Do horror movies make people violent?

     One of the hot-button topics in media has been the connection between violence in movies and real life.  It seems that even before Skeet Ulrich claimed "movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative" that parents and lawmakers have been pushing the blame for other people's actions on movies.  This really begs the question "Why?"  Why are they blaming movies for someone's actions when they are obviously not in the correct frame of mind to be claiming that any external force has caused this to be.
    Psychology has debated the topic of nature vs nurture for various behaviors including behaviors.  In 1995, D.T. Lykken claimed proof that environment produced violent criminals.  A. Raine claimed in 1993 that brain abnormalities cause violent crimes.  Lawmakers and parent groups seem to be pushing on the Lykken view recently with a push for censorship in movies to show less violence.
     The sad part of this is really multi-fold.  First, nature and nurture have both been shown to be contributing factors in violence.  By claiming that movies are the nurture that caused the child to shoot up their class, the parents are claiming they had no part in nurturing their child to non-violent resolutions.  Second, the writers and directors of the most violent films I have seen do not have major arrest records for violent crimes to the best of my knowledge.  They actually are fairly plain looking and calm people.  Could it be that they are getting out their frustrations with the world is a healthy manor that does not hurt people?  Lastly, I think of my own grandfather.  We he was sent in for World War 2, my grandfather stated he would not carry a gun and was trained as a medic.  In war, he saw some of the most horrific things that no movie director will ever want to recreate (because it's not art and does not make for good story?).  He still never carried a gun or killed anyone.  His environment pushed on him towards violence, but his upbringing was of non-violence and so he did not act on his environment.  He ended up saving several (now) veterans because of this.  I grant a small sample but if you look, you will find similar stories wedged between the "Freddy taught me to kill" articles.
      In closing, movies do not kill people.  People kill people (and monkeys, if they have a razor or gun).  Movies tell a story.  Before horror movies, we had some violent stories and we do not blame the Grimm Brothers for Albert Fish.  Leave movies alone and take responsibility for your own work.