Video Games Are Evil! (a pre-emptive strike)

[sapient]

On Valentine's Day, a shooter walked into a classrom full of students (140) and opened fire, killing 6, including himself, and shooting a total of 17. Now I know I'm throwing caesium into water here, if you'll excuse the nerdy reference, but my conservative sense is tingling. Jack Thompson and FOX News are undoubtedly going to jump out and attack all games ever made ever. We can expect the ramblings of pricks like Fos News bleating through the airwaves.

Uninformed and ridiculously stupid as it sounds, Fox's sheep out there in the public are definitely going to get the message across to the USA, and to any other country stupid enough to have it's majority indoctrinated by those bagel-humping fucktards, but it's definitely going to have shrivelled bitter soccer moms with crushed dreams of making it somewhere in their bland pointless lives bitching at their children for playing Team Fortress 2.

Okay, as Yahtzee once pointed out, games that encourage violence rather explicitly can damage the human psyche, but again it's either your better judgement as an adult (which many adult gamers seem to lack) to not duplicate the game in real life, or your parents judgement while you're still a child (many of whom have parents that don't bother choosing their games, but still ***** and moan when Fox shoves the next uninformed ball of proverbial dogshit down their gullets) that stop you from being taken over by games like Manhunt or Saint's Row.

What I'm trying to get across here is that games are harmless to who they're marketed to. Okay, there are exceptions - some Cannibal Corpse (excellent band) hugging junkie may pick up a copy of Manhunt, if the government of aforementioned junkie's home isn't busy humping the game for political value, and go and stab and rape some children - but by and large the usual blind dribble spouting from idiots like Jack Thompson is going to have the public impact. We can get as many valid points as we want, but in the end these idiots are going to blame gaming for ________ (Vtech, Columbine, Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, Jew persecution, black people's crime rates, etc etc) and I'm disgusted it gets the effect it does.

I'm really wanting to hear others thoughts on this, because even though it's a touchy subject there has to be a way we can knock some sense into Faux News and their robotic slave audience.

PS: Don't ban me for this. ^_^

PPS: Pre-emptive strike, FOX. Stick it up your-

 

[Talisker]

I have to dissagree 1 point. I am yet to see a game that, in my opinion, would damage somebodys mind to the extent that you make a decision to go out and murder as many people as you can your mind would have had to be pretty messed up already to do that. Otherwise I totally agree with you. Games are not the root cause of all this, people heve been shooting, stabbing and doing other nasty things to each other for a lot longer than they have been around. Does the name Ed Gein ring a bell or maybe Jack the Ripper. I'm fairly certain that these two didn't ever play video games but they still had the urge to do horrible things to other people.

Blaming video games is what a politician is always looking for, it's a quick fix, the only reasons that they only blame them for violent crime are
A: If someone commits a violent crime and claims a video game made them do it nine times out of ten they will be given a reduced sentance or put in a psychiatric hospital rather that prison.
B: They have highly questionable circumstatial evidence, mostly because of reason A, that videogames caused the crime. They can't blame the poor economy on games because GTA never let you rob the treasury but it did let you beat hookers to death and run them over for good measure. Who knows maybe SimCity will be the next to come under fire from Mr Thompson.

 

[Cousin_IT]

Cannibal Corpse (excellent band)

No! [http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n68/r1ng0/NO.jpg]

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I really think that it's ridiculous how much press and public condemnation is generated for every one of these school shootings when there are entire communities in the US which suffer shootings every day or at least on a regular basis. We should constantly be in an uproar about gun violence in this country and not just when some pampered suburban child picks up a gun and starts going to town.

I also think its amazing there aren't more shootings like this because of the sheer number of schools and students in this country and in some ways I feel as if the country is being duped. I'm certain there are school shootings or at least instances of school violence far more frequently than the news ever reports because it happens at school where it is normal or at school where people won't really care about it. With ridiculous drop out rates in our city school, gang violence, and a non-existent safety net I feel comfortable guaranteeing that children of a different hue are dying or being seriously injured every day in and around schools.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Have to bring out this quote.

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
- Kristin Wilson, Nintendo, Inc., 1989.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I thought he was aiming at an ex-girlfriend or something. Clearly Shakespeare's 'Othello' is responsible for this.

