Imagine one day that you turned on the nightly television news, only to find the President smoking a joint, followed by a National Office of Drug Control Policy (NODCP) commercial discussing how drugs kill you. This message would be discerning to most of us, making a mockery of our country's drug control policy.

A similar thing happens all the time. It's with violence in our society, where our leaders condemn the horrific acts done by murders, terrorists, and other violent people, while at the same time not being afraid to show such violence done on our behalf on television. It's quite okay to show and advertise violence and demonstrate firearms being used in violent way, if only done on behalf of our benevolent government.

Walking by the Empire State Plaza's concourse one day, I noticed a video by the NYS Department of Correctional Services promoting becoming a corrections officer. This dramatic video included many disturbing scenes, including showing the use of a semi-automatic weapon being shot at a target of an outline of a man. There is no reason to be demonstrating the use of firearms in a promotional video on becoming a corrections officer. Corrections officers are prohibited from carrying any kind of firearm in prisons, for safety reasons.

We allow police to carry firearms, and display them on their uniforms in a highly visible fashion to passersby. Police don't conceal their weapons, they display them with pride in holsters or over their shoulders. They constantly threaten violence should somebody threaten it back them. Yet, why should police be advertising the use of lethal violence? Shouldn't police be advertising civil behavior and not suggesting that we all be carrying a firearm, in case it be necessary to kill another individual?

In cases of major tragedies where there has been a significant violent act injuring or killing many, such as a school or mall shooting, we frequently see plastered over the television and newspapers, pictures of officers carrying weapons resembling AK-47s and machine guns. Not only is this disgusting and distasteful at such a time of tragedy, it is promoting violent acts and the use of firearms to kill and control.

There is war in Iraq that continues to kill and destroy for senseless reasons. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed by gun-toting American soldiers, which we have taught to kill indiscriminately the so-called enemy. We are allowed to witness machine-gun toting soldiers on television and people being killed or harmed by Iraqi or American weaponry.

We live in a very violent society today. It might be necessary for government to use violence in some limited occasions to protect the public and fulfill other governmental functions. But why should government be promoting violence in their policies? There needs to be more media self-censorship and a less-violent government policy to the many problems of the day.