Games aren't violent, but drones are

You know how many murders and assaults there are in the average game of Grand Theft Auto? Exactly none. How many people are killed in serious on-line session of the latest Halo or Call of Duty? Precisely zero. How many throats are cut or necks broken over the course of the whole Assassin's Creed series? Zip diddly.

The same thing can be said for every Stallone movie, with a side order of Schwarzenegger and a dash of Michael Bay. Mix in a double-batch of Tarantino. Finish off with a fine James Bond. No matter how loud the booms from the theater's 50-speaker ultra sound system, or how bright the images on the IMAX-3D screen, no one dies. It is not real.

Movies and videogames are fantasies. When you push the square button on your Playstation 3, it doesn't fire a gun, wield a knife, or accelerate a car. It sends a signal that's evaluated by software. It shifts some pixels. There is no gun, Neo. No car. No knife. No harm, no foul. The only injury is the flab gained from all the hours parked in front of the screen.

Which isn't to say that America hasn't fallen into a culture of violence. Of course it has. But that culture has nothing to do with fantasy on the small screen or on the big screen. It has to do with reality.