When I was growing up, video games were just beginning to gain popularity. They were simple machines with black-and-white-screens, and stickman graphics. I spent many hours at the local arcades trying to master the games. I didn’t have enough quarters to become an expert, but I could rack up a respectable score on most of the machines.

It’s been at least 25 years since I played a video game in an arcade. I am aware that the graphics have advanced dramatically in the last two decades. However, I didn’t realize just how life-like they were until I saw the screen on a new video game while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago.

My wife and I were sitting at a table in a restaurant waiting for our order, when I noticed a video game over her left shoulder. The images I saw flashing across the screen were so violent, they made my stomach queasy.

One scene included a man who was dressed like a soldier. He appeared to be in the midst of a battle, desperately dodging bullets. I watched in horror as one of the rounds found its mark, striking the soldier in the head. His head exploded into a thousand pieces right there in front of my eyes.

I was so disgusted by what I had witnessed I knew there was no way I would be able to eat my lunch when it arrived. My wife noticed the distressed look on my face and asked me what was wrong. I explained to her in great detail the scene I had observed on the video game. Then I went on to tell her that I didn’t think I could stomach my lunch with those awful images flashing on the machine. She turned and glanced at the video game, shrugged her shoulders, and volunteered to switch seats with me. Obviously, blood and gore doesn’t bother her like it does me.

I don’t have any proof, but I can’t help but wonder if there is not a link between the murder and mayhem we hear about among our nation’s youth and their exposure to so much violence. There is no method that I know of to calculate how many acts of violence a youngster may witness before they reach their teens, but I bet the number would astound us. They can’t escape it. Often the most popular box office movies include scenes of people being killed in the most horrific ways imaginable. A lot of television shows are based on murders. I never did learn the name of the video game I saw at the beach, but I’m sure there’s one like it, or very similar to it, sitting in arcades throughout this country, just waiting for an impressionable young person with a quarter.

It’s a shame that the entertainment industry often glorifies violence. However, we can’t blame them when a young person commits a crime and blames it on something he saw in a movie, or a video game screen, because we allow them to go see that movie, or stick a quarter in that machine. As long as the entertainment industry is making money, they’re going to keep selling violence. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that what they’re ruining is much more serious than someone’s lunch.