Billy Ballpoint takes on critics of cartoon violence (with an ax!)

Click here to see the full-size power of cartoon violence--I MEAN--the full-size comic strip!

I used to feel that this comic strip was 100% accurate for all people. It's still absurd, to me, to censor violence in movies, TV, comics and video games on the grounds that it influences people to become violent.  My view now, 16 years later however, is a bit more nuanced...

Back in 1999, I had never heard of "the confirmation bias."  This is the built-in trait we humans have that makes us favor information and facts we already agree with.  This is why there are so many Christians 2000+ years after their "savior" died.  They keep looking for things that confirm their faith in God, rather than evidence for the existence of a god.  Likewise, I suspect, that violent media DOES influence some people.  It influences people who are abnormally violent to begin with.  I've played plenty of violent games in my life and extreme violence in games actually turns me off.  And frankly, I prefer as little on-screen violence as possible.  So, violence has the opposite effect on me.  However, I think it's possible that it may have an influence on people like some cops and some soldiers, who are (effectively) told it's OK to be violent in certain situations.  They begin subconsciously looking for situations that meet the criteria of those situations and when they do, their "instincts" tell them to shoot.

So, you or I will look at the comic strip above and see how much pain the man with the ax in his face is and cringe.  We don't really want to put someone through that.  Meanwhile, a cop or a soldier or someone else conditioned to think violence is OK (through training and maybe a rough childhood) might think "well, if an ax was all I had to defend myself, I'd use it."

The catch is, are you sure you need defending?  Or do you just want to give in to the (possibly subconscious) urge to recreate that scene in a movie you saw once?  Many soldiers have cited the TV show "24" as a reason to torture.  One cop last year, after holding a bikini-wearing, teenage, female person of color to the ground with his knee, proceeded to chase another teenage person of color, in the process, doing some sort of combat roll (roll, not role) in pursuit.  Was he trained in cop school to do needless rolls across grass?  I hope not and I seriously doubt it.  But I bet he's done that movie a bunch in CALL OF DUTY or maybe STARFOX.  OK, probably not STARFOX.

So, don't keep violent media out of everyone's hands--just the people that can't stop themselves from instinctively using it as an instruction book.  Parents, significant others and friends, you know who those people are in your life.

DON'T FORGET: I have a new, compilation of BALLPOINT ADVENTURES comics available!  Get it now, here!  It's called INKSTREME BALLPOINT ADVENTURES and it features 20 pages of comics!  Some OLD, some NEW, all of them BLUE!  Tell your friends!  It's how you can help me for free! :)

$5 paper/$1 e-comic go. buy. now.  Thanks!