1. Who here knows how to drive? What do you do when you see this sign? Do you think? No. You act. You are conditioned.

2. What are you supposed to do if an animal jumps out in front of your car? Hit it. But, many accidents are still caused when people swerve to avoid hitting an animal. Why? Because human beings have a natural aversion to killing.

3. People have an even stronger aversion to killing other human beings. In World War II the percentage of soldiers that fired their weapons in combat situations was only 15 %. U.S. Army Artist- Yank Magazine

4. The average and healthy individual…has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility…At the vital point [the soldier] becomes a conscientious objector. COL. S.L.A. MARSHALL

5. By the time of the Korean war, the military had increased that number from 15% to 50%

6. In Vietnam the military increased its number of riflemen willing to shoot at the enemy to over 90%.

7. How did the military make this change? Operant conditioning. Desired behavior Positive reinforcement Negative reinforcement B.F. SKINNER

8. What methods did the military use (and still use) to condition soldiers (people) to kill? Desensitization Talk of killing/injuring humans

9. Desensitization Cadences Chants Prayers Load another magazine, in my trusty M16. Cuz all I ever wanna see! Is bodies, bleeding bodies. Throw another hand grenade! Should have seen the mess I made. Cuz all I ever wanna see, Is bodies, broken bodies. Stab em with the bayonet! If he squirms you're not done yet! Cuz all I ever wanna see, Is bodies, cut-up bodies. Call some more TACAIR. On that bunker over there. Cuz all I ever wanna see, Is bodies burnin bodies! http://www.infantrymen.net/cadence.html

10. The idea of me killing a person when I first came down here just…you know, it was unheard of, you didn’t do that…But once you came here and they motivated you and just kept you every day constantly thinking about it, and by the time you left here…you’ve got it in your mind that you want to do it so bad that you actually go out and do it when you have to. -Marine Corps recruit in 1968

11. We’d run P.T. [physical training] in the morning and every time your left foot hit the ground you’d have to chant, “Kill, kill, kill, kill.” It was drilled into your mind so much that it seemed like when it actually came down to it, it didn’t bother you, you know? - Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran

12. World War II training consisted of soldiers shooting bulls-eye type targets.

13. Training then progressed to shooting at silhouettes shaped like humans.

14. Targets More modern targets: Painted with enemy camouflage, or 3 dimensional, dressed like a person, or drawn representation of a person

15. Photo-targets available for tactical shooting courses

16. Shooting is not the only method of conditioning soldiers to kill. Aggression is rewarded. Violence encouraged.

17. Simulate killing lifelike targets Shooting Bayonet Hand to hand

18. More simulated Killing.

19. New technology allows you to practice shooting actual living people (MILES and Simunition)

20. Mass Media Include: Music Film Television Video Games

21. Mass media perform the same desensitization and conditioning on youths.

22. Cadences, Chants …This bitch tried escapin' the jack Grabbed her by the throat, it's murder she wrote You barely heard a word as she choked It wasn't nuttin' for her to be smoked But I slammed her on her back 'til her vertebrae broke All I see is murder murder, my mind state Makes it too late for cops in tryin' to stop the crime rate All I see is murder murder, my mind state Murder, murder, murder, and kill, kill, kill! Marshall Mathers

23. Beautiful Anguish cast out by my race Now one that's Ageless I save my own face I write my own laws with Death I break bread Killers are quiet when they come from my head Slipknot

24. Violence in movies desensitizes youth… Reservoir Dogs Serial killer Nathaniel White described how he killed his first female victim while imitating a scene from the movie Robocop II: “I seen him cut somebody’s throat then take the knife and slit down the chest to the stomach and leave the body in a certain position. With the first person I killed I did exactly what I saw in the movie.”

25. Television does the same… Nine-year-old Olivia Niemi was sexually assaulted with a discarded beer bottle on a deserted beach in San Franciso. The four girls who took part in the attack said they were imitating a scene from Born Innocent, an NBC television movie they watched three days before committing the crime.

