Media violence is not the real issue

I was thoroughly disappointed when I read Dr. Charles Nozicka's letter in the Sunday Herald.

Creating such nonsensical furor over video games and violent media only distracts us from the real causes of things like the NIU shooting.

Blaming video games takes valuable time and resources away from researching mental health issues and discovering what warning signs the shooter may have left and learning to recognize those signs in others.

Dr. Nozicka claims that the video games, movies and music that are supposedly marketed to teenagers cause more violence and desensitize us to the loss of human life.

However, homicide rates have dropped dramatically among the 14-24 age group in the past decade as these video games and movies have soared in popularity and the majority of homicides in that age group are related to drugs and gangs, not psychotic rampages fueled by a steady diet of violent media.

Dr. Nozicka also cites a need to "investigate this phenomenon," but that has been done many times over with results that are inconclusive at best.

There is nothing that shows that media violence is directly linked to real world violence, and the only thing that anyone could find worrying is the fact that some studies link violent games to very slightly increased aggression, something that is really of no consequence when one considers that many sports, such as football or ice hockey, cause aggression and actual, physical violence against other players.

Would Dr. Nozicka suggest that we look at the danger these sports pose to society?

He states that "in our free society, we reap what we sow." But can we have a free society when it represses artistic expression and uses censorship to pretend it is doing something when it is really ignoring the important issues?

Tim Belter

Arlington Heights