Gun violence in movies for teens in US has tripled since 1985

The amount of gun violence shown in US movies rated acceptable for teens 13 years and older has more than tripled since 1985, the year the PG-13 rating was introduced, scientists have found in a "shocking" new study.
PG-13 movies carry the warning: "Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13," according to the Motion Picture Association of America, which creates the ratings.
In a new study, researchers found that the most popular PG-13 movies of 2011 and 2012 showed significantly more gun violence than R-rated movies (people under 17 may only be admitted if accompanied by a parent or guardian) of the same time period.

"It's shocking how gun use has skyrocketed in movies that are often marketed directly at the teen audience," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University.
Bushman conducted the research with Patrick Jamieson, Ilana Weitz and Daniel Romer of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bushman said the results are concerning because other research has revealed the presence of a "weapons effect": People who simply see a gun, or even a picture of a gun, are more aggressive toward others.

"Based on what researchers have found, it is not good for teens to be viewing this much gun violence in films," he said.

PG-13 movies are the most popular among viewers - 13 of the top 25 films in release during 2012 carried that rating, including seven of the top 10, according to the MPAA.
The researchers studied a database of 915 films that were drawn from the 30 top-grossing films for each year from 1950 to 2012. Researchers identified violent sequences performed by each character for each five-minute segment of the films.
They also noted whether each violent sequence since 1985 (the first full year after the PG-13 rating was introduced) included the use of a gun.
Overall, findings showed that the rate of violent sequences nearly quadrupled from 1950 to 2010. Since 1985, 94 per cent of the movies studied (367 in total) had one or more five-minute segments that included violence. Overall, the films contained 700 segments with gun violence.

Findings showed that R-rated films averaged about 1.54 segments per hour featuring gun violence, and that number didn't fluctuate much from 1985 to 2010.
Movies rated G and PG averaged 0.41 segments of gun violence per hour, which also hasn't changed since 1985.
The story is much different for films rated PG-13, Bushman said. In 1985, PG-13 movies essentially didn't have any scenes of gun violence, but the number rose steadily until about 2005, when it began escalating even faster.
By 2010, PG-13 films averaged as many sequences featuring gun violence per hour as R-rated films. In 2011 and 2012, PG-13 movies actually had more gun violence than R-rated movies, researchers found.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.