Re: Toy Gun Buy Back Program !!!!!
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: EventHorizon</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: He_Shoot _Me</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: EventHorizon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">guns aren't toys - either in physical form or video games. I never thought much of it until I read Grossman's book On Killing and his views and evidence of how harmful violent/violence as entertainment play can be. I can't help but think that the Gecko45s amongst us and the idiots we see on YouTube who have accidental discharges etc are the ones who obsessed over their toys.
I got into liking guns when I was taught how to shoot - along with the notion that guns aren't toys and safety first etc. I think it should stay that way. </div></div>
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Well let's see. I've based my opinion on the evidence presented by a former US Army Ranger and Psychiatrist - Lieutenant Colonel Grossman and his books 'On Killing' & 'On Combat'. Someone who has given sworn testimony in court on the harmful effects of violent video games and how violence-as-entertainment pre-conditions youngsters to commit violent acts with little hesitation.
Here's a brief biography of him:
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is an internationally recognized scholar, author, soldier, and speaker who is one of the world s foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime. Colonel Grossman is a West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military Science, and an Army Ranger who has combined his experiences to become the founder of a new field of scientific endeavor, which he has termed killology. In this new field Colonel Grossman has made revolutionary new contributions to our understanding of killing in war, the psychological costs of war, the root causes of the current "virus" of violent crime that is raging around the world, and the process of healing the victims of violence, in war and peace. He is the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is required reading in classes at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, police academies worldwide, and peace studies programs in numerous universities and colleges. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence, co-authored with Gloria DeGaetano, has received international acclaim. Colonel Grossman s book On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, now in its third edition, is on the USMC Commandant's required reading list and is required reading at the DEA Academy. Colonel Grossman has been called upon to write the entry on Aggression and Violence in the Oxford Companion to American Military History, three entries in the Academic Press Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict and numerous entries in scholarly journals, to include the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He has presented papers before the national conventions of the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has presented to over 40 different colleges and universities world-wide. He has served as an expert witness and consultant in state and Federal courts, to include United States vs. Timothy McVeigh. He helped train mental health professionals after the Jonesboro school shootings, and he was also involved in counseling, training, or court cases in the aftermath of the school shootings at Paducah, Springfield, Littleton, Nickel Mines Amish School, and Virginia Tech. He has testified before U.S. Senate and Congressional committees and numerous state legislatures, and he and his research have been cited in a national address by the President of the United States. Col. Grossman is an Airborne Ranger infantry officer, and a prior-service sergeant and paratrooper, with a total of over 23 years experience in leading U.S. soldiers worldwide. He retired from the Army in February 1998 and has devoted himself full-time to teaching, writing, speaking, and research. Today he is the director of the Killology Research Group, and in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he is on the road almost 300 days a year, training elite military and law enforcement organizations worldwide about the reality of combat.
On what do you base your droll response?
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Aside from the fact there are literally millions of Americans who played with toy guns as kids who DID NOT grow up to be mad dog killers. Not much I guess. I have met LTC Grossman andI have a couple of his books. While a lot of the THEORY he espouses is accepted to be correct , he still has opinions some of which are wrong. He is not some Godlike figure with an exclusive insight on violence and killing. Rex Applegate forgot more about killing than Dave Grossman will come to know and he was wrong about some things as well.
FFT YMMV and JMTC
