This is not a new subject. But we know that violence has become as American as apple pie, and we are reaping a bitter harvest as we continue to tolerate a culture which teaches kids to kill and be killed. Our culture has become infused with violent images and messages and the methods of delivering those images has multiplied exponentially. Television shows that glamorize massacres, movies that pantomime violent school killing sprees, video games that teach children how to shot to kill their targets and Internet sites filled with vicious, destructive messages all function as desensitizing, conditioning mechanisms making it easier for our children to commit heinous crimes without understanding the finality and brutality of their actions. Violent TV and film images now have a new interactive digital face in video games and on the Internet.
Guns are everywhere.
Highly efficient assault weapons are available for sale on the street for the price of a pair of sneakers. More and more children are becoming alienated and depressed without the support structures needed to mediate their troubles, treat their illnesses, or protect them from themselves. This is a very deep and complicated mess we re in, but it is OUR mess, a problem we share across the land. There is no place to run to escape its effects. We are facing a monumental task, which I would liken in its scope to a Marshall Plan for America, where the challenge is to rebuild the social structure of a society while respecting the Constitutional freedoms which all Americans cherish.