OP ED: Violence in America

Violence. That's the topic of discussion in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shooting rampage. Violence and the cause and effect thereof. At the moment, the internet is abuzz over gun laws "not being strict enough" or too "stringent." There's a lot of chatter over what seems to be acceptable as entertainment or downright bad taste. Movies are a national pastime. It’s a place to escape our world and visit times and places we've only read about in books or seen in our dreams. Sometimes, those stories are depictions of this day and age. No matter how real or how fake the images on screen are, we know it was "just a movie."  

Of course, there will always be those that try to imitate art. 

James Holmes, the madman behind the Aurora theatre shootings, claimed to be "The Joker" - Batman's nemesis. Naturally, that madman's claims have sparked an uproar against The Dark Knight Rises as being the sort of film that inspires such madness.  

Movies do have influences over minds, but that is not the only medium in which young minds are influenced. Take the video game industry. The highest selling games year after year are First-Person Shooters. Those are the type of games where the player sees the game through the eyes of the character onscreen. Halo, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Mafia, Max Payne, Diablo, Quake, etc. The list of violent films with very adult situations goes on. the video game industry thrives on the sales of violent, gross out games. Ever heard of Mortal Kombat or Dead Space? Those games try to depict new and gross ways to dismember and destroy a human.  

But movies - television too - and video games are not the only influences. There's the music industry that records and publishes violent music and music that incites violence. There are genres almost entirely devoted to the killing of cops, beatings of women, sexual exploitation, etc.  This doesn't even include the impact of violent comic books, Japanese manga, and other forms of literature. 

The fact remains there are a lot of different forms of media that inspire violence. Churches and other concerned organizations have long been voicing their objections over such things. No one took them seriously. Now that this terror incident has happened, "self-righteous" people are looking to politicize the tragedy and blame Conservative, Right-Wing groups over this. The disgusting attempt by the Left of this country, the major news media included, has faulted the likes of the Tea Party and Rush Limbaugh over this. Other "intellects" have come out to rekindle the gun ban topic.  

When I studied history, there always seemed to be incidents of violence without guns. Guns are not the problem. The problem is with people and those that influence them. I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh. He has never encouraged violence as a means to push an agenda. Same goes for Sarah Palin who was wrongly and falsely blamed for the Gabby Gifford shooting in Tucson, Arizona. The true perpetrators of violence are the left-wing, socialists nuts that encourage civil disobedience as a means for civil discourse. The teamsters union members threaten and assault those that would not side with them. Occupy Wall Street attacks those of a "different social status". In most of these cases, these groups don't use guns to incite violence and mayhem. Yet when bad people are put away, it’s the left that rushes to their defense in the name of "understanding."  

Hollywood elitists and pop culture idols that shock audiences with their violent work defend their work in the name of art. Criminal masterminds also refer to their work as a form of art. Bloodshed is not art. Never has been. 

What sets The Dark Knight Trilogy above all other comic type movies is that its very realistic (with possible exceptions in the last film). The movies have tackled real world issues of corruption and social challenges. The antagonists are the most extreme of their character inspirations. Take The Joker. He's a maniacal, sociopath, terrorist. Do they exist? Absolutely! Hollywood elitists celebrated Heath Ledger's performance. Yet, some of those same Hollywood types are the ones that turn a blind eye on true terrorism happening in the world. The only "terrorism" they recognize and speak out against is anything that the United States does in other parts of the world. (Sigh.) 

Take Batman's villain in the latest installment of the trilogy: Bane. Bane is a socialist mercenary hell-bent on destroying the upper class of society. Does he remind us of anyone? The Occupy Wall Street movement, anyone? They want to eliminate upper class folk and shut down businesses. So the Batman films mimic life not the other way around.  

So am I defending the Batman films? Yes but not all films in general. Leftists that pretend to care lash out against movies that speak a message of reality like The Dark Knight films and The Passion of the Christ. There is no uproar over the torture porn like the Saw movies or repeated gory franchises like Scream, Friday the 13th, Halloween, vampire lore and zombie films. Where are the letters against the Hannibal movies? 

Whatever sick cult following the character of The Joker had, it was there long before Christopher Nolan brought Heath Ledger on to film it. How many people dress up as vampires, zombies, killers, book and cinema villains? Oh, because its Halloween its okay?  

Our country has fallen into this dark abyss once it abandoned principles and morality. 

I do not present myself as some moral authority. I only strive to be the best person I can be and pray to God to help me along the way. I grew up in violent neighborhoods. The gangsters, thugs, and drug dealers needed no movie to inspire them to do their evil. My parents took me away from those parts as soon as they were financial capable. Only when we realize there is more black and white than there is gray area in this world will we come to understand that there is craziness, there is hatred, there is violence, there is immorality, there is sin. You can ban guns, movies, literature, music, etc, but you cannot ban the human emotion and condition. There is just no logic to the illogical. We all want answers, but in the end, in a godless, moral-less society, its tragedies like these that remind us that evil doesn't need reason. We desperately seek the cause and effect. 

You can stop searching for the answer once you have concluded that evil is the reason behind it.