[LearsFool]

Show me the functional difference of playing army with a plastic toy gun and on A PS3 in Call of Duty. In the mind of the child playing, body parts fly and blood flows regardless.

I'm not sure how toy guns fit into the discussion. But I'm sure that body parts didn't fly nor blood flow in my mind when I played army as a boy.

Ever woke up from a nightmare with sweat rolling off you? Your eyes saw nothing (like you would in reading/watching a movie/Book) but your imagination made it so real you were in total fear.

Exactly. It's not the violence or evil that matters, but our part in or reaction to it. After all, violence and evil cannot be eradicated. So, as we grow up, we must learn the right way to deal with them. (And using Grand Theft Auto for practice does not help.)

[Norm Lenhart]

My point was that when a child ‘imagines’ he is playing soldier at war, he imagines the bombs, the smoke, the fire, the blood...all of it. Since the imagination is every bit, even more powerful than an actual visual representation of violence, a boy playing army is getting every bit of the mental ‘effect’ and more than a video game/movie or book will give him.

So should we stop boys from playing army/cowboys and indians/cops and robbers too?

That’s what I was getting at. Since generations of boys have played at war games without traumatizing themselves into fits of murder, I fail to see/nor is there a shred of proof to be had that video games, a less mentally impressional form of input than one’s own imagination, will be a problem.