 

[Manta173]

Wow... all I can say is you really don't like Fox... I agree with you that no video game as well movie, book (short of misinterpreted religious texts), tv program or any other form of entertainment will ever affect a normal individual enough to cause them to become psychopathic. But I also think inanimate objects are innocent as well... I hate to say it Monet, but guns don't kill people... people do.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

Guns do kill people. A disgruntled teenager can't mow down a dozen people in ten seconds with a knife. The problem isn't a lack of gun control, however, because crazy people won't have their carnage kept from them. If they don't buy a gun legally they steal a legally purchase gun or buy an illegal gun and no amount of legislation or enforcement will stop illegal gun sales. If I really wanted to I could probably have a gun in the next 30 minutes for $20 and nothing short of a miracle will stop me.

Back on topic... A video game won't push you over the edge that allows your brain to think "Oh, it's ok to kill people because my pain is so great and important". Whether someone is previously mentally imbalanced or has been pushed so far that they lose all perspective it would take a lot for me to believe that Doom was the cause or trigger.

 

[propertyofcobra]

Guns do kill people. A disgruntled teenager can't mow down a dozen people in ten seconds with a knife. The problem isn't a lack of gun control, however, because crazy people won't have their carnage kept from them. If they don't buy a gun legally they steal a legally purchase gun or buy an illegal gun and no amount of legislation or enforcement will stop illegal gun sales. If I really wanted to I could probably have a gun in the next 30 minutes for $20 and nothing short of a miracle will stop me.

If you live in a country where guns are not legal to the general public in most cases (Sweden as a good example, Japan probably as another even though Japan is a bit on the crazy side at times), chances are that, y'know, gun violence isn't gonna be as common.
The one example of true "go out, gun down people" in Sweden I can think of was Matthias Flink AKA "Lasermannen" AKA the laser man, who used an AK4 to shoot passerbys on the street, he was in the military and thus DID have access to guns. It was many years ago.
In Sweden, illegal gun smuggling exists, but because the average freaking teenager can't get a hold of them especially easily (definitely not in the next 30 minutes with 20 dollars worth of Swedish Kronors), this sort of thing doesn't happen.

Anyone who says guns don't kill people is an idiot. Guns do kill people. People kill people too.
People are gonna find a way to kill each other with or without guns, but why the hell would you want to help them along by making guns as extremely common and easy to get legally as they are in the United States of America?

In short, videogames are not to blame for this tragic act of violence. Guns aren't either. Guns (and the second amendment to a lesser degree) ARE however responsible for the sheer SCOPE of this. If this young man could only find a kitchen knife, he might have stabbed two-three people at most. But because he could so readily find a pistol (it was a handgun, right?), the death and injury toll was as high as it was.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I hate to go all crazy when all I really want to do is talk about video games but...

Simply saying "If we make gun control laws stricter it will mean there are fewer guns on the streets" doesn't do justice to the problem and ignores quite a lot of issues surrounding violence in America.

I'd really love to hear the opinion of someone from the UK about why they have less gun violence. I hear England used as an example of a country with strict gun control and lower gun violence rates all the time but I have trouble accepting the fact that gun control is the only thing keeping English people from blowing each other away.

The UK has a far better social support net than the US. The US has much nothing supporting it's populace and because of it people go without care that they need constantly. If you want violence to decrease the best way to accomplish that is happier people and the best way to create a happier populace is to stop them from getting sick and give them food.

I suspect that England doesn't have a culture which is as suffused with guns as America's. America was built on the gun and people have owned guns consistently from the beginning. I have a feeling that there wasn't nearly the resistance to gun control legislation in the UK as there is in the US. People over here love their guns and they don't see why they should have their guns taken away when they aren't the ones committing the crimes.

That brings me to my next point, legal gun owners aren't really the problem. We have gang and organized crime violence to an enormous degree in many areas throughout the US. Kids kill each other over street corners on a regular basis and I doubt many of them acquired their guns legally... Except for the occasional school shooting (and that isn't even a guarantee that the student was licensed to own a gun) most gun violence isn't perpetrated by the legal owner of the gun.

So, yeah, guns are responsible for the carnage they cause but fixing the problem isn't as simple as saying "Let's ban the guns!". Remember what happened when we banned drugs, all it did was create a multi billion dollar international industry of illegal drug trafficking which, incidentally, has caused quite a bit of gun violence inside and outside of the US...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Hrm. As an Englander, I feel I have to reply.

