Turn against the Culture of Violence

David Lawrence

Turn against the culture of Violence

I hate guns. When it comes to violence, I’d prefer to box—it’s more manly, you give and you take. You just don’t kill or die.

I hate shooting little animals. When I was a kid, I cried when they shot Bambi’s mother.

But guns are not attractive like movie stars. They do not encourage violence or create a culture of death. We don’t get excited by them and staring at them does not make us want to shoot someone. We cannot blame them for the mental sickness of shooters.

We should stop talking positively about movies like “Django Unchained” and the “Terminator.” We should stop promoting violent stars like Jamie Foxx and Arnold Schwarzenegger. There should be no law against violent films and guns but there should be a communal zeitgeist where supporting violent movies is the opposite of cool, a social faux pas.

We should discuss pragmatic solutions to gun violence not hysterically confiscate all guns. This can’t be legislated. But parents should think responsibly and refuse to support violent film directors. The free market should drive them to less influence.

Movies and video games are attractive. All the craziness starts in Hollywood. Violent movies and television take our souls and stomps on them. I was a professional boxer but I am not a killer. I have a slight character disorder but I am not nuts.

Still, even I, a responsible sixty-five year old, sometimes feel fearful at a movie that I will imitate the villains. I am scared of becoming a murderer. I am obsessive compulsive even though I am sane. Push me two steps to the left and I might become violent. Push a nutcase two steps to the left through video games and movies and he will definitely become a killer. Easily influenced people see hot as cool. Can this be stopped? It can at least be discussed. There is no simple solution.

Mass murders like those at Sandy Hook are like volcanoes or tsunamis. They are almost natural disasters. They might never be stopped no matter how we legislate against them.

It’s too dictatorial for the government to ban violent movies and guns. We don’t want big government to violently legislate morals. We don’t want Obama to become Stalin. We don’t want rare mass murders like Columbine to become genocides like in Russia or Germany. But if intelligent people could just recognize that cinematic murder is dangerous it might go a smidgeon towards diminishing violence and protecting their children.

Why do people pick on guns rather than movies? Because politicians like Barack Obama receive billions of dollars from Hollywood. Movies contributed to the mass murdering of children and to Obama’s reelection campaign. Obama’s eyes tear up at Sandy Hook but he puts a Band-Aid on children’s death wounds by blaming them on the guns rather than the culture and madness that spawned Adam Lanza. And Cuomo yells "end the madness" of guns like an angry Moses or Jesus on the Mount but ignores the sick influence of bloody television, video games and movies because they pay New York a lot of money to film there. It is easier to get angry at guns than influential movie stars.

Cuomo proposes a $2 billion allocation of state tax credits for NY films and television productions. How many of these will be violent? Doesn’t Cuomo understand that guns are weapons whereas movies are psychological determinants? Madness is more relevant than guns. It is violent films that encourage craziness. Guns are merely vehicles that insane drivers use to run down the innocent.

I know. I am sensitive enough to madness to understand how the crazies relate to the power of the big screen. And I am relatively normal. Imagine a nut watching “Reservoir Dogs” or “Django Unchained.” “Stop the madness” Cuomo, not by sentimental speeches or banning guns but by examining violence as a cultural issue.

Cuomo, don’t shout indignantly but interfere with the indignity of vicious films. Start a dialogue about the pornographic violence of Hollywood. Encourage parents to scorn murderous entertainment. I myself would prefer to never see another person butchered on the screen. That is my choice; not a new governmental law.

I will never vote for a violent film again at the SAG Awards. It might force the writers to come up with something more intelligent and artistic. They use corpses like plot points. It is easy to structure a screenplay around finality like death.

Discouraging buying and watching violent video games will be more effective than restricting guns.

Violent film makers are distant accessories to crimes. They are part of the conspiracy like the driver at a bank robbery. Guns are their weapons of choice; not their motivation or inspiration.

Commercials that show killers as ugly nerds rather than movie stars might help. It might not. People have always been violent. Only the liberals refuse to recognize it and think that they can legislate against human nature until human nature pops up and shoots them in the head.

Turn against the Culture of Violence

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