Fox News Host Wants to Monitor Your Gaming Habits

[The Rogue Wolf]

The registration and tracking of firearms sales? Absurd.

The registration and tracking of video games sales? Totally legit.

Only in America.

It's confusing to you because you're using the logic "let's track something potentially harmful" vs. "let's track something highly likely to not be harmful", when they're using the logic "let's track something we love and worship" vs. "let's track something we don't understand and therefore fear".

A nice summary of American conservatism in general right there. "Big Government is bad!... Unless it's for people or things we don't like. Then Big Government is the most awesome thing ever!"

Well, this is the same party who in one breath screams about states' rights, then in the next proposes to force states with strict gun laws to recognize concealed-carry licenses issued in other states [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/hr-822-concealed-carry-bill_n_1097997.html].

Guys, it's Fox News. Scapegoating is their go-to tool to bring in the ratings whenever they can, and their audience eats it up because they're scared of what they don't understand.

 

[mrpollio]

Seung-Hui Cho is listed by the newscast as being addicted to video games. He didn't play games at all and was even considered weird for not doing so.

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/30/va-tech-report-rampage-killer-not-a-gamer

 

[AidoZonkey]

Its funny, right now Im drinking and playing a video game, and I have no desire to go out and kill someone.

You can't rationalize the mind of a psychopath, if a person is in that state of mind, anything can trigger that person to commit atrocities such as this. The only way to stop it is to make sure these people don't get there hands on weapons like semi-automatics, that can kill so many people.

Video games are never the cause, billions of people play video games around the world. If there was a correlation between event like this, they would be happening around the world, non stop, yet the majority of these events take place in countries where guns are available to almost anyone, such as America. I seriously struggle to understand why these guns aren't controlled, personal handguns I understand (I don't particularly like the idea of any gun being free to buy, but I can understand why people in the general public in some countries have them), but no member of the public should have a gun like a semi- automatic.

Damn it Fox News, even your resent poll showed that the public don't think that video games cause violence

http://nation.foxnews.com/poll/2013/09/12/do-believe-violent-video-games-are-to-blame-for-inciting-mass-murderers-as-some/

Fox news knows just how to push my buttons

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

Ugh, more bickering between anti-gaming nuts and anti-gun nuts. Why isn't there an "anti insane people who like to commit murder" group I can join. America is a bad place to be if you love both guns and video games.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

A mentally questionable person with access to videogames is NOT a threat.

A mentally questionable person with access to firearms IS a threat.

I don't know though, those old ps1 cases sure some sharp corners on them

Seriously though at this point I can't even get mad at fox for this type of crap anymore. It's quite comical in a way how they are so adamant to pin every thing on videogames or the some other scape goat despite many other more important factors involved, they can't even be bothered to use subtle mains anymore.

At this point the only thing they could do to vilify games more is to bring a game disc on air in a locked caged and start pointing and screaming, "Look! Look at the foul beast that they are putting in our children's homes! Do not get to close! This savage monstrosity will tear your arm off in blink of an eye! In fact do not look directly for even to look upon is do go mad!" Then to demonstrate this they bring on a actor "gamer" who immediately starts frothing at the mouth at the sight of the disc and savagely tears the head of a conveniently placed stuffed animal with his teeth.

 

[Norix596]

"One of the things that happens with events as tragic as this is people start to put blame in places they don't belong." #cognitivedissonance

 

[GonzoGamer]

What a bimbo...and framed by two himbos too.
It's fun to watch conservatives conflict their wish for smaller government with their wish for people who aren't exactly like them to be harassed by unnecessary government programs.
I've been playing GTA and been feeling quite non violent but watching that little bit of faux news makes me want to go run over dopey newscasters.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I've been playing alot of smite lately, so obviously the Government should be watching me since I'm apparently training for when Jesus comes back. THAT'S RIGHT CHRIST! I'M READY FOR YOU!!!

I'd like to point out that this is coming from an organization that calls itself Fox NEWS while readily admitting they don't provide a NEWS service. They obviously speak only in lies and thus solves the first part of the riddle, now to find the organization that speaks only in truths and then we can open the damn door.

First off, that made me laugh. Show that fig-hater who's boss! (no, that wasn't a typo)

Secondly, I actually got the riddle you were talking about, nicely done sir.

OT: *sigh* as per fucking usual, putting limitations or tracking on guns is absurd because guns don't kill people, people kill people, but of course video games are fair play because as we all know ideas are just as dangerous as bullets (wait, guns don't kill people but bullets do?) and need to be monitored. Yes, keep telling us how buying children video games is worse than buying them guns.
Seriously, isn't the video game market big enough to butt heads with the gun market yet? When the hell is someone on 'our' side going to put political pressure on everything that threatens it? I mean, other than keeping a stranglehold on copyright laws.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Stop mocking her. This argument makes total sense.

