In the Littleton, Colo., case, two teen-agers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed themselves April 20 after shooting to death a dozen classmates and a teacher. While millions of copies have been sold, violence like what happened in Littleton is rare. Last Wednesday, Vice President Gore announced that Internet companies have agreed to give parents new tools to restrict and monitor online material. And video games were discussed at President Clinton's Monday strategy session on school violence. It's more about neglect and being an outcast.
Society helps parents with such things as a child's access to tobacco, guns, drugs, alcohol.
We have laws that say anybody who gives your kids this stuff is a criminal. Grossman said children should be barred from violent games until at least the age of 13, and he thinks 18 is about right for games that use simulated weapons instead of handheld controllers. But such claims are based more on popular wisdom than any scientific evidence, said Jeanne Funk, a clinical psychiatry professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio who has published articles on the impact of video games on children. The most recent studies, done in the 1980s, indicate that children playing violent games seemed more aggressive right after playing than those playing more benign games. I'm not a supporter of violent video games, but we need to go about this carefully.