a person struggling against a despotic government.  In the end, he kills himself rather than live in such oppression.  I can cite you chapter and verse from 2112, but have never thought of killing myself (although I have become rather adamant about individual rights).  On a completely different tack, another of my favorite progressive epics, Genesis's "Suppers Ready" ends with the second coming of Christ following the Apocalypse, yet I have not set plans into motion to bring about the end of the world.  I've played one or two of the "murder simulators" and can safely say that the world has nothing to fear from me if I ever get a gun in my hand, as I can't hit the broadside of a barn. 

My point is that there are some of us, a great many of us, actually, who manage to not go out do things because we heard them or saw them.  A vast majority of those who picked up the last Marilyn Manson album did not become sociopaths.  Hell, my biggest problem with Marilyn Manson is the mind numbing boredom of the music itself, not the lyrical content.  The argument of those who rant against the media can never answer this argument effectively: Why don't all of us go on a rampage? 

More to the point, if the media is the cause of all evil, then why did so much of it exist before the modern media came into being or why does it continue to exist in those areas outside of Hollywood's reach?  I just finished reading an article in the current Newsweek about the brutal thriving slave trade in the Sudan, hardly a place which is on the Marilyn Manson tour schedule.  Hitler, I can say with some certainty, never heard a heavy metal or gangster rap tune in his life, or saw Natural Born Killers.  That's a slight red herring, I know, but it is something to think about. 

A potentially flawed assumption also underlies this theory of media responsibility, I think.  Generally, the advocates talk about a film or video game "turning" kids into killers.  It implies that the basic nature of kids, and human beings for that matter, is gentle and good and is corrupted somehow.  I've never believed that kids are simply innocent vessels into which we dump ideas.  Kids can be crueler to the different among them than almost any other group.  I think the more plausible view of human nature is that is it basically bad, as epitomized in Thomas Hobbes and John Locke's primitive theories of nature.  We are all potential killers.  The question is what allows us to fight that nature? 

Another thing to consider is that often when someone in the media is blamed for an act, there almost always turns out to be something else going on.  Mark David Chapman was enthralled by the classic novel A Catcher in the Rye (another evil influence I've managed to fight) when he shot John Lennon.  Did the book make him do it?  No, he was crazy as a loon.  Judas Priest was hauled into court in Nevada many years ago, sued by parents of two teens who had committed suicide while listening to a Priest album.  Did the metal make them do it?  No,  They were both severely depressed and stoned out of their minds when they pulled the trigger.  Finally, an interesting one from a lawyer who represents kids who kill that was on CNN the other day.  He had a case of a young girl who killed her father.  Among the triggers, some said, was a Motley Crue album she owned with a song about how a daughter killed her father.  Did the Crue do it?  Nope.  Further investigation revealed a pattern of brutality and sexual assault that led to the shooting in self defense. 

Even if we assume that there is a direct causal link between media violence and violent acts, how do you decide what to get rid of?  One not so astute audience member on that same CNN show argued that if there is even a one in a million chance that someone will be set off by a particular work, we should do away with it.  Ignoring the glaring First Amendment problems for a moment, think of how broad that would be.   Just what would be banned? 

Well, for starters, we best get rid of the Bible.  At least the Old Testament, which is filled with genocide and killings, in the name of God of course.  In the wrong hands, that history can be taken as an affirmation of a fundamentalist's plan to cleanse the unbelievers from the face of the planet.  How about classical musical works?  Those aren't safe either.  I had the pleasure of hearing Verdi's Requiem last weekend, which includes a lot of fire and brimstone stuff about the end of the world.  To a twisted religious zealot's mind, that's an urge to bring about the final judgment.  How about truly important films, like Shindler's List?  Sorry, it's hideously violent and might give someone somewhere a bad idea. 

Those may seem like extreme examples, and they are.  They are intended to be.  The point of a free society is that you not only tolerate ideas and speech you like, but also that which you despise.  Once we start targeting the ones that offend us most, we will soon sink to targeting everything. 

I agree with the Supreme Court that the freedoms of adults (and non-messed up kids, too) cannot be restricted simply to prevent some slight harm to a few small children.  We need to find out what it is about certain kids that makes them fascinated with and inspired by violent films and such.  Why do they tap into the basest of human instincts, the killers inside?  If we answer that, we can then attack the problem as it really exists, not simply a straw man set up for political gain.