There have always been guns in America. Our second amendment even declares that we should have a right to own them. However with the rise of gun violence in America, people wonder what the reason for these shootings are. There has been a sharp increase in gun violence in the United States.

The first major school shooting took place in Littleton, Colorado at Columbine High School. The two students that participated in the shootings that left 15 dead and many more wounded, prepared extensively for this massacre on a custom map they made in a game called Doom. They created a map of their school on this game and prepared for hours before the traumatizing event took place. Then, there was Virginia Tech where a college student opened fire and killed 33 students and teachers and injured many more. It was later discovered that he was an avid player of the computer game CounterStrike, and was even seen walking into the school in a classic CounterStrike stance. And then there was the shooting of Colleen Ritzer, a math teacher at a Middle School in Massachusetts by her 10 year old student. There is undoubtedly a link between all these shootings and that link is today’s popular media.

As much as we hate to admit it, no one plays Assassin’s Creed without becoming at least a little desensitized to violence. When the main character stabs people in the throats with his sword, at first, it’s a little shocking. However, by the third time I played the game, it wasn’t even interesting anymore. The same goes for other games such as GTA and Call of Duty where you literally kill people in modern ways such as with cars or guns. After a while, the stuff in the news about the kid who killed his teacher isn’t so shocking anymore due to the desensitization of our perspective on murder and violence. Although it may be painful to admit, video games do in fact desensitize us from violence in everyday life.

Secondly, movies and television shows play an important role in this desensitization of human beings and violence. If one were to look at such movies like Scarface or horror movies such as The Conjuring, shocking images such as those involving blood and violence may not be so shocking eventually. In Scarface, there is the story of a drug dealer who kills his old boss in a bloody way using guns and violence. In television shows such as the hit shows, Breaking Bad and Dexter, the lead characters have used or have become accustomed to extreme violence throughout the course of the the show’s storyline. In Dexter, the title character is literally a serial killer who chops his victims into pieces. Eventually these images will subliminally affect us all. Therefore, movies and television shows play an extremely important role in the desensitization of the human being towards violence.

So what does this mean? I know that even though I believe what I wrote to be true, I am most definitely not going to throw out my Playstation, or throw out my copy of Scarface, and I will continue to stay up late to watch my favorite television shows. But maybe that’s the problem. We understand inside what these media outlets do to us but we do not care. It doesn’t bother us nearly enough for us to quit and I’m sure that in not too long, another shooting will take place. Then, we’ll shake our heads, talk about how it’s a terrible thing, and turn back to our TV’s.