We Are Training Our Kids to Kill By Dave Grossman

In this essay Grossman explores the different factors that contribute to the increasing murder rate in America. He mainly focuses on one fundamental factor in his essay, which is the effect of the media. He begins by explaining that killing ones own kind is an unnatural response to a conflict. Grossman than compares and contrasts how the people in the military are trained to kill, and how that training is similair to the media's influence of violence. He explains that in the military they are trained to shoot pop up targets resembling human beings and after a time of training, shooting to kill becomes a stimulus response. This tactic is called operant conditioning. The same is with the video games children play. In violent shooting video games produced by the media, children are similairly trained to kill targets that pop up out of no where. This explains how kids that have never handled a gun show remarkable talent in shooting. He also explains the tactic of classical conditioning. This is when people are motivated to perform tasks through reward. He explains how in the japanese military they were trained to kill captive chinese soldiers in terrible ways, and that the japanese soldiers would be rewarded with the pleasures of women and great food. He explains similairly that children are rewarded the pleasure of winning a game when they kill all the people that game requires them too.

I like how insightful this essay was on the tactics that the military uses to train soldiers to kill, and also how much of an influence the media has on gamers. I dont really find it shocking that the government has not taken great action towards this issue. What if the government isn't strictly regulating laws against this because it is raising a nation of super soldiers that instinctively know how to wield weapons of mass destruction. Each country contributes its own specific material of neccessity to the international economy. America is best known for contributing weapons and arms of mass destruction. Therefore, is it so crazy to believe that the government would have a secret agenda to pre-train young minds into a state of total warfare while being able to use the best weapons that the world has to offer? The government's military makes a nice entrance to a soldiers life as soon as they graduate from high school. At this stage of life people are more likely to be interested in games than any other later time in life. They have gone through high school playing games of shooting and killing, most are deeply indulged in the media, and they are fresh out into the real world feeling successful and looking to further prove themselves. All this is a perfect recipe that can sicken a persons ability to distinguish the harms and hidden agenda's of the government and its media propaganda.