It is hard for government to control violence in the media because of what freedom of speech has allowed us to do. Regulation by parents or other authorial figures have made it harder to be able to have contact with violence in the media. Even with the large amount of people not viewing violence, it has still been able to contribute to real-life homicide, suicide, and over all crime. What people have begun to see is that freedom of speech has been a great characteristic that we are proud to have, but it will display the negative effects through increasing amount of crime.

             It is important to know the extent of the damage from the media. Real-life episodes have allowed people to recognize the link between violence and freedom. An example is a story of a mother in San Antonio, Texas. She describes a tragedy that she attributed to the hypnotic influence of rock music. One night during the summer of 1980, her sixteen-year-old son was unable to sleep because of his allergies and a severe headache. In her testimony, the boy decided to listen to Pink Floyd¡s album The Wall. He then got up and moved toward his aunt, who was asleep on a couch nearby. He attacked and killed her. (Biskup, 1992) Another tragic example is of nineteen-year-old John McCollum. On October 27, 1984 he shot himself in the head at his home in Indio, California. Apparently he had been listening to an Ozzy Osbourne song titled ¡§Suicide Solution¡. (Biskup, 1992) More directly related cases have also occurred in extremity. Steve Boucher became strongly obsessed with a song by AC/DC named ¡§Shoot to Thrill¡. The sixteen-year-old shot himself under the band¡s poster-calendar, which hung on the wall in his room. (Biskup, 1992) In addition to this incident is a tragic case that occurred in Sparks, Nevada. Raymond Belknap, eighteen-years-old, shot himself to death in a double suicide pact. His friend survived and said the music of the heavy-metal rock group Judas Priest persuaded them into thinking that ¡§the answer to life is death.