Irish Community Leader Blames Arizona Massacre on Games

[Jonci]

It actually took longer than usual for me to read news that some idiot is blaming video games on this. I guess Sarah Palin was an easier target for awhile.

Of course this guy probably never took the time to know what the hell he was taking about. It's been very clear that violent crime has gone down since the video games became popular. And it is already known that the assassin had serious rage issues.

Know what I want to do after killing hundreds of zombies in Left 4 Dead? Take a nap. Never felt the need to go on a killing spree.

 

[Hybridwolf]

Huh. So because your Irish, I'm going to assume you drink yourself to near death every spare moment, that your a master of river dance and that you look for pots of gold at the ends of rainbows...Sterotyping works so well doesn't it?

OT: This man is an ignorant jackass. Nevermind the fact he wasn't entirely sound to begin with, nor had his own twisted polictial views. It was violent media which made Jarad go on a killing spree. Nothing else. /facepalm

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Or maybe he's shocked and reeling? Maybe he's wondering 'how in the hell could this happen right under our noses?' and has leapt to a conclusion? It's less fun and comforting than assuming he's a stereotype but there we go.

If he was involved in the Belfast agreement, then he knows bloody well how it could happen. But he's chosen to make it a soundbite instead, that's why people are pissed off.

 

[P.Tsunami]

I'm such a waste of space, I haven't killed anyone today in Minecraft.

Imagine how I'm feeling. I've played Alpha Protocol for three hours today and haven't killed a single person, either. And the game is rewarding me for it with a trophy.

 

[nin_ninja]

I think I'm going to replace all my video games with stuff like Barbie's Horse Adventure and shit like that, then go on a rampage. I wanna leave the media sputtering that Barbie made me kill people.

The horses speak to me, they tell me to do things. If I don't they make me groom them for hours!

Ahem, anyways, that would be interesting.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

This is the Arizona shooting that was where Sarah Palin's website had the crosshair over it, right?

The one she called for a "blood libel" on?

Where Loughner himself "believed in numerous conspiracy theories and espoused views such as: the United States Government was responsible for the September 11 attacks; a New World Order would bring about a one world currency; there would be a 2012 apocalypse; NASA had faked spaceflights; and the government was using mind control to brainwash people by controlling grammar."

But it's about games. Thank you Niall for helping us to see that. Perhaps if they didn't have games, the Irish Republican Army wouldn't have killed so many people. Or perhaps they would have anyway.

/spit

I am in disagreement on the whole "Sarah Palin is at fault" idea because his friends have said that he is a leftist pot head who never watched TV, he talked constantly of mind control and the 2012 doom's day prophesy, and he lists his favorite books being "the Communist Manifesto," but either way you cut it, VIDEO GAMES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Yet another person sadly divorced from any knowledge of the human condition, believing that "If only we got rid of THIS, THIS and THIS, nobody would ever murder anyone ever again". I hate to be the bearer of (incredibly old) bad news, but human beings have been murdering each other for tens of thousands of years, and they didn't have video games or movies or rock 'n roll influencing them for the vast majority of the time.

The bottom line here is that Jared Loughner was an exceptionally mentally-unstable young man who fell through the cracks. So why isn't anyone looking towards filling in those cracks? It's easier to blame nebulous concepts and believe that if they were removed, nothing bad could ever happen again.

 

[Acidwell]

Irish Community leader? Really? I've never heard of him and neither have any of my friends. What community is it he leads exactly? Because he sounds like a random idiot shouting out whatever rubbish comes to his mind first.

 

[Ruairi iliffe]

And while everybody has an opinion, O'Dowd can't be dismissed as just another noisemaker with a website. He played a role in establishing the Belfast Agreement in the Northern Ireland peace process, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by University College Dublin and was made an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The official launch of IrishCentral.com in 2009 was attended by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

And Yet I have very limited knowledge of this man, which is odd since i have a good few friends in N.Irish Political circles, Then saying that Everyone and their mother was Involved in those talks. As For the Anti-game rhetoric, that's to be expected the south is going though a Very Anti-new media frenzy at the moment, with some talks on limiting Internet access and a new rating system separate from the BFFC/PEGI to 'limit' games and DVDs.

 

[Master10K]

Hmmm... Didn't know that games like Starcraft, Diablo & Earth Empire spawned mass murderers. I guess that means that I'll soon go off on a shooting spree shouting out "My Life for Auir!"

 

[Blackjack 222]

Am i the only one in favor if lining up these idiots and pushing them into the grand canyon?

