MSNBC's Ed Schultz calls parents who allow there kids and 18+ to play GTA V lousy

[GonzoGamer]

What a dope. At least he isn't suggesting the NSA monitor the kids playing habits.

 

[Berny Marcus]

Ed Schultz is an ass. I never did like him or his show. MSNBC really oughta give him the boot, and give Ezra Klein a show. Ezra Klein is awesome.

Even given how much an ass Schultz is, I had to go to the source, just to make sure the clip hadn't been strategically edited. It just seemed too over the top, even for Ed Schultz. Nope. There it was right there on the Ed Show's own website. He said it just like that. What an ass.

BTW folks, write your congresscritters. It's not that hard. Just politely let them know that "violent video games cause violence" is bullshit.

Ed Schultz wasn't the only one attacking video games, but he was more direct. Morning Joke, Al Sharptan, Chris Hayes, and Maddow all went after them. What a joke of a news network, same as Fox and CNN

Maddow didn't say anything about video games.

To be fair she didn't, but a reporter named Hadlock did on her show did bring up the topic of video games.

 

[LetalisK]

Wait, you mean to tell me Ed Shultz is a colossal blowhard? Hold on a second, the room is spinning...

 

[Berny Marcus]

Wait, you mean to tell me Ed Shultz is a colossal blowhard? Hold on a second, the room is spinning...

Well I didn't want to call him names and stoop to his level lol.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Since it was run on MSNBC you can guarantee no one important watched it....

 

[SadisticFire]

I feel like if anything, the 18 or older game limit is actually too high. I played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory when I was six(I also saw the difference between male and female genitalia and I didn't go pin down the closest boy I could find and rape him). I don't recall signing up for the war to shoot nazis because games told me to do so. I played Halo CE when I was seven.(It was so cooooool. There were consoles that weren't the gamecube. It blew my seven year old mind) and I ain't shooting people with SMG's. I played Dead Space when I was eleven, I'm not running around hacking things with saws. I started playing TF2 in that same time, with Half Life a swell.
I am hardly a violent person at all, and I'm much more mature(Based off teacher's evaluations and peer reviews). I'm playing all the major 18+ games and I still don't want to act violence. Kids are smarter than most people credit them for. They can tell what's right and what's wrong, and don't randomly turn into rapists by playing a game.

 

[Zeckt]

I support violent video games as a form of entertainment, but in no way would I ever let a child play this game.

 

[Berny Marcus]

I support violent video games as a form of entertainment, but in no way would I ever let a child play this game.

Neither would I. If a child play a game like GTA, then that's the parent's responsibility.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

A pretentious white knight scapegoating video games and gamers and taking away attention from important factors?
Dear lord, nothing makes sense!

That said, I don't think children under 17 should be playing 17+ games.

 

[Psychobabble]

Disclaimer: My first post ever on escapist. So sorry if I broke any rules.

In light of the tragic shootings at the Naval shipyard in D.C., the news media, predictable as ever, has pointed the finger at violent video games.

One such fellow is MSNBC's own Ed Schultz, who just insulted millions of people globally by saying parents who buy there kids GTA V or people 18 plus are "lousy" and apart of the problem.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOrdJvMQ_6A

Now let me be clear, I don't think parents should be buying M rated games like GTA V for there kids. So in a sense, I agree with Ed Schultz on that kids shouldn't be playing them in the first place, but he also insulted older gamers. Also the shooter in question is 34 years, hardly a child, so whats this have to do with kids I do not understand, but hey this is the news media talking.

But hey thank Big Eddie! You're giving GTA V much free air time, thanks alot.

You know I just don't get it. These terrible tragedies keep happening and the voices of unbiased sanity such as MSNBC, Fox News, and The Daily Mail keep telling you all what the vile and evil root cause of the problem is, but you never listen.

