As violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in our cities.

To combat this problem we must establish a board

to censor certain movies, or we must limit admission to persons over 21 years of age. Apparently our legislators are
not concerned about this issue since a bill calling for such actions recently failed to receive a majority vote.

The argument claims that there is a direct correlation between violence in movies
and crime rates in cities. Hence, to combat this problem, we must either establish a
board to censor certain movies or limit admission to persons over 21 years of age.
Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of
which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument rests on the
foundations of a premise which is not clearly substantiated, and therefore, the
argument is weak, unconvincing, and has several flaws both subtle and obvious.
First, the argument readily assumes that violence in movies causes crime in real life,
when at best there is merely a correlation between the two. As anyone with even
the most rudimentary statistical training can vouch, correlation does not imply
causation, and it is a stretch to portray the former as the latter. A correlation could
merely be an accident or a coincidence, and only a careful analysis and elimination
of all other factors except the one we are interested in and still finding that the
result upholds can validate any causal assumption based on correlations. The
author clearly fails to account for this fundamental statistical principle and makes a
wide jump to unreasonable conclusions. The argument can be strengthened by
citing evidence not just of increasing violence in movies but also decreasing it and
studying the effects it has on a society, while at the same time keeping all other
factors constant. Such evidence is not presented in the argument but is essential to
strengthening the claims therein.
Secondly, the argument recommends that a censorship board must be established
to combat the problem of violence in movies by either censoring violent content of
certain films or restricting the age of entry. This recommendation fails to
acknowledge that there are already movie censor boards that either censor or rate
movies based on their content. However, even this recommendation has broad legal
implications of freedom of speech as a censor board that takes its power for granted
and starts stifling artistic liberty and free speech based on weak, unsubstantiated
claims of correlation between violence in movies and violence in real life can violate
the constitutional framework of many countries. For this reason, censoring movies
has unintended side effects that could exacerbate the problem in unexpected ways.
Finally, the argument claims that legislators are not concerned with this issue. It is
not clear whether this refers to the problem of crime in cities or violence in
movies. In either case, the reason that a bill calling for censorship did not pass
could be because of factors other than political indifference, as the legislators might
have correctly reasoned that crime is a very complex phenomenon that cannot be
reduced to overly simplistic explanations like the correlation between violence in
movies and violence in real life, and that attempts at stifling freedom of speech
through censorship can be unconstitutional and thus unlawful. As a result, the
accusation of indifference has no leg to stand on.

In summary, the argument is flawed, misleading, and ultimately unconvincing. It

could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant
facts. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full
knowledge of all contributing factors.