I saw the television news and newspaper headlines the other day, “Crime Rates are up Everywhereâ€! To many, this might be a shock. To cops all over, it’s just old news. Cops on the streets see the crime trends and crime rates EVERYDAY they work. They don’t sit behind a desk; compiling data and then one day take a look at the charts and realize crime is up. And cops on the streets don’t manipulate stats to make their cities look safer. Cops on the streets are the ones rushing from call to call to call, from victim to victim, writing their reports of all the thefts, robberies, accidents, shootings, homicides, rapes, identity thefts, etc etc etc. And cops on the street everywhere will tell you that juvenile violence is on the increase.
So it’s no news to street cops that crime rates are up. Especially violent crime, which is up everywhere. What do we expect when society lets our kids play violent video games everyday and parents have no idea of the content of the games their children are playing? Some of the video games teach kids nothing more than shooting, beating and killing other human beings. Some games let the player take on a police SWAT team to try and hunt down and kill police officers. Other games let kids beat victims with fists and weapons, stab and shoot people, and even rape women. One game even had hidden sex scenes in it that kids figured how to get into. And parents don’t have a clue, they just buy the video game that little Johnnie wants to keep him occupied while they are at work or away.
I’ve asked parents to watch the games their children are playing and they are shocked. They can not believe how violent and realistic the video games are. They have no idea the games are so violent when they buy them for their kids. WAKE UP PARENTS! Video games aren’t like the old Pac-man and Atari games you used to play! Parents have no idea that their kids are getting more and more desensitized to violence. So it should be no wonder when kids beat, stab and shoot each other when their anger flashes on the street or in schools. We are teaching our kids to kill.
Muscle memory. That’s when you do something so many times that it almost becomes natural instinct. Cops practice drawing their weapon or self defense moves regularly so it becomes natural, or muscle memory. After doing something so many times it becomes instinct instead of having to think of what to do. It becomes automatic. I believe it’s around 2500 times that you have to do something for it to become muscle memory.
So back to the violent video games; how many times do you think a kid pulls a trigger and shoots a realistic looking human being? Hour after hour, day after day, thousands of trigger pulls over time, more than 2500 times? That’s the object of most video games isn’t it? Shoot and kill the other guy before he gets you. So if kids shoot, kill or beat other human beings hundreds or thousands of times on their video game, it becomes muscle memory or automatic to do the same thing if their anger flashes in real life. Kids get so desensitized pointing a gun at other people and pulling the trigger in their video games that it means nothing to them to do it in real life. What they do not realize is that in real life, there is no reset or do over button. We are teaching our kids to kill.
Gang numbers are growing and along with that, juvenile violence. Kids turn to gangs for several reasons including television glamour, wanting to be a status symbol, protection, the feeling of power, and mainly to get the attention they are deprived of at home. We can go into gangs more in depth another time but the bottom line is that kids are getting recruited into gangs even in elementary school. By Junior high, gangs are already well established and newcomers are easy targets for recruitment. Gangs solve their differences one way; violence. They don’t play a football game or a chess game to win. They fight rival gang members the only way they know how; physical fights which usually escalate to a bad beating, stabbing or a shooting. Then there is revenge. Drive-by shootings, beatings, and more stabbings. If a kid stabs or shoots hundreds of people on his video game, do you think he will hesitate to stab or shoot a real person in a real fight? Kids are killing each other at an alarming rate. Parents are not supposed to bury their children, children are supposed to bury their parents. We are teaching our kids to kill.
And the internet. I’m sure every kid out there (and a lot of adults) has a myspace account on their computer. Parents, go on myspace.com and look for your kid. Look at some of the photos that kids post of themselves. Kids drinking, partying, flashing gang signs with their homies, even holding guns. Kids communicate with each other on myspace, telling each other where the parties are, what they did over the weekend, who won the gang fight, you’d be SHOCKED to see what your child post on myspace no matter how good a kid you think you have. And if they know you are watching their postings, they can make it private so only their friends can access their page. And now on youtube.com, kids are posting videos of themselves shooting guns, partying until they are pass-out drunk and themselves or friends involved in violent fights. Your kids aren’t doing just homework on the family computer, trust me. And if they have a personal computer in their room or a laptop, you better watch them closely.
It’s a shame when you can’t say God in our schools but all the violent rap music, videos and violent video games are protected by freedom of speech. What has society come to when our kids are killing each other and pulling real triggers in real life without even blinking? It’s our own fault we let it get this far. We have to put a stop to the violence that our kids are becoming desensitized to before the violence in society will decrease. It all starts at home.
Not all kids are bad and I don’t mean to show kids of today in a bad light, but as a cop and as a parent of two kids myself, I see what kids share, the problems they face and what peer pressure can do. I see parents that are clueless about what their kids are doing on the streets or on the computer. Kids are getting desensitized to violence. A lot of kids have no respect for other people or property; a lot don’t even have respect for themselves.
Stop teaching our kids to kill!
