 <ICLE-IT-TOR-0004.2> 
In these years a heated debate has arisen about weapon possession and the dispute is today focussed basically on two contrasting points of view: that of the * gun abolitionists * who claim that the responsability for most crime and murders in our society is to be ascribed to the gun free market, and that of those who consider the former opinion short-sighted and propose a strategy for crime prevention that has to do more with education than with repression. The latter theary is the stronger and more sensible one and is supported by the work of most psychologists and sociologists who accuse the mass media of being the real responsible for the * plague * of criminality .
It is absolutely absurd to think that such a vast and many-faceted problem can be easily solved by * turning off the tap * of gun supply. Of course, a stricter regulation about gun sale and gun ownership licence ought to be issued to prevent the teenagers, those suffering from mental illnesses and those considered legally * at risk * from coming into contact with firearms. But the matter is still too restricted if we consider the international problem of gun smuggling. Controlling the illegal gun trade is already a difficult task today (especially since the clearing out of the frontiers in Europe) and it would surely grow harder if the only means to get a gun were through smuggling. Therefore, weapon control and a * gun-distribution law * are not sufficient: it takes more. It takes information. It takes education .
If weapons cannot be controlled totally, men, in a way, are more likely to be. The latter statement can probably arise criticism, but if we consider what happened about fifty years ago during the World War II, the concept becomes clearer: the famous (alas!) atom bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaky probably would not have been dropped nowadays; not, of course, because of a technological setback (science has made enormous progress since then), but because of a change of mentality, a maturation of the collective conscience. The latter is acquired slowly with the help of a programme of education based on both information and discussion of the strategies to bring a person to full awareness of the dangers a weapon can cause if misused. Here an important role is played by the teachers at school .
Another important issue discussed recently is the influence of that mass media in general, but, more particularly, the TV and the cinema can exert on the audience. Here lies the * core * of the matter. How much power do these instruments have? One point is clear: they are instruments controlled by men; but how far does our control on them extend? The presence of gratuitous violence in films and TV serials has been very often seriously stigmatized and criticized, especially during the last years, by the critics. Psychologists and sociologists are of the same opinion in maintaining that the influence of TV and cinema is very strong and can be dangerous in a generation like ours, constantly * bombarded * by images issuing forth from the screen. What remains to be demonstrated is whether these mass media are powerful enough to * compel * a person who watches a violent film, for instances, to act in a violent way. Probably they are not, directly. Very likely they are, in an indirect way: they contribute to create or, better, to stir the violence inherent in each man or woman .
If abolishing violence remains a Utopian plan, trying to reduce it is a task which must be carried on using the brain and the reason and not using the * censorship * as the * gun-abolitionists * would like to do .
