CT Senator: Games a Factor in Sandy Hook Shootings

[Jamous]

His reasoning is fair enough but he fails (dramatically) to take this into account. The shooter played games, yes. SO DOES ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE. Seriously, so many people play games now it's unreal. How many of them go and shoot up schools? A fucking negligible quantity. Not sure about you, but that suggests to me there are many other factors involved, even if Games -did- have a part to play.

 

[hermes]

You know who is to blame? Vikings.

Think about it... How many Vikings were in the X century? A lot. How many shootings? Almost none. Compare it with modern day. So, I can't put myself in his mind, but its obvious that his actions where motivated by not enough exposure to Vikings.

No, no, pirates. We've already established that pirates prevented global warming, so they probably prevented gun crime as well.

Probably... I didn't wanted to specify the clear link between global warming and school shootings. Now that you mention it, I should get to work into that.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Slightly morbid, but is anyone just waiting for these guys to just die or retire so we can have politicians that aren't so damn out of touch?

 

[Brian Tams]

Give me a break. If you can't tell the difference between video game violence from real life violence you were already unbalanced before popping in CoD. While video games can certainly trigger psychotic behavior, they do not cause psychotic behavior. Anything can trigger psychotic behavior, whether it be a movie or getting bullied. Hell, Charlie Manson tried to start a race war
because of a Beatles song!

 

[Slash2x]

CT Senator: "I'm an idiot."

Yeah nothing like saying something then back dooring out of it in the SAME SPEECH!! "GAMES ARE BAD!!" "But I have no proof of that...."

OT:

I recently conducted a study of of all the people I know and found out that many of them have ridden in or driven cars, many of the people I know are military members who went to other countries and shot at people. I have now proven that cars are 100% the reason people shoot other people of different heritages. This lets us see that cars are the reason behind hate crimes. I think we need to start taking steps to protect people from cars immediately, so we can stop all hate crimes. I also have no data to back this up but we should look into this.

VOTE SLASH2X in 2014!!!!!

 

[Glaice]

If you have no evidence to back up your claims Mr. Murphy, I would suggest keeping your trap shut unless you do!

 

[TheFriskySpatula]

Yep, violent video games create mass murderers, just like violent movies caused murderers in the late 1900's, and rock and roll caused satanism in the 60's.

People love finding something to blame on society's problems, and video games just got the short end of the stick this decade.

 

[Oly J]

correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the whole supreme court mandate thing from a couple years ago render even talking about legislation completely pointless? why is this here?

 

[Insanely Asinine]

This is why I hate senators. They want to blame things instead of the individual. The individual is at fault not inanimate objects. Sorry that's the reality of things.

 

[KeyMaster45]

"Now, nobody can sit here for certain and say that without any one of those things, without the powerful weapons, without the mental illness, without the exposure to video games, this wouldn't have happened[...]

Umm...no, no. I'm certain that without the weapons it wouldn't have been possible for him to do what he did.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Trust me, I am an expert as that senator is.

Gun is intimately linked to the shootings.

Umm...no, no. I'm certain that without the weapons it wouldn't have been possible for him to do what he did.

Even if there wasn't a gun, I am pretty sure that killer would've been tired after stabbing 10th child or so.

 

[barbzilla]

I am sure the use of soft drinks leads to school shootings. I don't have any evidence for it and no studies not funded by people aligned with my ideology can back it up, but it /is/ rather suspicious that all teenagers who shoot up schools, have drunk at least one can of cola in the months preceding.

Time for a full ban on soft drinks.

Really? I have it on good authority that all of these psychos wore socks as well, that must be a factor to be considered. I have also heard rumors of the fact that they all ate food on or around the days of the shootings.

OT: People are morons, and they just want to know that there is something being done about these events. The politicians have no more of an idea what causes this crap than the citizens, so they find a convenient scapegoat to place the blame on. This is no different than witch hunts of yesteryear.

 

[Mitsozuka]

Sighs.

"But we do see a trend where some of these shooters do have exposure to these video games."

