by Victoria Manning
As a mother, I’m horrified by the notion that a child could be placed on a school bus and never come back home. Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare, and I’ve had too many friends who’ve walked through that darkness. As a member of a school board, I’m burdened that the decisions I make with my one vote of eleven could impact the safety of 64,000 children. I take those decisions very seriously, but I fear the root causes of this violence that are beyond my control.
The physical structures of schools are more secure than they have ever been. There are now school resource officers (SROs), stricter requirements on who can enter schools, and locked doors to keep the bad guys out. Students are encouraged to speak up: “If you see something, say something.” Yet I don’t believe anything school board members or administrators do can guarantee the safety of children without addressing the underlying cause of these senseless acts of violence—our country’s moral decay.
This just flat out isn’t talked about at school board meetings or in the legacy media, yet it’s almost always the underlying true reason why schoolchildren are murdering their peers in bigger numbers than ever. The first headlines after one of these horrific tragedies are politicians and activists calling to ban guns. Yet “gun violence” is a made-up phrase to score political points and avoid naming the truth. Just like a car, a gun is an inanimate object that cannot itself kill.
When I was in high school, classmates brought guns to campus, leaving them in their trucks to go hunting after school. We had weapons in our homes for both hunting and protection. I was taught how to safely use these weapons and to also never point a gun—even a toy gun—at a person. I never felt unsafe around guns. They were plentiful where I grew up—yet we were never in fear of someone coming into our school and killing us.
The Moral Decay of American Society
I firmly believe that current societal violence is not caused by guns. It’s about the moral decay of American society. Rather than interacting with peers and developing social skills, children sit behind a screen for large chunks of the day. What they see and do with technology forms their growing brains and parents are doing nothing to stop it. Social media and video games are like addictive drugs that parents continue to allow their children to take and even finance these drugs for their children.
It has somehow become the norm for children to actively participate in violent video games that glorify killing—with their parents’ permission. These video games use the latest technology that makes the user feel embedded in the action. Children, whose minds are still being developed, are being trained and desensitized on virtual battlefields to kill.
Here is a summary of the 20 most violent video games by gameranx:
A study conducted in China in 2022 with 2,118 child and adolescent participants revealed that exposure to violent video games significantly impacted behavior problems. Another American study in 2017 also revealed damaging results of violent video games. The American Psychological Association concluded that:
“Violent video game exposure was associated with: an increased composite aggression score; increased aggressive behavior; increased aggressive cognitions; increased aggressive affect, increased desensitization; and decreased empathy.”
Study after study supports the obvious—violent video games cause children to think and act aggressively and cause desensitization.
In 2019, the worldwide market revenue for video games was $265 billion. In 2025, it is projected to be nearly double that amount at $502 billion. Just like drugs and alcohol, video games aren’t going away.
Parents MUST be parents! Children aren’t equipped to handle these adult violent video games and other violent media. Parents must teach their children proper social skills, including empathy and compassion—not let their minds rot away in front of a screen.
In 2023, only 30 percent of adults indicated they attend a religious service regularly, down from 42 percent in 2000. If adults aren’t attending, most likely neither are their children. The breakdown of the family and the lack of spiritual faith in our nation are no doubt the biggest impacts on societal problems.
There is one simple answer to solving the senseless killing of children by children—our nation must surrender to God and put our focus back on the Judeo-Christian values upon which America was founded.
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Victoria Manning is a senior investigative researcher for Restoration News.
Ms. Manning, thank you so much for this accurate insightful article. Society has become the chess board on which good and evil play the game of life.