U.S. Senator Says Videogames Are Worse Than Guns

[BOOM headshot65]

I love being a republican on this website. I get to see all the funny generalizations that Obama-nazis make about republicans. ( see what I did there? Generalizations are great!). I registered republican because 1) I like guns. Lots of guns. Big guns. 2) because I can vote in primaries and have a miniscule chance of keeping a blubbering idiot out of the elections (not all of us are homophobic, xenophobic, believe the world was created 6000 years ago, or stupid).

Good to know I am not alone. I am also registered republican for your Reason #2, however, my reason #1 is diffrent, namely:

1) I want to get a carrer in politics (namely, as a stratagist), and it is hard to get ahead in Kansas without being Republican.

Of course, while I am registered republican and will normally vote there, I am moderate who moves all over the place in my views. Should be interesting to see how I am accepted.

 

[Auron]

I kind of miss the days when they blamed everything on rock music

Being a metalhead musician and a gaming nerd must mean I'm the worst kind of person.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Because no one feels empowered on a situation when hey have magnum on their hands. Yeah guns give no psychological edge over anything. They are just on as equal ground during a fight than someone with fists and harsh language.
To quote DOTA2 Sniper here:
"HA!.. You brought a knife to a gun fight! Loser!"

Seriously is there some kind of a test of stupid and blind agenda before you are allowed to get in to politics in USA?

 

[Mikeyfell]

If I wasn't so busy playing Borderlands 2 right now I would shoot him in the face.


I'm 100% sure that video games have saved more people than they've killed. Because they've never killed anyone!
(Except maybe somebody who played World of Warcraft for like 347 hours in a row and died of dehydration)

How do we end up electing people who are so FUCKING stupid? How!?!?! HOW!?!?!?!?!
Really how did he make it out of high school with absolutely no powers of deductive reasoning or common sense?

Forget guns, forget video games, forget abortion and gay marriage. We as a nation need to invest more money in education so no one that stupid ever gets elected Senator again.

It's just sad. Not Hilarious. Yes it sounds hilarious, and by rights would be hilarious if it was on Saturday Night Live. But it's not! That really happened in the real world. Where people aren't supposed to be comically exaggerated stereotypes of themselves.

That's literally impossible for a stand up comedian to make fun of, because the dumbest possible combination and intention of words was used by the very person they'd be making fun of! Don't you see how tragic that is? When there's not a way to make something that extreme funnier that's tragic. We as a people should be ashamed that that man didn't choke on the marbles when he was 6. Natural selection has failed. That guy is Really an actual Senator, someone who is too dumb to be rightfully alive is a Senator. We've lost.

It's...It's depressing.

Don't have kids. If you voted for this guy don't have kids, Because you're obviously mentally compromised and shouldn't have your influence or gene pool influencing the next generation.
If you thought this was funny don't have kids, Because you're unfit to prepare the next generation to tell the difference between the tragedy of reality and entertainment value of comedy.
If you realize how tragic this really is don't have kids, because the first two groups aren't going to listen to me and they're going to have kids anyway.

 

[Movitz]

See, this is the problem I have with western politics of today: every politican appears to be more or less a glorified lobbyist (spelling?), who doesn't really care about coming with long time solutions to complicated problems. Instead they try to shift the blame to everything but their own thing.

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

Ok, American Escapists, I have a question for you that I've been wondering about since George W Bush got in office: Why do you keep on letting people that would lose an IQ test to a candy bracelet and a shovel get into your goverment?

I don't know. I apologize for them, however. I'm trying to get them out as soon as I can.

 

[waj9876]

Are...are video games still being blamed? As in, in a serious, non reaction in response to a tragedy way?

...And they wonder why those of a younger generation are waiting for all of the old, prejudiced, corrupt politicians to die out and progress can be made. Hell, this isn't even a Democrat/Republican thing, I don't fucking care about either, but the more bullshit like this happens, the more I'm hoping the next guy like this just happens to have some kind of accident so we might be able to have someone...rational and reasonable in office, at some point in the next century.

 

[Zyra10]

Didn't I see this topic before (Re: politician wants to ban video games to shift blame from guns)?

I swear this is the second topic like this in about a month.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Everytime I see a story like this I think: Thank god that in 30 years crap like this will cease to be spewed from the mouths of our leaders.

Huh? So stupidity is set to be eradicated by 2043? How's that again?

Not stupidity neccessarily, but all the old right wing nutjobs will be long dead by then and more of today's youth/people will be in their positions instead.

That's fantasy. It's exactly what the hippies of the 1960s thought, before they grew up and got more greedy and corrupt. There's an old saying about how power corrupts. If anything, society has been on a rightward trajectory, with a resurgence of fundamentalist religion and right wing politics like nothing we saw in the 90s. There are new right-wing (and left-wing, for that matter) nutjobs being born every day. There's no shortage of supply.