I suspect he also ate food, drank liquids, slept in a bed and wore clothes. It's this wonderful thing called "cause and effect" Mr Murphy. Something being common in all of these cases does not mean that they actually had any relevance. Until we invent time travel so we can see if removing gaming from these peoples lives would have changed anything, it is nothing more than pointless speculation.

Pointless speculation AND hatemongering sensationalism! It's the bread and butter of yellow politics laid as bare as a peeled banana!

 

[Eggsnham]

In his defense: At least he admitted that there was no evidence to back it up and is supposedly attempting to find some.

That's better than what most anti-gaming advocates bring forth.

But yeah, it's still stupid. Is there no end to the baseless scapegoating of gamer culture?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Road Rage - People get angry while driving and attack. BAN CARS.
Spree kills - Man angry at work, kills people in job. BAN WORKING.
Partner kills - Man angry at wife, cheating etc kills her. BAN RELATIONSHIPS.
Sports kills - Man kills opposite fans cos his team lost. BAN SPORTS.
Religion - Good one this, terrorism and murder with links to religion. BAN RELIGION.
Drink - Man gets drunk, kills person by accident. BAN ALCOHAL.

But this never happens even though all these things have obvious links to violence. Emotion, anger issues or mental health. A game has never been linked to death and violence, and the only times it has, its because of anger issues. As in anger as was beaten in a game (same happens in sports) or mum stops kid playing console as punishment - kid kills parent (again anger). Again adults that kill and are violent and dont play games. So how do they explain that? What game was Hitler playing? Hell, we train young men and women to kill as soldiers. Also i think its takes more than a game to make you gun down a bunch of 6 year olds.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

"What we know is that this young man, deeply mentally ill..."

Noooooo shit. In the words of Chris Rock: "Why can't they just be crazy?"

Because that's scary. And people are already scared. People forgot how to protect themselves or to even admit when there's a problem.

Not everyone can be saved. It's a realization that Mrs. Lanza came by too late. She tried and tried, she gave her son chances, as any loving mother would... But love does blind. Who wants to admit their child could be broken beyond repair? Who wants to associate their unconditional love to a monster. No, it's better in their minds to hope and pray that it will all sort its self out.

Meanwhile, No one wants to admit that our children can cause fear. That anything that we consider so harmless and innocent can be different than what we want to believe. It's impossible. If that were so, any one of the hundred of people we see can be a ticking time bomb. Any one! Not just the big loud men, the minorities, and the like. We have to open our field of vision to make EVERYONE a potential threat. And in our lives, we can't handle that idea any more. We're out of the woods, out of the jungle... we're 'civilized'. We shouldn't fear.

But we do. We have to. It's out there and it is hunting us. And we can't turn a blind eye to it fast enough. Think about it, when it was inner city youths, these people were happy. It's not us. It's not at our door step.We avoid that and we're safe. But now that it is at their doorstep... where is there left to run?

I remember Columbine well. Mainly because my parents moved my brother and I out of the inner city to escape the violence that was accepted there. At that point, I felt more vulnerable than any drive bys I was ever in. My mom, my brother, my dad... we wouldn't be safe any where. Violence isn't a location, it isn't a illness or a one off event... It was life. you couldn't escape it no matter how you tried.

That's why people can't be crazy. Crazy can't be controlled. It can't always be spotted. It is random and it is deadly. Games are easily controlled, therefore people feel they have power over it. They went from music, to D&D to mvies, to games. Instead of realizing it's human nature to be this messed up, they rather just point the figures and hope a crusade against this will distract people from the awful truth.

 

[BarkBarker]

Heyyyy, games are more mainstream now, which means more people play them and are exposed to them, which means they are a great scapegoat for any and all actions of violence, it's not like his mental illness is a HUGE ENORMOUS factor, hell if a unstable person kills the president because he said he thought the president was secretly working for the KitKats, we should ban all the treacherous KitKats and KitKat supporters out there, KitKats are going to go into your candy store and oppress your children!

