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Originally Posted by 1991AtlantaBraves
Banning video games such as the GTA series, television shows such as Breaking Bad, and music labeled with “explicit lyrics” would actually reduce violent crime quite a bit…..not to mention imposing heavy fines/long jail terms/death penalty on the offenders - whichever one(s) fit the crime.
This is a spiritual battle being waged, but one side completely refuses to acknowledge this fact. Said side has too much to lose if it’s wrong, I suppose.
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Even if the suppositions were true, I would be as against banning music, films and games and ignoring the first amendment as I am against ignoring the second amendment.
I don’t think there’s much of a connection though. Violence has been prevalent in art and literature since the very beginning. Homer and Hesiod, the first western literature are replete with it. Fiction tends to always go in the most shocking direction. I think there is much to be said for the time when people spoke properly, wore suits when they went anywhere in public, and would be horrified to hear the words common on radio said so publicly. The current form, in which there are less social restrictions on people’s choices and lives than ever before certainly has not made for a happier youth, with depression being almost trendy among my generation and the next one. But I don’t think 1) there is a way to have everything perfect and 2) it has not produced much violence, statistically.
In fact, violence went down for the generation of NWA and Call of Duty. Violence has steadily dropped with time until it rocketed in 2020 for reasons that don’t seem to be generational or entertainment related.
My gut feeling would be that flooding kids with displays of violence from early childhood and on probably isn’t good. My gut feeling when I’m at a gun store and see someone trying to buy their favorite weapon in call of duty is that this is a moron and maybe should choose not to exercise his right to do that. But I don’t think the data backs up this feeling. “Ban X to solve our problems” formulations are almost never even close to true and rarely stand to even cursory examination. Playing Call of Duty doesn’t make one a murderer, listening to rap doesn’t make one a murderer, no more than owning a firearm does.