Keep Our Children Safe

To:  U.S. Congress

We demand that the United States Congress act immediately to put an end to un-rated and violent films being shown to children on commercial flights operating in United States airspace. Today, infants and toddlers who fly on America’s commercial airlines are exposed to images of murder, torture, electrocution, people who catch fire and worse. These images, while acceptable to adults under the right circumstances, are never acceptable to children.

We all know that films are rated by the MPAA. Movie theaters then voluntarily adhere to the MPAA guidelines and thus eliminate the need for government intervention. The only films the MPAA approves without qualification for children under the age of 13 are rated “G”. However, the films appearing on airlines flying through American airspace are edited by private companies who work for the individual airlines. Neither those private companies nor the airlines they serve are members of the MPAA and, as a result, the final edits of the films shown on airlines are not rated.

During the in-flight edited version of King Kong, children on a recent Delta Airline flight watched the monster of a gorilla destroy buildings, cars and elevated trains, while tossing human beings aside like tissue paper. In addition, there were gunfights, fistfights, SUV-sized insects which attacked people in the dark and a spiked club which someone used to (nearly) impale another human being in the face.

In the first five minutes of another in-flight movie on US Airways, children on board watched one beating, three boys trading guns, one lethal drive-by shooting, one car crushing a young man to death against a fence, and one armed convenience store hold-up.

To be clear, our concern is only with the screens that drop down from the overhead bin and are shown on screens at the front of a cabin. These are the images we cannot prevent our children from watching.

Our concern is loud and needs to be heard. Congress must act immediately to protect our children.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Keep Our Children Safe Petition to U.S. Congress was created by and written by Jesse Kalisher (jesse@kalisher.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.