 

[1337mokro]

It should also be noted that these killings tend to happen in gun free zones. Literally, the only places a person can be guaranteed that no one else will have a gun.

It's a complex issue.

No really it isn't. The fact school shootings happen in schools, which are gun free for a VERY good reason, namely stupid children being stupid children, is because most of the times it's a kid who hates the other kids in school and wants to shoot them up.

If we simply compare nations with and without guns we quickly see the real problem.

The Netherlands, 1 school shootings in the past 10 years, just one victim.
Australia, 2 school shootings, both resulted in 0 dead. Heck really it was just one school shooting, because only one used a gun.

America? They are #1!!! In fact they are so good at em that Wikipedia has a SEPARATE page devoted to just American school shootings. The year is barely half round and we already have about 13 school shootings, with 14 dead.

You can pretend it is a complex difficult issue, but it's not. It's a very simple issue. The gun culture is the source of the violence. This HAS actually been studied and guns ended up above videogames in the list of causes for aggression. Easy access to a gun and the ability to freely learn how to use one creates a gigantic hazard where a kid who is pissed off or mentally unstable can just take his parents guns, which is what happened, and then go to the school and start shooting.

In countries without guns school shootings almost never happen. Worst case scenario a kid gets a gun through illegal means or because his stupid dad actually told his son where he stored it.

Here is the review article, it provides links to other articles should you be interested.

http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=honors_et

PS: Before you start about the second amendment, oh how you people love to TALK about it, I want you in the streets fighting the government over how they are violating the fourth, the first and basically creating legal corruption. The second amendment is not a gun collectors or self defense clause, it's supposed to be there to ensure that the people are able to defend themselves against the government, so unless you start marching on DC right this instance any arguments you bring in using this one are null and void.

 

[RJ 17]

Conversely there is absolutely no link between violent video games and violent crime, there is always going to be violent crime regardless of whether there is any media that reflects it or not. People have been killing each other for centuries, well before there were FPSes to scapegoat.

You mean kinda like how there will always be violent crimes whether or not there's guns around? Or the fact that people have been killing each other for centuries, well before guns were around to scapegoat?

Edit: I'm not saying that guns don't make acts of violence easier, I'm arguing against the point "guns cause violence". They don't "cause" violence any more than games do.

Guns are a tool created, refined and manufactured expressly for the purpose of killing people/things. Yes, they don't 'cause' violence any more than games do, but given that a gun is a tool of violence and games are not (Games are created expressly to entertain, or in some cases to rip off paying consumers under the pretence of entertainment), I would say that guns are a much better target for political aggression than video games are. It just so happens that the American government is one of, if not the, most corrupt political systems in the world and the NRA has the biggest stranglehold on them.

And that's another discussion for another day and I really don't feel like delving into that at the moment. My entire point, as expressed before, was in contension to the concept "guns cause violence". Guns can be used for violence, just like knives, hammers, cars, shoes, 2 liter bottles of soda, and damn near anything else. But guns can also be used for things such as hunting and self defense.

My entire point is that the person is the one who makes the decision to use a gun for violence Edit:(that is, to commit a violent crime)End Edit, just as it's the person who makes the choice to use all of the other things I listed for violence. But that person can also make the choice to NOT us the gun for what would be considered "violence". By that I mean such things as school shootings vs home defense. A bad use vs a legitimate use.

 

[Anathrax]

The guy makes a point. I mean, did you not see all the kids who tried piloting aircrafts after watching Top Gun, or the teens who had murdered their families through song after a Justin Beiber concert?

Let's not forgot what the Bible/Quran/Treasure Island says:[footnote] NO OFFENCE MEANT HERE, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME[/footnote]

Thou shall not address an enemy as a ******, lest a camper smite thee.
Thou shall not 360 no scope nor noobtube.
Thou shall not play vidya garmes, lest you be tainted by the heretic icons such as Italian Plumber or Hairy Sorceress and follow in their murderous footsteps.
May your new dog models lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the destructible terrain.

...I'm starting to think these guys have no clue what a video game is.