 

[Yer man o'er yonder]

And while everybody has an opinion, O'Dowd can't be dismissed as just another noisemaker with a website. He played a role in establishing the Belfast Agreement in the Northern Ireland peace process, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by University College Dublin and was made an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The official launch of IrishCentral.com in 2009 was attended by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

It's a pity that someone with such an impressive background can't wait for some facts and evidence to emerge before drawing iron-clad, "for sure" conclusions about the role videogames played in making this massacre happen.

I would argue that his opinion can be dismissed. A lot of people were (and many more claim to have been) involved in the Belfast agreement. Hasn't really worked very well. There's still plenty of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. UCD (and most other universities in Ireland) award a lot of honorary degrees, I don't believe they really mean very much, it's just a recognition of a persons actions in some way. As for the opening of his website, well the Taoiseach is still an Irish politician, they'll open just about anything. Hell, Irish politicians regularly open stretches of unfinished roads.

As for his drawing of conclusions, it's something we Irish people like to do. We love to speculate and complain about everything. We've regularly complained about our politicians ineptitude over the years but we keep voting for them. It's something we do. For an example of this national pastime see this very post...

 

[KaosuHamoni]

Whadaya' know... Yet another ignorant politician blaming a medium that he doesn't understand, purely because he has nothing else to blame...

A psycho curbstomped a baby. Must be video games.
A son shoots his mother because she asked him to do his homework. Must be video games.
Identical twins go on a neighbourhood shooting, before commiting suicide. Surprise, surprise... Vid'ya games?

These people are dangerously unbalanced as it is, and trying to blame a medium just as big as the music industry, if not bigger, is just ridiculous. It makes no difference if they've played GTA 4, they're still going to go on to commit murder, games or not, and I'm sick of closed-minded people directing blame on a vulnerable medium, and it's about high time it stops. -.-

-sigh-

 

[Ninjamedic]

As For the Anti-game rhetoric, that's to be expected the south is going though a Very Anti-new media frenzy at the moment, with some talks on limiting Internet access and a new rating system separate from the BFFC/PEGI to 'limit' games and DVDs.

My Hospital could be closed down, and these cunts are wasting money on CENSORSHIP FOR GAMES!!!

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Well i better stop playing solitaire then eh? I never knew that the Ace of Spades was brainwashing me to kill the whole time.

 

[VivaciousDeimos]

Good god that picture creeps me out.

So.Damn.Creepy. *shivers slightly*

When they trot out these excuses and blame the videogames, I'd like to ask them, which particular videogame made Charles Whitman climb that clocktower? Oh, what's that? None of them? Oh, that's right because it was 19fucking66 and Pong wouldn't be around for another six years. People have gone on killing sprees long before video games existed, and will probably still once video games have been replaced by...whatever they're going to be replaced by.

And maybe the people who go on these shooting sprees are partially influenced by the media, but mostly...I think there's something wrong with them. Be it a brain tumor, psychosis, bad upbringing, or simply broken by life's many failures, the core of the problem is them, and propping up a convenient target for the media to latch onto isn't going to help matters for anyone.

 

[temporalcrux]

I think I'm going to replace all my video games with stuff like Barbie's Horse Adventure and shit like that, then go on a rampage. I wanna leave the media sputtering that Barbie made me kill people.

The horses speak to me, they tell me to do things. If I don't they make me groom them for hours!
(Lawyer)
Ahem, anyways, that would be interesting.

"Your Honor, the Defendant is CLEARLY insane. Either before hand, because he found the ability to play over 70 hours a week of "Barbie's First Menstruation", or after, BECAUSE HE PLAYED OVER---

(Judge)
I see your point. Institutionalize him for observation, all charges of manslaughter are withheld until sanity is proven one way or the other.

 

[Motiv_]

God dammit O'Dowd, you're Irish, you're supposed to be smarter than this. I thought we went through this several times before, but you have failed the "Common Sense" portion of this class. Please take your seat, let's go over this again.

Millions, if not billions, of people play video games each and every day. Out of all of those millions of people, I can only remember off the top of my head 1 person who was inexplicably linked in violence to game usage, that being the Columbine shooter.[footnote]He made a video on his webcam before the incident professing that he wanted to "Play real life Doom"[/footnote]

The only people who can't differentiate virtual violence from real life violence are the mentally ill and the psychotic, yet you act as if playing a game will brainwash you into curb stomping the nearest liberal because that's "How the game plays".

Are you up in arms over the North Hollywood shootouts, where the two gunmen reenacted the heist scene from Heat, all the way down to the fully automatic assault rifles and fight with police? Are you angry that the police found a VHS of Heat sitting in their apartment? Are you saying that movies cause people to rob banks and go on psychotic rampages?

Help me understand, please.