Consider, for a moment, the troops this country sent to fight in Vietnam not so long ago. The conscripts plunged into that nightmare were not that much older than our school yard monsters.

Vietnam? I’m simply making a point. The average male child / teen in our schools in America has far more battlefield experience, far better small-arms training, and far more ‘kills’ under his belt than our men did when they RETURNED from Vietnam. How do the emotional scars compare?

Outrageous statement? Think again. There is a class of computer software and hardware products referred to as ‘simulators.’ Used constructively, simulators are used to train private pilots and commercial jet jockeys, surgeons, power plant operators, and customer sales reps.

Are they effective and cost efficient? The FAA and our major airlines seem to think so. Flight simulators have been available for least 15 years and are so advanced that they can play a significant role in pilot training and certification.

s a fan of simulators and flying, these programs offer me a forgiving environment to explore the capabilities of my ‘aircraft’ and in which to build acrobatic skills. I’ve ‘walked’ away from hundreds of crashes and headed straight for the fridge, without the slightest elevation in heart rate. With no personal stakes involved, simulators create training possibilities that are unheard of in real life. They also tend to remove fear and self-doubt from the experience.

Does this training map to the real world? I can tell you that I knew the runways at Chicago O’Hare long before physically landing there. And that flying a real twin engine Beachcraft in choppy air was more physically demanding than I was prepared for but controlling the aircraft was old hat.

Should I take up flying? Probably not. I’m used to equipment that I never pay a repair bill on. I also tend to explore capabilities with no concern for the sanity of the exercise - shooting outside loops under the Golden Gate Bridge or turning Manhattan’s skyline into a slalom course at 400 knots. I’d need sensitivity training, some repair bills, would have to deal with flight regulations and air traffic, and would frankly need to learn some fear.

Okay, so hopefully I’ve established that simulators are great, yet desensitizing training tools. How does this map to school killings?

So far I’ve avoided the use of the misnomer ‘computer games’ used to describe the vastly popular first-person shooting simulators available for computers and game consoles. It is time to call it like I see it.

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This murder simulator, and others like it, are formidable training tools. Of course, in these games you don’t have time to stop and ponder who you just killed because you in turn, will be ‘killed.’ Like a bad Hollywood movie, your victims are one dimensional -- they have no personality, no family, no reason to live. And how they die! Blood splatters and stains you and the floor. Dismemberments are common. The screams will curdle skim milk.

Think I’m all wet on the value of using Doom for training ‘nerves of steel’ killers? The US Marine Corp didn’t think so, for they slightly modified the game (to support the characteristics of real weapons) to explore its uses for ‘small group tactical training.’ They made the product, Marine Doom, available for all comers on their government / taxpayer funded web site. It is a little more difficult to find these days (and no, I'm not going to link to it), but it was an interesting look at how far commercial software has come in addressing what should be a niche market and turning it into profitable entertainment.

resident Clinton is absolutely correct and the game industry is dead wrong. These products teach children to kill without emotion, with deadly accuracy, all within the safe confines of a school yard. Just like a video game, the shooter is actually at less personal risk than when on the bus ride to school.

Since television’s infancy, some young boys have been so swept into the fantasy it promotes that they jump from house tops emulating Superman and gouge their eyes seeking a bionic replacement like Steve Austin’s from 6 Million Dollar Man. Now we have products that continue the fantasy into actual skills development stages. So why do we even bother to make a fuss when our well trained amateur mercenaries move on from simulations to practical exercises in school yards?

The Marines saw value in Doomas a training tool for people that hunt people for a living. The manufacturer of Doom (Id Software of Mesquite Texas) distributes free copies of the same software every way imaginable to any child they can. Your kids have seen it and have played it. If not Doom, then Hexan, Quake, or any number of competing titles by Id and other manufacturers. The geeks at Id, of course, will tell you that it is all just for fun, as they drive away in their $250,000 sports cars that we’ve funded.

I think it is high time we consider punishing software publishers as the war criminals they are. Call it a disarmament effort and set aside lame concerns over freedom of expression. The peace dividend could be very high, even for dance. I have this little project for the reformers…