Should sex and violence on television and films be limited? On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza killed 20 children and 6 staff members Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He also killed his mother before the shooting rampage and ended the day by killing himself. James Holmes, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience, walked into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others on July 20, 2012. On November 5, 2009, Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and injured 29 others in the Fort Hood military base in Texas. These unfortunate shootings have left Americans wondering what, if anything, could have been done to prevent such horrific crimes from occurring. Perhaps the reasons behind these murders escape us, but we must try to somehow curb the urge for this type of violence. There are several factors that may have contributed to the reasoning behind why an educated man, an army psychiatrist, and a boy chose to take assault weapons and use them on innocent people in shootouts that look like something out of a movie. Indeed, the root cause may well be that as a nation we are subjected to graphically violent images on television almost daily. Sex sells, and so does violence. Should we try to eradicate such scenes from films and television? Should we even worry about how our children will grow up to become increasingly desensitized to sex? Is there any truth to the idea that perhaps seeing these images projected on our screens could somehow lead a person to think it's okay to act them out in real life? A recent study published in the December 2013 issue of Pediatrics states that there is more gun violence in high-income PG-13......middle of paper......arth." Also the American Academy of Pediatrics states "exposure to violence in the media, including television, movies, music, and video games, poses a significant health risk to children and adolescents." They go on to explain that it can desensitize children to violence and potentially contribute to aggressive behavior. With facts like these it is obvious that we need to invest more in protecting our children from risk factors that can desensitize them at a young age and lead them down potentially dangerous paths to violence. Much the same way we teach them about the problems associated with drug use and early sexual experiences in elementary school. As with drugs and sex, early education and preventative measures will help curb their appetite for more gratuitous violent images and hopefully prevent atrocities like these from happening again..