Violence Today!

A Very Special Report

by Matt

We aren't parents here at the Gift Electronique, neither do we claim to care much about society or our neighbors. But when people bitch and moan in our ears for long enough, we decide to do something about it. Kids, people hypothesize, are far more violent and desensitized to crime and assault than the children of just a few days ago. They're growing up too fast, claim parents. They don't have time to mature and learn to respect their elders.

Well, we decided to test these hypotheses. We wanted to know just how violent today's kids are, or how violent they might be. The Gift Electronique found a randon sample of two kids in a local park and gave them a gun. To keep the test's integrity pure, we furnished the gun to the kids at no cost and supplied them with enough ammunition to start World War III. We asked the two kids to keep a journal of the following days, and have included that journal here as part of our research.
Kids shooting meerkats

NOV. 4 - Me and Mal were playing basketball when that creepy guy with the greasy hair and is always hanging around came up to us. He smelled bad but he gave us a gun. He said we could do whatever we thought was right with the gun and not to worry because he was an adult and would take care of us.

NOV. 6 - I accidentally shot the tip of my finger off with that gun. The creepy guy was around again and asked how things were going. I showed him my hand and he gave me five dollars and told me not to tell anyone.

NOV. 7 - Mal shot his sister and killed her. His parents don't know yet, so we buried her in the mud by the channel.

NOV. 8 - Today I killed my first person. This old guy was yelling at Mal and me and I had the gun in my backpack. I pulled it out and shot him. It did not look like in Virtual Fighter at the arcade. Now I feel kind of sick to my stomach.

NOV. 9 - Mal stole the gun from me. His parents found out about his sister so he killed them both. I refused to help bury them. Now he says he is going to kill me.

NOV. 10 - I am pretty scared. I am staying at Grandma's because Alicia said Mal had the gun and he was looking for me. I don't want to die. I can't sleep.

NOV. 17 - I wish that creepy guy would come around again. He used to check on me every day, but when the cops heard about Mal's parents and put him in juvenile hall, that guy stopped coming around. I think the cops have the gun now.

November 17, 1996 is the last journal entry. The investigation was cut short when the police confiscated the research equipment. Unfortunately, we were unable to make any conclusions about today's kids because we did not have a large enough sample for testing. In the name of science, we hope to repeat the exercise after the police heat has died down.


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