First of all, we don't use guns. We use bombs. America was shocked at the bombing of the Olympics, England hardly flinched. Guns scare us far more.

but I have trouble accepting the fact that gun control is the only thing keeping English people from blowing each other away.

Then that's the trouble. If you can't get hold of a gun, you can't blow someone away. Also our population is smaller so it doesn't allow as many nutballs. However, the Mardi Gras killer terrorised an entire Banking institution for two years. Check out what Nail Bombs do and watch Kalashnikov weep.

The UK has a far better social support net than the US.

BONG! Nope, the UK has an atrocious support network and a far more infringing social structure. Again it's down to size and the fact that our cities that are multi-cultural have enough leeway to prevent gang warfare.
If you want gang warfare though, it's easy to find.

I suspect that England doesn't have a culture which is as suffused with guns as America's.

A large degree of American culture already pervades England. We still love the Sopranos etc. and our police force are probably less well paid. The thing is that we're a LOT older and our territories have been drawn out a long time ago.

That brings me to my next point, legal gun owners aren't really the problem.

Gonna have to call a BONG! here as well. If you have people with the RIGHT to own guns then they have the RIGHT to fire them if their RIGHTS are infringed. They also have the RIGHT to have them stolen.
Far too many Rights, and they're all wrong.
I'd hazard a guess that most of the kid killers take their guns from their Father's closet that their Father has taught them to use.
Similar thing happens with Martial Arts, fastest way to create a bully I know of.

So, yeah, guns are responsible for the carnage they cause but fixing the problem isn't as simple as saying "Let's ban the guns!". Remember what happened when we banned drugs, all it did was create a multi billion dollar international industry of illegal drug trafficking which, incidentally, has caused quite a bit of gun violence inside and outside of the US...

Ow...ad hominem argument here.
You don't need to ban the guns. You need to stop people having the GODGIVEN RIGHT TO KILL ANYONE WHO DOESN'T SHARE MY VIEWS.

Make ammo expensive. Have all guns needed to be registered every year. Ban children under 21 from touching a gun. Lots of different ways to do it, but the first major one has to be:

You may have the right to bear arms, but you do NOT have the right to arm yourself.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

Prolly one of the reasons that gun crime isn't as bad as the US is because of the image the US presents us Brits. We all know about America's gun laws, and we see or hear a new story about some poor American getting shot up every other day (seemingly at least). I think most people here just give a great 'meh' towards the whole thing- if it means fewer people getting killed on the streets, then strict gun laws seems a fair-do.

And really, you really can't underestimate the gun laws here. You can't own a firearm without a certificate. You have to have a justifiable reason for owning it. The police can confiscate it if they think you're a risk. If you're caught with an illegal gun, you can face up to 5 years in prison. The government treats gun crime/smuggling with great seriousness, and after Dunblane it's easy to see why.

You have no idea how long I've been wanting to discuss gun laws with people from the UK... After years of being involved in forums entirely populated by Americans I got fed up with the whole argument.

Anyway, I have some googling to do later when I'm not sitting at my desk avoiding work, however, I think the UK's gun control goes back much farther than modern gun violence in the US. Haven't London cops been roaming around unarmed for much of their history? Americans fended off your piddling little island with guns (I couldn't resist), tamed the country with guns, fought off those stupid redskins with guns, have been involved in many wars which only exposes vast numbers of people to guns and it has created a culture which loves it's firearms. Your history has given you a populace with a genuine fear of firearms which wouldn't bat an eye at allowing strict gun control and ours has created a country filled with people who are obsessed with guns and powerful lobbying groups which will never let them be taken away.

I have studied your gun control laws at various times in many discussions/arguments and while formidable I have always questioned whether they really have as much of an effect on reducing gun violence as your country's general feelings toward guns. I think in the future such laws will have more and more of an effect as gun lovers invade England from every border, however, it seemed (at least in my short visit) that people have a very different perspective and that helps more than anything else.

 

[Kikosemmek]

I don't and never have believed that video games give people due cause to hurt others. They might give inspiration, but if we start limiting that we might as well give every human being a lobotomy.

What causes violence and murder are conflicts, real-life, emotionally charged conflicts. The most a video game can do is aggravate a player to the point of cussing or hitting the desk. If the player goes and takes it out on other people, then the problem there was his anger management and upbringing.

