Caught in the Crossfire of the Media-Violence Debate
by Daniel Batt
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 63
Autumn 1999

Introduction

The US phenomena of schoolyard shootings has thrown free speech advocates, gun lobbyists and self-proclaimed 'nerds' into a tempest of blame, claim and counter-claim, in an effort to understand the growing incidents of teenage killers.

Daniel Batt
Daniel Batt is the Editor of Zadok Perspectives. E-mail: editor@zadok.org.au

A RECENT AD CAMPAIGN BY US manufacturer New England Firearms sought to respond to the saturation of adult gun owners in the US with a pitch to the youth of America to take up gun ownership. The copy-line of the campaign has a chilling irony: "Kids are the future of the sports we all love. Kids can make shooting and hunting come alive again."
The recent schoolyard shooting in Littleton, Colorado, elicited the expected dissonant voices within American culture. Charlton Heston of the National Rifleman's Association (NRA) refused to move their conference from Denver, Colorado, as a sign of respect (he saw it as 'accepting blame') and, in an indignant mixture of sombreness and righteousness, assured his audience that the blame lay elsewhere.
This most recent in a horrifying rise in schoolyard shootings has caused yet another 'searching of the American soul'. Unlike Australia after the Port Arthur shooting, Americans didn't want to know why here? but, why again? After the Jonesboro, Arkansas, schoolyard shooting last year, one of the town's residents blamed media "violence and profanity" for the shooting. And the blaming of the media has certainly picked up pace since then. Of course, NRA types have blamed the media, video games, parents even the injustice of teachers not being able to carry guns in school so they could have 'taken the boys out' before real damage was done. Gun ownership is the problem, they seem to be saying. But not because the bad guys have too many guns, but that the good guys haven't got enough (there are approximately 192 million in circulation in the US).
But at 80 million members, the NRA knows that it has the numbers to tip most 'gun haters' out of office. Which is why, as Bill Clinton gave his press conference after the tragedy, he couldn't say anything that would remotely criticise the 'American love affair with the gun'. But the irony is, he couldn't criticise Hollywood violence, either. With much of his support coming from the Hollywood élite, he was left with the simple parental advice of learning to teach our children to "properly deal with their anger".