Well, we all grow up being told "if you dream it, you can make it a reality." Really, though, I don't think the violence in the USA has much to do with violence in movies, or even in games where the player acts out the violence on a screen. When I was a kid, everyone was playing Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and later, Mario, yet, I don't recall anyone ever throwing a barrel at anyone, nor anyone trying to gobble up ghosts or stomp on mushrooms and turtles. Unfortunately, the biggest factor in lowering the potential barriers is exposure to real life violence, so that means that this whole trend is like a snowball rolling down from a mountain top. The more violence there is out on the streets, the more apt the next generation will be to perpetuate it, as they see it as a realistic course of action. That's why the worst places for civilian violence are places that just came out of a violent war. It takes real effort to break up that trend, and the media plastering the news with the faces and names of these pieces of garbage just adds fuel to the fire when, not only do younger and more impressionable people see that violence is real, but they also get the idea that they can get their names in bright lights, even if it is over something truly repulsive.