[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 57 (Monday, April 26, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4149-S4150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE TRAGEDY IN LITTLETON, COLORADO

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to talk just for a moment 
about the horrible tragedy that occurred in Littleton, CO, last week.
  I am a North Dakotan. I have been a North Dakotan all of my life. I 
did, however, leave our State to go to graduate school in Colorado. 
Following graduate school, I worked in Colorado, and worked, in fact, 
in Littleton, CO. It is a nice community, a suburb of Denver.
  Last week, I was, along with all other Americans, horrified to see 
the pictures on television of the school shooting at Columbine High 
School that took the lives of so many innocent young boys and girls, 
and also a teacher. And I asked myself, what is causing this? What is 
at the root of this kind of violence? The Littleton, CO, shooting is 
just the latest in a series of school shootings. Unfortunately, there 
have been many others in the last several years.

  I can't watch the television set without getting tears in my eyes. 
Moments ago, I was turning on a television set and I saw the funeral 
for a very brave teacher who died that day in that school in Colorado. 
We ask ourselves over and over and over again, what has changed? What 
is causing all of this?
  On Friday, I met with a high school assembly in North Dakota. We 
talked at great length about these issues. This morning I spent all 
morning at a youth detention facility called Oak Hill and talked to 
young folks at that facility from 12 years old on up, young people who 
had committed violent crimes and who are now committed to that 
detention facility not more than an hour from this Capitol Building.
  I don't have any better answers perhaps than anyone else in America 
about these issues. I have some thoughts about some of it. Obviously, 
first, it all starts at home. There isn't a substitute for good 
parenting.
  One of the young boys this morning at the Oak Hill Detention Center, 
who has been involved in drugs and violent crime, said he only had one 
parent. He said his parent checked on him from time to time but he 
said, ``Checking in on young folks from time to time isn't enough.''
  Another part of the problem is drugs and the accessibility of drugs. 
In addition, a country with 220 to 240 million guns, and with seemingly 
easy accessibility to guns by children, makes parenting more difficult.
  How about the violence children are exposed to every day? By the time 
children graduate from high school they will spend about 12,000 hours 
in a classroom and about 20,000 hours in front of a television set. 
Study after study after study, year after year after year shows that 
the steady diet of violence seen by our young people on television 
affects their behavior. Does it turn them into murderers? No. Does it 
affect their behavior? Yes, of course it does.
  Corporations spend $200 billion a year in this country advertising in 
the media. Yet when we are suggesting through studies that the steady 
diet of violence offered to our young children on television is hurting 
them, the same people will say, ``Gee, the media has no influence on 
our children.'' If that is the case, why is $200 billion a year spent 
advertising tennis shoes, jerseys, and more? If it doesn't work, why do 
we see it used so extensively? Of course the media has an enormous 
influence.
  Last week, while these shootings at school were taking place, as 
horrifying as it was for everyone in America to watch SWAT teams move 
into the building and young children run from the building in panic, 
one of the networks broke for a commercial. The commercial break was to 
encourage us to watch a new program called ``Mr. Murder.'' I thought to 
myself, I guess that says a lot, doesn't it? We are watching these 
children at this high school under siege by young gunmen, and then 
there is an advertisement for the new program, ``Mr. Murder.''
  Is a murder program on television causing these murders in the 
school? That is not my allegation at all. Does it hurt our children? 
The pop culture of increasingly violent television, increasingly 
violent movies--or how about increasingly violent lyrics in music? 
There is a man in Minot, ND, whose young boy put a bullet through his 
brain. When he found his son, he was lying on his bed with his 
earphones connected to a compact disk that was playing over and over 
and over and over again lyrics to a Marilyn Manson song saying the way 
to end all of this ``is with a bullet in your head.'' For 3 months, he 
obsessed on this kind of music, and then his father found him lying on 
his bed with a bullet in his head. The teacher of a young boy named 
Mitchell, who killed 4 of his classmates and 1 teacher and wounded 10 
others, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee last June.

  She talked about 13-year-old Mitchell. She was Mitchell's teacher, 
taught Mitchell English. He was always respectful, she said, saying 
``Yes, ma'am,'' ``No, ma'am.'' She never saw him exhibit anger. After 
the killings, she said the classmates had a discussion. They discovered 
Mitchell had been obsessing on an entirely new kind of music--Bone 
Thugs and TuPac. And she told us the lyrics that Mitchell had been 
listening to in ``Crept and We Came'' by Bone Thugs:

       Cockin the 9 and ready to aim
       Pullin the Trigger
       To blow out your brains
       Bone got a gang
       Man we crept and we came.

  This song has about 40 murder images, like ``puttin them in the 
ground and pumpin the gun.''
  That is what Mitchell was listening to.
  ``Body Rott,'' by Bone Thugs. Or here are the lyrics from ``I Ain't 
Mad at Ya'' by TuPac.

       I can see us after school
       We'd bomb on the first [blank blank]
       With the wrong [blank] on. And from ``2 of Amerikas Most 
     Wanted:''
       Picture perfect, I paint a perfect picture.
       Bomb the hoochies with precision . . .
       Ain't nuttin but a gangsta party.

  These lyrics are from Mitchell's teacher who wanted us to know what 
he was listening to.
  Is this part of the culture? Does this hurt our children? Is it easy 
to parent with these kinds of images, these kinds of thoughts coming 
from our television set, from compact disks? Should we think through 
all of this--not just at the surface with parenting, drugs, and guns--
but also the issue of pop culture?
  If $200 billion is spent advertising in the media because it 
influences behavior, should we as parents and should we

[[Page S4150]]

as legislators start understanding that the media then has a profound 
impact on children as well. Should we understand when the media pumps 
images--thousands and thousands and thousands of images--of murder that 
tell our young children the way adults solve their problems is to kill 
someone, to stab someone, to murder someone? That is the way adults 
solve their problems, according to television programs.
  Yes, it is fiction, but how do children know that? Yes, you can say 
parents should do a better job of seeing what their children are 
watching, but it is very hard.
  I have a lot more to say about this but I know colleagues are 
waiting. I am sure I join all of my colleagues in saying we are 
heartbroken by what is happening in this country and what happened in 
Littleton, CO. My thoughts and prayers go to all of those families and 
friends who lost loved ones.
  I watched the images of the funerals today in Littleton, and I want 
to be part of anything any of us can do to try to find reasons and try 
to develop policies to see if we can't steer all of us in a more 
constructive direction. In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are 
with all of those in Colorado and around this country who today grieve 
for those young children and the teacher who lost their lives.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

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