Shootings such as this, the one that happened months before, or Columbine are due to conflicts the aggressors had in their lives, with themselves or others. If there is something we can do to prevent such thing happening, we could as a society start doing away with prejudice and the concept of taboo and outcasting- alienation is the #1 reason people feel the need to lash out at society or strangers. So, if Fox News really wants things like this to stop, they should start preaching tolerance and forgiveness, but they won't. We all know they won't because Fox News are not about being impartial or accepting of freedom of thought and, consecutively, freedom of speech. Channels such as Fox News harness prejudice and point out targets. My solution is to not even take them with a grain of salt, but treat them like the immature brats they are, kicking and screaming in all directions whenever there's an excuse to do so.

Beat your kids- boycott Fox News.

 

[Moroha]

Guns don't kill people, people do.
People don't kill people, guns do.
Both are right. Drop a gun and it goes off and it was the gun who killed someone from droppage.

Other then that.
No, a game will be equally much responsible for someone going postal as a movie will be. Heck a movie perhaps even more because we've all seen how they work haven't we?
However, in real life, unless it's a direct damage to the head, a person can go on for a few seconds/minutes without even realize that person has been shot... Not that it's relevant in anyway though

 

[Talisker]

ours has created a country filled with people who are obsessed with guns and powerful lobbying groups which will never let them be taken away.

This strikes me as being the one of the main causes of the lenient laws in the US. A lot, but not all I hasten to add, of gun owners specifically the pro-gun lobbyists seem to be of the strange mentality that they are still in the wild west. That America is still the untamed wilderness full of bandits and redskins out to kill them. That being said I don't think tightening gun laws up and forcibly dragging these people into the 21st century will do much good due to the sheer amount of firearms in circulation there.

In the UK there is more of an attitude of respect. Like root of all evil said, most of us settled our differences before the gun in its modern form was even invented. Although monet was right gun crime is rising here. As the UK becomes more Americanised (is that even a word?) it will only get worse. We've got the fast food culture and lawsuit culture from the US, gun culture won't be far behind.

 

[broadband]

well i havent made a deep research like some of you but i saw some kind of documentary not long ago where shown stuff like places where you can rent a flamethrower, a 9 year old child firing a MAC or something like that and the parents where excited about it, a family with a gun colection wide enough for Gordon Freeman, and even books that tells how make explosives.

and well after see all that, it isnt amazing for me see all that violence on the US, having such a easy access to guns and even childs ``playing´´ with a machine gun, i think the US are someway a messed up country, it is not amazing.

 

[MaraN88]

Not that I don't want to comment on the gun control issue (I will ) but I thought I'd start with the thread subject.

I don't believe there are people who can't distinguish Games from reality. I therefore have trouble believing that anyone could blame games for their actions. There was a similar debate about movies and even comic books effect on children/teenagers but these debates died and we now find it ridiculus to consider comic books as dangerous.
That being said.. You can't stop stupid people... They are everywere and they will interfere with everything you do wheter it is smoking, eating or playing games and the only thing you can hope for is that they aren't enough of them to change or add laws.

OK, back to gun control!!

If it's easier to get ahold of guns more people will use guns. The argument "If someone wants a gun he will get it, if not legaly then illegaly." is very popular and it's very convincing but what would happen if we legalised drugs? A lot more people would use drugs. Accesibility is a big part of usage when it comes to every type of merchandise there is and the above argument does not take this into consideration. If it's hard to get guns, less people will get them.

I also was extreamly bothered by The_root_of_all_evil comment...
(he's talking about US vs brittish social support.)

"Nope, the UK has an atrocious support network and a far more infringing social structure. Again it's down to size and the fact that our cities that are multi-cultural have enough leeway to prevent gang warfare."

I can't find any better source right now but here is wikipedias list of serial killers by country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_country

The US has at least twice the amount of serial killers as any other country (which is a result of their social support). The US has atrocious social support while UK has average for a western country, even though average isn't good.
And as for the multi cultural thing.. the US is a "melting pot" it's the personification of multi cultural... And as far as sice goes, Los Angeles inhabits 4 million people while London inhabits 8 million and the ruffest parts of LA is worse then the worst parts of London.(This last part was just my opinion but i think most of you would agree?)

 

[PurpleRain]

Hey America, here's an idea. How about we ban guns? Wouldn't that be fun.