Media Violence and School Shootings
Another school shooting goes down and is preyed upon by the media for a gripping new story. Jonesboro, Arkansas, West Paducah, Kentucky, and Littleton, Colorado all have one thing in common. All these places are sites where school shootings have occurred. Why do school shootings happen and who is to blame when they do happen?. These are two questions that are still trying to be answered. Some people say that school shootings are due to the excess marketing of violence in movies, television, video games, and music. "'There is a difference between what one has the right to do and what is socially responsible', he says. It appears that they have targeted a mass audience for this material, and then they're 'horrified' when it's discovered what they've done. They're being duplictous-in the end, they're lying" says Andrew Schwartzman, president of public interest law firm the Media Access Group(Holland). I tend to agree with this point but I believe that there is a bigger and more substantial factor when looking at school shootings. I believe that parents have to take most of the blame for school shootings. Why should parents have to take blame for something that their child has done wrong. Well, it is pretty simple. Parents are the only people who can control what kind of music their kid or kids listen to, what movies they see, what video games they play, and what kind of programs they watch on TV. The parents should be held accountable because it is not possible for the school to control what the kids do out of the classroom. Since the Littleton, Colorado shooting, school shootings have attracted attention to laws that make parents criminally liable for their children's actions. Since then, twelve states including, Alabama, Arkansas, California and Ohio, have come up with parental responsibility statues. Under these laws, parents can be prosecuted based on the failure to supervise their children("Parents"). Tom Lynch also believes that he is