Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill Reviewed by Dr. Ted Baehr
Movieguide®

Whenever I talk on the influence of the mass media, I quote Lt. Col. Dave Grossman because he has given us the most definitive and the clearest insight into how the media teaches children to kill. Movieguide® has published his exhaustive article on this crucial topic. Now, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has written a book clearly setting forth his cogent argument called Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill.

After the Jonesboro Arkansas killings by two children, Lt. Col. Grossman, who taught officers candidates at West Point to kill, started to investigate the mass killing of children and others by children.

He found out some startling things. First, that many of these killers never used a gun before, yet they exhibited superior marksmanship to trained army professionals. For instance, Michael Carneal, the fourteen year old boy who shot up the prayer group in Paducha, KY, fired eight shots on eight children and had eight hits. Experts were amazed to find that he had not fired a real gun before. Where did he get his marksmanship training? Video games.

Lt. Col. Grossman shows that without the operant conditioning of the video game, a soldier's kill rate is about 15%. With it, the kill rate increases to 90%. Thus, in the recent 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and Great Britain, the Argentines who trained with old-fashioned bull's-eye type targets, had a 15% kill rate, whereas the British who trained with sophisticated computer games, adapted from the Nintendo games available to your kids, had a 90% kill rate.

Lt. Col. Grossman shows that the media does more than give children the skill to kill. It imparts the desire to kill, the method of killing and it desensitizes children to the act of killing.

Thus, this book is must reading. There are two caveats however. Although Lt. Col. Grossman is a Christian, he is also a psychologist and at one point makes the statement that "kids are not naturally violent." Christians will realize immediately that children are born sinners. Brothers and sisters beat up on each other. However, this false psychological view on the nature of man does not destroy his argument because the media influences the sinful nature and trains it on how to be more destructive.

Also, the back of the book contains a lot of good information, as well as references to some questionable media literacy groups which approach the subject come from either a humanistic perspective, politically correct perspective, or even an anti-Christian perspective.

Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill is essential to understanding the problem, and some of the solutions to the influence of the mass media of entertainment. It will convince the most hardened skeptic.

However, do not rely on Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill for seeking out media literacy courses. Rather, contact the Christian Film and Television Commission and get a copy of The Media-wise Family.