California Senator Wants Fewer Guns in Games

[Gatx]

Isn't gun violence some of the less violent stuff that happens in videogames?

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Oh look, another senator that blames video games. Isn't that cute...

I'm getting tired by these stupid politicians which think that video games are the problem that causes crazy people to shoot others in real life.

The probability that some people are mentally unstable and will go on a rampage if given the necessary tools which are easily obtainable because it's "legal" to purchase guns is small but does happen. You can't have all the population be "normal", there are a few crazies out there, look at the news every day. So much death and suffering that is happening daily is insane.

 

[yankeesniper57]

People keep skirting the real issue. Gun violence is not caused by kids playing GTA (if you want to stop that, be a better parent). It is not caused by responsible gun owners. It isn't even caused by irresponsible gun owners (paranoid people who own bazillions of guns and explosives in their basements). It's caused by the generally less educated, generally in high population areas, with handguns and/or illegal weapons (because they're cheap and readily available). People want to pass gun control because they're afraid of guns. Those defending the 2nd amendment (at least the most vocal) use the most bogus and absurd arguments to do so (even though it's easy to defend without sounding like a whack job), making it easy for the anti-gun crowd to move forward. Everyone is just yelling louder than the previous person, and our country is suffering for it. Why do you need an assault rifle? You don't, but you also don't need a big-ass SUV to get groceries, nor do you need 180-proof alcohol, nor do you need porn. But we have the freedom to make that decision for ourselves (in the US for guns, at least). You want violence to stop in the cities? Try investing in education. It helps everyone.

[I realize that being pro - 2nd amendment is the minority opinion on the internet, so try and be civil when you disagree]

 

[JSF01]

It also found that high school students that regularly play video games were 50% more likely to report plans on owning a firearm.

That's two data points with no visible scientific connection. You need more information than that to make a correlation. Otherwise you're basically just making a guess based on what you think might be true. It could just as easily be the opposite relationship or anything in between. People who want to buy guns could simply be more likely to buy videogames in the first place. Or people who want to buy guys and who want to play videogames might simply be mostly middle class suburbanites and therefore the two overlap because of that simple correlation.

It would be like seeing a correlation between artisan sandwich consumption and coffee consumption and immediately going ah hah! eating artisan sandwiches automatically leads to coffee consumption. But maybe it's just people hanging out at Starbucks a lot. You follow?

I never said her reasoning was correct, only that to people like her that is more than enough proof that video games cause an interest in firearms. In fact I'd say whether or not it's true, it is still far stronger evidence than your "video games cause violence" based on the "video games cause a temporary increase in aggression, and aggressive people are more likely to be violent" proof.

As a side not though it is actually true that video games cause an interest in firearms. You go to any firearms forum and look for a topic about what got people interested in shooting, you will find a number of people under 30 that admit that it was video games that got them interested.

 

[AuronFtw]

Wait, LESS guns?! But...but...MY BORDERLANDS!! MY BAZILLIONS OF GUNS!!! :O NOOOOOO!

Also, I find it depressingly hilarious that some people are more aggressive about regulating FAKE DIGITAL GUNS than about regulating the REAL guns, that ACTUALLY kill people.

Those guns are already pretty amazingly regulated. Have you looked up stats on how many violent crimes are committed by a licensed firearm owner? It's like 3% or less. The "problem" that the country has is not legal gun owners or the already incredibly strict policy regarding licensing and registration, it's the abundantly available black market weapons that are used to commit the majority of violent crimes - and no amount of "gun control" laws aimed at legal owners (who are already not the problem) are going to fix the availability of black market firearms.

Aside from that, yeah I agree. Old ass hag wasting her time and taxpayer dollars fighting something she barely understands.

 

[AyaReiko]

Before I even read the thing, I knew it would be that idiot DiFi leading the charge.

With her AWB scheme utterly failing in Congress (it wouldn't have gotten 40 votes in favor of it), the Queen of Gun Grabbers is wildly flailing about hoping to snag something else.

A true shining example of why we need term limits on these idiots.

 

[LazyAza]

I wonder how many of these politicians clamoring for less guns and violence in games own guns, regularly use guns or have taught their kids about how to use and where to purchase guns. Cause my impression of America is and will remain; guns rain from the sky, grow on trees or are basically sold next to candy stores with how incredibly easy it seems to be for people to access them. Maybe if America stopped selling so many guns, had less gun stores, had less culture surrounding the worship and glorification and pride of owning and using guns, they'd have less gun violence. just sayin. But whatever I'm some ignorant foreigner who "doesn't get it man" what do I know.

I mean I live in a country where gun stores are incredibly hard to find, to the point I think I've seen maybe one my entire life and I'm not even sure it was one. We have essentially no gun violence at all, ever. Extreme rarity at best. How is this not something incredibly obvious to so many Americans by now?

 

[SSJBlastoise]

Funny story, Sandy Hook had NOTHING TO DO WITH VIDEOGAMES.

He wasn't known for playing violent games, that was just the media struggling to find a connection. And you know what connection they made a huge reach to claim? He liked violent games because his brother Liked Mass Effect on Facebook.

I think I remember reading that the person that had liked Mass Effect on Facebook wasn't even related to the shooter at all and the media stuffed it up.

OT: Starting to get tired of seeing this crap now.

 

[Indy_no]

Dear Senator, here's a thought: How about restricting accessibility to guns in your country? You know, the guns that actually kills people in real life....

 

[Almack]

Wasn't television and rock n' roll also supposed to turn our children into savage frothing at the mouths killers. I just get the feeling that every time something like this comes up all the old people are saying to each other " Well this didn't happen in our day (yes it did) what's changed? or there are these new things called video games you say well we didn't have these when we were younger they must be the problem." Yahtzee put it best old people will die first and so we are the ones that get to pass on our values to the next generation.

 

[DugMachine]

Oh brother. I'll just sit back and watch this fail miserably.

Although fewer shooters would be nice. I enjoy shooters as much as the next guy but when it's practically in every game it gets kind of tiresome.

 

[Requia]

Huh you know, after doing a bit of research, it seems the thing that is fucking the united states over most when it comes to guns, is our fucking nations capital!

Deaths by guns per 100k pop: 16.5

The next closest is Luisiana at 7.7

Only solution to even out the problem? Nuke washington DC, it will have the added benefit of ridding us of all the idiotic politicians as well! (For those too dense to get it, this last part was a joke)

St Thomas Island is actually worse than DC (hell, they had more murders per capita than Baghdad for some years of the war), though not as big. But we like to pretend that the territories aren't part of the country.

 

[Carlston]

She can want in one hand and shit in the other. And see which one fills up first.

Let me take a stab at what she wants... if we tone down the pretend violence...maybe the real violence will go away.

Yeah... that works