I know, because I played Company of Heroes for a couple of hours last night and came over with an unshakeable desire to invade Poland.

 

[Voltano]

I understand one reason why journalists like FOX news avoids the topic of gun control is due to the 2nd Amendment in North America. A law that cannot be overridden unless by another Amendment.

But video games are protected by the 1st Amendment. So would saying that the government regulate video games is the same as saying the government should regulate people listening to them?

 

[00slash00]

Ya know, every article on this site about Fox News is pretty much the same story, but it just never gets old. So if buying CoD and GTA puts me on a government list of being a possible mass murderer, does buying Cooking Mama and Phoenix Wright make me eligible to be a chef or practice law?

 

[wetfart]

Or the fact that the shooter was on SSRIs, which have linked with other shootings in the past. Clearly the mind altering chemicals had nothing to do with this.

 

[irok]

Ah fox, sewer journalism again I see well at least we've given them such an easy target seeing as a new GTA is out "games are causing random sudden violence, look at this one". And oh my god DiamanteGeeza brings such great information that I'm almost certain will be ignored by the media in the days to come remember the last shooting where they tried to blame mass effect and StarCraft? StarCraft for gods sake, cause we all know how much crime Korea has.

 

[Lunar Templar]

The registration and tracking of firearms sales? Absurd.

The registration and tracking of video games sales? Totally legit.

Only in America.

know what even more sad (besides people buying this BS) they are pretty much allowed to lie to the public like this. Shame really, the world would a better place with out this trash on TV

 

[mitchell271]

I'm just going to leave this here. Pretty much explains how I feel about the whole issue.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

In psychology we have this thing called a "third variable". Drawing the conclusion that A automatically leads to B might seem logical, but if you look a bit closer you might see that there's some third factor (C) that leads to both A and B, but doesn't imply a relationship between A and B at all. "After this, therefore because of this" as a logical fallacy.

So, you know, maybe an obsession with violence(C) could lead to an obsession with violent video games(A) and also lead to a desire to act out in violent ways in real life(B). Then for good measure you could add that what makes the simple desire for violence turn into real violence is opportunity. An opportunity to acquire lethal weapons and the opportunity to use them at real people which just about every (so far) law abiding citizen of the US has with those liberal gun laws.

 

[Drummodino]

Correlation does not equal causation. How many times do I need to say this? So this guy was addicted to violent video games huh? Putting aside the fact that the a large proportion of the young adult demographic also plays these, maybe his addiction stemmed from his mental health issues, not the other way around? Seems a more logical conclusion to me.

Also good luck tracking games sales or enforcing "lockouts" after playing for so long. We wouldn't put up with Microsoft's 24 hour check in, no way your getting support for that.

 

[Baresark]

I want to make some false connections to:

I have hard, rigorously tested data that says that all people who have ever committed murder have at least one parent. We should probably keep an eye on people who have one or more parents. I also understand that every person in the history of the world who has committed murder, mass murder, and even suicide has had to consume food to live.

So, you know, maybe an obsession with violence(C) could lead to an obsession with violent video games(A) and also lead to a desire to act out in violent ways in real life(B). Then for good measure you could add that what makes the simple desire for violence turn into real violence is opportunity. An opportunity to acquire lethal weapons and the opportunity to use them at real people which just about every (so far) law abiding citizen of the US has with those liberal gun laws.

Both arguments (for guns and videogames being the cause/problem) are results from another fallacy. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy (no pun intended). People are naturally affected by Apophenia (seeking meaningful patterns in random events). There is a random violent event (random as in completely unpredictable) and as random things tend towards clustering, then the common things that show up are going to be appear to contributing factors. In this case both the common use as videogames as a passtime for a huge portion of the US, and the common instance of gun ownership in the US, both of these things look awful suspect in absence of rigorous testing.

Because I don't know where to put in the actual explanation of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: The analogy is of an average Texan shooting randomly at the side of his barn. He then finds the biggest cluster of bullet holes and draws a bullseye around them, then claims to be a sharpshooter based on his clustering. In other words, only in hindsight do these things look like factors or even problems. Neither videogames nor guns are factors contributing to mental health. But, as I said in a previous post, no one can sit here and say him being armed wasn't a problem. The issue is that his mental condition was never taken into account or owned the gun before he had any signs of mental issues.

 

[Adultism]

New Law: If you buy too many violent video games we are just going to throw you in jail.

Honestly the way the people at Faux Nudes think if they were in charge we would all be oppressed and in chains "for our own good"

Living the American dream folks.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Yeah, because better mental healthcare in the US would use up all those taxpayer's dollars for nothing!

Honestly, I will never understand how people can so easily ignore root causes to society's problems in favour of making some extra cash.

Disgusting, Fox News. Disgusting.