Adolescent feelings of resentment, powerlessness, and revenge pour into the killing games. In these children, the games can become a dress rehearsal for the real thing. During World War II only 15 to 20 percent of all American soldiers fired their weapon in battle. Video games are much more powerful versions of the military's primitive discovery about overcoming the reluctance to shoot. The Marine Corps is adapting a version of Doom, the hyperviolent game played by one of the Littleton killers, for its own training purposes.
Some newer games seem intent on erasing children's empathy and concern for others.
Once the intended victims of video slaughter were mostly gangsters or aliens. These killings are supposed to be taken as harmless jokes. But the bottom line is that the young are being invited to enjoy the killing of vulnerable people picked at random. This looks like the final lesson in a course to eliminate any lingering resistance to killing. Pilots train on flight simulators, drivers on driving simulators, and now we have our children on murder simulators.