Dave Grossman

In the following viewpoint, Dave Grossman argues that violent images on television, in movies, and in video games are responsible for the increase in the violent crime rate. He contends that children who grow up watching violence learn to associate it with pleasurable activities and so lose their innate aversion toward killing humans. He concludes that parents and children both need to learn that violence—in the media and in real life— is not fun and is not a game. Grossman, a psychology instructor and retired Army lieutenant colonel, is the director of the Killology Research Group, an organization that studies the psychology of killing, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He is also the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

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