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Trond Andresen
>Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday, May 7, 1998
>
>Deadly parallels in video games
>
>By SALLY LOANE
>
>Video games that teach children to "shoot" people on screen replicate
>United States military training programs
>designed to break a person's natural inhibition to kill, according to a
>visiting US child protection expert.
>
>Dr James Garbarino, a professor at Cornell University, told the NSW
>Child Protection Council conference
>yesterday that US defence services found only one in five soldiers in
>World War II was physically able to point his
>gun at the enemy and shoot.
>
>"The army changed their training from practising shooting at bullseyes
>to shooting at targets with a human form,"
>Dr Garbarino said.
>
>"This led to an almost total breakdown of humans' inhibition to kill
>other humans. In Vietnam, 90 per cent of
>soldiers were able to shoot at people. The "point-and-shoot' video
>games for children exactly mimic the army
>training."
>
>The only thing that would limit the possibility of Australian children
>turning into killers, as was increasingly the
>case in America, was our tough gun laws, he said.
>
>"Keeping guns out of a child's environment, even if he is playing
>"point-and-shoot' video games, will hopefully
>prevent you going down the same path as America."
>
>Dr Garbarino said that just as the physical environment was becoming
>increasingly polluted, so the social
>environment was also becoming toxic, particularly for children.
>"Those children who soak up the toxicity of a deprived and dangerous
>background are like psychological
>asthmatics.
>
>"In the last 20 years in America there has been a doubling of serious
>mental health problems in children. This is
>like the cancer rate going up as a result of physical pollution. This
>is social toxicity at work. Video games and
>violence on TV are especially damaging for psychological asthmatics."
>
>He added: "Nearly half of all American households have a gun in them.
>There are extraordinarily high rates of
>homicide and suicide. Kids have not become more violent, but they have
>become more lethal."
>