A Problem With Modern Day Cartoons

Yesterday after the horses had been fed and the dirt had been swept away, a rather unfortunate event occurred. This particular event made me question how much violence our children receive from a source that used to be considered a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning. Cartoons. A ten year old boy named Nicolas was bound, gagged, and could have been accidentally murdered by a few eight year old girls and an eleven year old girl. The girls claimed to have gotten the idea from watching T.V. The thought of this makes me sick, that cartoons are not even safe for our children to see because of the violent actions they may cause our children to perform. I suppose I can not blame the producers though, they did not put the rope in the girl's hands, they did not give them the plastic bag to put over his head, they did not tell them to do any of these things. But are these otherwise good children simply violent by nature? Or can violence such as this be a learned behavior?