There is a big question that has popped up over my decades in the television business that seems to have no answer. How are we able to define media violence? Recently, Tom Grimes a psychology professor from Texas State University published an op-ed in USA Today challenging that violent movies, television shows and video games that are accused of causing behavioral aggression really has no, and the emphasis is on no, “collective body of research that has shown a convincing consistent connection between violent media and gun assaults.” I was surprised to find that during the past 80 years there have been nearly 2000 media violence studies that have “tried to diagnostically separate people who might be mentally unwell from those without a diagnosable ailment.” I believe Grimes has a point. The research tying gun violence to children’s cartoons or movie violence is much too broad and is unreliable. Those that believe the research is correct say that youngsters just finishing elementary school have seen 8,000 murders and another 100,000 acts of violence on television. Grimes says there is a huge difference between dramatic or comic violence and it can’t be elevated to real violence when it is entertainment in the minds of young people. Grimes, in my view is right. You want to tie in television, movies, and video games to gun assaults. Not a problem. Just make sure the research is precise and, most of all, agreed upon by the researchers. What do you think?Gun Violence and the Media