26. Finally, videogames let children shoot life-like people, just as realistic, if not more than military training.

27. From the video game “HITMAN”…

28. Videogame sniper training: Learning to kill efficiently…

29. The hero from “Grand Theft Auto III”, a street thug who uses various weapons like this baseball bat to kill innocent men, police officers, women and children…

30. Hand to hand violence. Aggression is encouraged through a point system…(sound familiar?)

31. Realistic graphics improve training for players…

32. No detail is too small…

33. Many games are “First Person Shooter”, which adds to the realism of the games-. These are the type of games Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris of the Columbine Massacre, as well as other school shooters, were “obsessed” with.

34. An Experiment (one of many): Fifth Graders randomly assigned to watch 15 minutes of baseball or a crime drama that included several shootings and other violent acts. Subjects were then put in front of a monitor and told to watch two younger children (actors on videotape) and report to an adult in the next room if anything went wrong. The children (actors) on the monitor then became engaged in a violent fight. The children who had watched the crime drama were five times more likely to fail to summon help. This proved that they had become noticeably desensitized to violence. Remember- these children had only watched fifteen minutes of T.V. Imagine the effects of 2,3, or 4 hours a day seven days a week for years must have.

35. The Human toll…

36. Feb. 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Wash Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class. Feb. 19, 1997 Bethel, Alaska Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16. Oct. 1, 1997 Pearl, Miss. Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan. Dec. 1, 1997 West Paducah, Ky. Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School Dec. 15, 1997 Stamps, Ark. Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.

37. March 24, 1998 Jonesboro, Ark. Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods. April 24, 1998 Edinboro, Pa. One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged. May 19, 1998 Fayetteville, Tenn. One student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18- year-old honor student Jacob Davis. May 21, 1998 Springfield, Ore. Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home

38. June 15, 1998 Richmond, Va One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway. April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colo. 14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves. May 20, 1999 Conyers, Ga. Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend. Nov. 19, 1999 Deming, N.M. Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School.

39. Dec. 6, 1999 Fort Gibson, Okla. Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School. Feb. 29, 2000 Mount Morris Township, Mich. One teacher and three students wounded by a 17-year-old student. March 10, 2000 Savannah, Ga. Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19, while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach High School..May 26, 2000 Lake Worth, Fla. One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate Brazill, 13, with.25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes. ` Sept. 26, 2000 New Orleans, La. Two students wounded with the same gun during a fight at Woodson Middle School. Jan. 17, 2001 Baltimore, Md. One student shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton Eastern High School.

40. March 5, 2001 Santee, Calif. Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School. March 7, 2001 Williamsport, Pa Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School; she was depressed and frequently teased. March 22, 2001 Granite Hills, Calif. One teacher and three students wounded by Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite Hills High School. A policeman shot and wounded Hoffman. March 30, 2001 Gary, Ind. One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had been expelled from Lew Wallace High School. Nov. 12, 2001 Caro, Mich. Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.

41. Jan. 15, 2002 New York, N.Y. A teenager wounded two students at Martin Luther King Jr. High School.

42. Conclusion: It is difficult to find indubitable proof because there are so many variables that surround crime (such as economics and family) but… Consider: If… Desensitization and conditioning methods in the military are equivalent to mass media exposure… And In the military, those methods caused an increase in the willingness to kill from 15 to 90 percent… Then… Exposure of children and youths to similar desensitization and conditioning will increase their willingness to kill to some degree, a degree made obvious by the advent and horrifying number of school shootings.

43. DESENSITIZAITON + CONDITIONING ULTRA-VIOLENCE AND MURDER

44. Questions?

45. Works Cited 1. Davey, Graham, and Chris Cullen, eds. Human Operant Conditioning and Behavior Modification. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988. 2. Decker, Phillip J., and Barry R. Nathan. Behavior Modeling Training: Principles and Applications. New York: Praeger, 1985. 3. Degaetano, Gloria and Dave Grossman. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence. New York: Crown Publishers, 1999. 4. Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995. 5. Levine, Madeline. Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development. New York: Doubleday, 1996. 6. Murray, John P., Eli A. Rubinstein, and George A Comstock, eds. Television and Social Behavior: Reports and Papers, Volume II: Television and Social Learning. Maryland: National Institute of Mental Health, 1971. 7. Overton, Willis F., ed. Early Childhood Television Viewing and Adolescent Behavior. Boston: Blackwell, 2001.