This incident had nothing to do with the perpetrator's long standing and documented bizarre behavior pointing to a dangerous mental illness. It had nothing to do with a rather poor security background check that gave this mentally unbalanced individual access to a military facility, and let him purchase a lethal weapon right before the shootings.

Once again the glaring cause was his "obsession" with violent video games. I say if violent video games didn't exist nobody would ever hurt anybody else in the complete history of ever. ...Though I suppose you could say the same thing about bullets.

What say you America?

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Disclaimer: My first post ever on escapist. So sorry if I broke any rules.

You broke ALL The rules.

You are a terrible person. I drew you a picture to commemorate your terriblenessniness!

I know it's hard to see, but strain your eyes, and you'll see he put Judas down so he could gnaw on YOU! You're awful! You're everything McCarthy fought against in the 50's!!

OT: I know he meant to say, "Xbox 360 game," but he left out game, so here I am thinking, "Damn, they've gotten so much more portable."

Plus, the whole, if you allow your now adult child to own or watch this, you're a terrible parent. God forbid if parents were actually judged for what people did after they were out of their sphere of control. There'd be no such thing as a good parent.

Holy fuck! I'm going to hell! Spare me god and mods of escapists! Don't take me Grim reaper spider!

YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU MADE THIS POST!

Also,

*snip*

That's a horrible picture of me!

 

[Riff Moonraker]

I believe there is a very fine line that parents have to walk when it comes to things like this. Children have no business playing or experiences adult things such as GTA V and the like, and its our jobs as parents to prevent that from happening. But adversely, I am of the belief that you cannot convey a message to your kids that nudity is evil and vile, and its very tricky. Simply put, they shouldnt be exposed to it at a young age. As they mature, they WILL come in contact with it sooner or later, and you are living under a rock if you dont think that will happen. Its our jobs to prepare them as they grow up to handle things of that nature in a mature way, and at the same time dont give them a complex about their bodies or make them feel like the feelings they will experience are wrong or unnatural. But the parents need to be their proper teachers and guides, not something like GTA V.

I think the easiest way to explain it would be, "you aren't ready to see that yet." It's not saying that they can never handle it, or even shouldn't handle it at some point in the future, just that at their current age they shouldn't see it. Telling them something is evil or dirty or that they should never see it will only make it even more interesting to them. Which is a terrible thing to do, considering the very fact that it's barred off in the first place is enough of an excuse to get them excited.

Quite true.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Hey, if you think your kid can handle it then by all means do it. I mean we say that it comes down to parents when it comes to these things. I played Mortal Kombat here and there when I was a kid and I didn't try to rip spines out on the playground.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. A kid has no business "handling it" at all. No child has any business playing a game like this.

I played and watched things that some people would consider inappropriate for my age at the time because my parents were confident that I could understand the content and react to it intelligently and rationally. It wasn't something they did carelessly or at random, they would research or watch whatever it was and make the judgement for themselves, and more often then not there wasn't a problem.

You can't draw a solid line across what all kids are capable of handling responsibly, not only will it be wildly inaccurate but it isn't your job, nor the job of any single individual. Ratings are important to give parents the tools they need to analyze a game or a movie or a show, but they shouldn't be treated like absolute laws because that's just as lazy as letting your kids do whatever they want. It's better of course, it is more responsible, but its still lazy because no real understanding has been reached. As other people above have noted, not all M rated games are created equal.

Parents need to be capable of making their own informed, rational decisions without letting others do their job for them. And everyone needs to recognize that each individual child has their own tolerances for what they are and are not ready for yet.

Depending on your age at the time, and whatever content you were talking about, then I would not only agree, but say that my actions follow suit. My kids can watch or read things I feel they are able to rationally and intelligently process and handle, but the decision ultimately belongs to my wife and I. But I argue that I can draw a line across children watching GTA V. For example, I fully believe that no 8 year old child has ANY business watching or playing this game. Not even a 10 or 12 year old child has any business playing or watching it.