When you're young, you have lots of energy, you're generally healthy. You spend a lot of time in school thinking about ideas. Money isn't a big issue, you can survive on very little. As you get older, you have more bills to pay. You might have a boring job that takes most of your energy away. You develop medical conditions, and pay more bills. Maybe have a family to support. You find that your idealism takes a battering from the practical realities of life. That's how it is for most people - just living a modest life and paying the bills is enough. But for the people who are wealthy and connected enough to get into positions of power, the game's completely different. For them, "just getting by" is having millions in the bank and having the power to make or break people.

You don't get into positions of power, whether political or corporate, without sacrificing some ideals. And people will always crave power and money. How many of us would turn down billions of dollars and a CEO position at a tech company, even if it meant us tolerating child labor abuses or environmental destruction in return for profit? How many of our ideals could survive when it comes to the actual practical issues of running a country with a vast military and huge economy? The military-industrial complex does not change course easily, and even if you are the President, you have to make compromises to feed the machine.

Basically, every generation of youth says "things will be better when we young people are running things." The problem is that every generation of young people turns into old people just like the last one. Not that there's anything wrong with being old... lots of good things come with age and experience, like knowing that we've seen all of this happen before.

EDIT:

Sorry to make this even longer, but just to illustrate something - the old guys blaming video games here didn't grow up with video games, and don't understand the nuances of them. It's an alien thing to them. Just like previously:

Those who blamed electronic music for social ills didn't grow up with electronic music.
Those who blamed Dungeons & Dragons for Satan Worship didn't grow up with Dungeons and Dragons.
Those who blamed Heavy Metal for Satan worship didn't grow up with Heavy Metal music.
Those who blamed TV for moral decay didn't grow up with TV.
Those who blamed Rock'n'Roll for loose morals didn't grow up with Rock'n'Roll music.
Those who blamed Jazz music for social ills didn't grow up with Jazz music.

So now, we have people who grew up with video gaming. It is inevitable that something will come along that will make the video gamers uncomfortable and frightened about what the youth are doing "these days." Perhaps they will be turning themselves into cyborgs? Having their brains removed and put into jars directly connected to "cyberspace"?

The thing is, we don;t really know what the youth of tomorrow are going to be doing. It's probably going to be something we can't even imagine - just like the youth of yesteryear could never have imagined what video games are today. What is rebellious and youthful today is mainstream and conservative tomorrow, and there are always young people looking to shock and outrage their elders.

 

[Risingblade]

Well then, don't vote for this guy next election guys and gals from that state.

 

[TornadoADV]

Everytime I see a story like this I think: Thank god that in 30 years crap like this will cease to be spewed from the mouths of our leaders.

Huh? So stupidity is set to be eradicated by 2043? How's that again?

Not stupidity neccessarily, but all the old right wing nutjobs will be long dead by then and more of today's youth/people will be in their positions instead.

That's fantasy. It's exactly what the hippies of the 1960s thought, before they grew up and got more greedy and corrupt. There's an old saying about how power corrupts. If anything, society has been on a rightward trajectory, with a resurgence of fundamentalist religion and right wing politics like nothing we saw in the 90s. There are new right-wing (and left-wing, for that matter) nutjobs being born every day. There's no shortage of supply.

You don't get into positions of power, whether political or corporate, without sacrificing some ideals. And people will always crave power and money. How many of us would turn down billions of dollars and a CEO position at a tech company, even if it meant us tolerating child labor abuses or environmental destruction in return for profit? How many of our ideals could survive when it comes to the actual practical issues of running a country with a vast military and huge economy? The military-industrial complex does not change course easily, and even if you are the President, you have to make compromises to feed the machine.

Basically, every generation of youth says "things will be better when we young people are running things." The problem is that every generation of young people turns into old people just like the last one. Not that there's anything wrong with being old... lots of good things come with age and experience, like knowing that we've seen all of this happen before.

Overall levels of violence and proportion of military spending to GDP has been constantly falling since the JFK days. Things are getting better, people just need to make it look like they are doing something so they can keep their jobs.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Overall levels of violence and proportion of military spending to GDP has been constantly falling since the JFK days. Things are getting better, people just need to make it look like they are doing something so they can keep their jobs.

What does that have to do with the idea that right-wing nut jobs will "just die off" and a new idealistic generation will take over? This really has very little to do with my post, just as the nut jobs have very little to do with reality.

