Can watching a movie with guns influence your children?
Guns and violence is a controversial topic in some parts of the world like in the United States. In many households in the US, guns are not secured properly, making guns easily accessible to children in those homes.
More children are likely to die by unintentional gun shootings in the US than in any other part of the world.
But how do children get interested in guns? – A relevant question for parents all over the world.
According to the results, the type of movie watched, whether it contained guns or not, did not influence whether children found the gun or handled it.
While many factors can influence children’s interest in guns, an experiment was conducted at the Ohio State University to understand the association between exposure to gun violence in the media and interest in playing with guns in the real world.
The experiment included 104 children – 52 pairs of siblings, cousins, step-siblings or friends – between the ages of 8 and 12 years.
Each pair was randomly selected to watch an edited version of PG-rated films “The Rocketeer” or “National Treasure.” The 20 minute edited versions contained guns or did not contain guns. The action and narrative of the films were not altered in the versions that did not contain guns.
After watching the film the children were taken into a room with a cabinet full of toys and were told that they could play with any toy or game. One drawer of the cabinet contained a reals 0.38 calibre handgun which had been altered so it could not fire although the gun’s hammer and trigger were still functional.
The children were given 20 minutes to play together in that room.
Out of the 52 pairs of children, 43 pairs (82.7 per cent) found the gun in the drawer and 14 pairs (26.9 per cent) gave it to a research assistant or told them about it. 22 pairs (42.3 per cent) had one or both children handle the gun.
According to the results, the type of movie watched, whether it contained guns or not, did not influence whether children found the gun or handled it.
But, the median number of trigger pulls among children who saw guns in the movie was 2.8 trigger pulls compared to 0.01 pulls in children who did not see guns in the film.
The median number of seconds spent holding the gun among children who saw guns in the film was 53.1 seconds compared to 11.1 seconds among children who saw a film containing no guns.
Analyses of the behaviour of children saw that children who saw guns in the films played more aggressively and sometimes fired the gun at people.
This study provides important insight into one of the many factors that can spark children’s’ interest in guns and associated violence and perhaps start an important conversation about it.
Source: JAMA Pediatrics
