Assassination Generation: Video Games, Aggression, and the Psychology of Killing

by Dave Grossman, Kristine Paulsen, Katie Miserany (With), Dave Grossman (Read by)

Overview

The author of the 400,000-copy bestseller On Killing reveals how violent video games have ushered in a new era of mass homicide — and what we must do about it.

Paducah, Kentucky, 1997: a 14-year-old boy shoots eight students in a prayer circle at his school.

Littleton, Colorado, 1999: two high school seniors kill a teacher, twelve other students, and then themselves.

Utoya, Norway, 2011: a political extremist shoots and kills sixty-nine participants in a youth summer camp.

Newtown, Connecticut, 2012: a troubled 20-year-old man kills 20 children and six adults at the elementary school he once attended.

What links these and other horrific acts of mass murder? A young person's obsession with video games that teach to kill.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who in his perennial bestseller On Killing revealed that most of us are not "natural born killers" - and who has spent decades training soldiers, police, and others who keep us secure to overcome the intrinsic human resistance to harming others and to use firearms responsibly when necessary - turns a laser focus on the threat posed to our society by violent video games.

Drawing on crime statistics, cutting-edge social research, and scientific studies of the teenage brain, Col. Grossman shows how video games that depict antisocial, misanthropic, casually savage behavior can warp the mind - with potentially deadly results. His book will become the focus of a new national conversation about video games and the epidemic of mass murders that they have unleashed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478909798
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	11/15/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	347,920
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.), is an internationally recognized scholar, author, soldier, and speaker. He is one of the world's foremost experts in the field of human aggression, the roots of violence, and violent crime. He is a former West Point psychology professor and is currently the director of the Warrior Science Group. His books include On Killing, On Combat, and Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

1 It's Worse than It Looks: The Case Against the Media 19

2 Guns, Drugs, and Denial: Common Excuses for the Virus of Violence 32

3 The Human Brain on Violence: How Violent Video Games Warp the Mind 53

4 The Gangbanger's Trainer: How Video Games Train Kids to Kill 77

5 Fiction or Reality?: True Crimes and the Games That May Be Linked to Them 101

6 Failed Attempts at Change 143

7 Calling On Community 165

8 The Solution 176

9 What You Can Do Today 186

Conclusion 205

Appendix 211

Coauthor's Note Kristine Paulsen 227

Editor's Note Katie Miserany 229

Notes 233

Index 253

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2016
In On Killing, a 400,000-copy best seller, Lieutenant Colonel Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.), argued that social breakdown and media violence have dangerously blunted our instinctive resistance to killing other humans—and since his job is training soldiers and police to surmount that instinct, he should know. Here he focuses on violence in video games, drawing on social research, headline-making crime statistics, and scientific studies of the adolescent brain to show that such games effectively teach young people to kill. With a 40,000-copy first printing; the publisher sees it as one of the most important books it will release.

Library Journal