The Tempest

Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: Opinion

Marilyn Manson has been blamed for multiple shootings

Columbine, Red Lake High and Virginia Tech. All were cases in which deranged students had firearms at their school and killed multiple victims. 12 dead at Columbine, 10 dead at Red Lake and 33 killed at Virginia Tech. As you heard about these events that resulted in 55 people losing their lives, most asked a single question; why?

Columbine was blamed on "The Matrix" and Marilyn Manson, Red Lake was blamed on a movie called "Elephant" and Virginia Tech was blamed on various violent movies and video games.

I must say, all of those are the most absurd excuses I have ever heard. I cannot accept the fact that Seung-Hui Cho playing too much Halo caused him to kill 33 people at Virginia Tech. I have watched "The Matrix" at least 15 times and I have never had the urge to put on a trench coat and kill a whole bunch of innocent people. I admit that I have not seen "Elephant," but I doubt that upon watching it, I would have the urge to conduct a massacre at Solano Community College.

I'm tired of people hearing about a tragedy and instantly trying to put the blame on entertainment. It is illogical and immoral to try and find a form of entertainment to blame every time a young person goes on a massacre at a learning institution.

A $15 DVD is no excuse to kill 10 people. It just doesn't add up. Over 20 million people watched "The Matrix" while it was in theatres and it only sparked one group of kids to kill people. How about the idea that this was a demented group of kids? Or maybe they were raised improperly? None of these logical explanations took the forefront when Columbine happened; instead people said that Marilyn Manson and "The Matrix" made them do it.

I feel comfortable in representing everyone, when I say at the age of 12 or so, every kid realizes the difference between movies and real life. I have never met a person that was in college that couldn't tell the difference between violent video games and life.

Less then 1 percent of people who have played violent video games feel motivated to kill someone, so why is it that every time something tragic happens, the motive is first and foremost pop culture?

It's because it's easy. It's easy to blame movies, games and music for the motivation of young people to do violent things. It seems as if our society has a hard time telling it like it is when it comes to minors. I never see the kid blamed for being simply a bad kid. What about the accountability of the parents of these kids?

A good parent would not let their children be influenced so severely by pop culture. To add to the point of parenting, you should also know if your child has a shotgun in his room. I find it hard to believe that a kid can effectively hide a shotgun in his bedroom.

So how about we all wake up and stop being blind to the truth? And that truth is that there are bad people and good people, and no movie, video game or album will change that.

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