Well, let's see. I'm a fairly avid speaker onto this sort of thing. I love games and I love violence. So, does that mean I'm going to cut someone into little chunks? I...think not. I'm inclined to fall in with the school of thought that games can prevent violence because of how much of your frustrations are aimed at IT instead of people. The problem is that gaming is neither a power for good OR for evil. The same can be said of the gun, or any piece of technology. It's up to the user. If the user falls into the blurring of reality and guns someone down, that's because he has issues. The games that are sold do not say "Go out and kill people in your neighborhood.". No. They tell you to kill people in the games.
And don't tell me that "Well, it's somehow implied.", because that is counter-productive to the industry. Game developers are a business, period. They sell entertainment for money. If they willingly cause people to go ape-shit-bazooka with their products, then they are not going to make anymore money, because of all these people saying how games are dangerous. So, if they have ANY brains, then no person who has ever gone crazy when there was supposedly a game involved would be that way on purpose. Game developers want people to sit at home, pull up a controller, and play their products. In other words, they like inactive couch potatoes.
Now, the test for common sense idea, I like very much. (Mostly because I would always pass.) I'm not sure exactly how you would apply it, because there doesn't seem to be a fully easy way to ascertain if a person has got their head on straight. I mean, if you ask him questions, he could lie...maybe. I dunno. Common sense is uncommon sometimes, though, so I would love to see a working method of using that.