In fact, as things get more peaceful, that gives all the more reason to create artificial social scares. It's not like there's a massive trend towards atheism - religion is still going strong. It's not like there's a massive trend away from hard-core Capitalism and towards collectivism - the monied powers are just as entrenched as ever. And that's just looking at the developed Western world, not considering the developing world, where violence and fanaticism are still endemic. It's not considering changes in the way we wage wars in ever more distant, sanitized and efficient ways (drones, etc) which mask the reality.

 

[aelreth]

TornadoADV, indeed full auto rifles have been banned for close to 3 decades. However, any semi automatic rifle can be made full auto very easily. All you have to do is shave down the firing pin, or even easier, place a rubber band on a specific mechanism in the gun.

That's how ridiculously easy it to get a full auto gun here. That's why I feel like we need stricter gun laws.

To aelreth, you misunderstood me. I don't know anyone with a fully automatic rifle, but the people I know know how to make their rifles full auto (it's fairly simple actually) and I don't want them or anyone else to do that. I never want to own a fully automatic weapon myself. I'm actually planning to sell my rifle as I feel it is too much for home defense.

I'm simply stating that anyone who does research can figure out how to turn a semi-auto rifle into a fully-auto rifle fairly easily. That's why I think that these types of rifles should be banned.

Once again, I do not condone automatic rifles or heavy caliber machine guns.

How many calibers do you really need to take down some poor weak intruder?

Whatever the person in their own home in their case deems fit in this case. I as a man and one that can serve on a jury believe that you are fully responsible for what happens to what you are aiming at.

As for poor the weak intruder(s);

Concerning the fact that I live alone and they can bring friends (they often do), it would be in my own best interest that if my survival is on the line to cheat (they and their friends only bring the logistically feasible). You also should, it's YOUR life, you should do what you can to preserve it.

When we are in our respective dwelling if we can't defend it or our own lives, do we truly own our own flesh and our property?

Just as you, myself, and those associates of ours (or anyone that understands shop classes) can modify our own weapons so too can every single person that drives a car through ignorance or malice turn it into a multi-ton missile. Just because they can is not a reason to bind them all prematurely, we must instead encourage responsibility and discipline to be able to mitigate these things.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

"I think videogames [sic] is a bigger problem than guns, because videogames affect people," he said. "But the First Amendment limits what we can do about videogames and the Second Amendment to the Constitution limits what we can do about guns."

Seems legit.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

You also should, it's YOUR life, you should do what you can to preserve it.

When we are in our respective dwelling if we can't defend it or our own lives, do we truly own our own flesh and our property?

But on the other hand, what kind of life is it if you constantly feel the need to protect yourself in this manner? That's not a life of freedom to me, that's a life of fear. I'd rather be killed than to live life like that. I would rather live somewhere where arming myself isn't necessary.

And by and large, the threat is imaginary, and the protection offered by personal gun ownership largely ineffective or illusory. People may feel safer owning a gun, but the chance of that gun saving one's life from a home intruder is extremely low. Unless, perhaps you live in some war zone or other unusual circumstance. For most of the developed world's citizens, we will never be faced with a violent intruder. And if we are, the chances of us anticipating that intrusion, and surviving due to gun ownership is even more remote.

 

[aelreth]

But on the other hand, what kind of life is it if you constantly feel the need to protect yourself in this manner? That's not a life of freedom to me, that's a life of fear. I'd rather be killed than to live life like that. I would rather live somewhere where arming myself isn't necessary.

And by and large, the threat is imaginary, and the protection offered by personal gun ownership largely ineffective or illusory. People may feel safer owning a gun, but the chance of that gun saving one's life from a home intruder is extremely low. Unless, perhaps you live in some war zone or other unusual circumstance. For most of the developed world's citizens, we will never be faced with a violent intruder. And if we are, the chances of us anticipating that intrusion, and surviving due to gun ownership is even more remote.

I disagree, it's not illusory, if someone breaks into my residence while I am in it, I should not needlessly endanger myself by putting myself to their mercy. I am not going to subject myself to go toe to toe with someone that has violated the sanctity of my home.

If it is a statistical anomaly that causes me to be robbed, I should have the right to remove it, by force if required, luckily the state I'm in recognizes this (Alaska Statutes - Section 11.81.335). I prefer not to be a victim. Let victims react rather than wait for a first responder to arrive after the fact. I would rather the law abiding rule the non-law abiding through fear of death by gun owner. The reality we all live in is that we are one overlooked detail away from someone making our lives much more difficult.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I prefer not to be a victim.

Sounds like you already are. This hypothetical intruder has already gotten you to spend your money on "protection" and your time and peace of mind worrying about something that might never happen.

Anyway, what if it happens while you're asleep, or having sex, or they just catch you by surprise? Do you sleep with one eye open, with your handgun at the ready at all times? Because there's nothing that's going to guarantee you get the upper hand.

The reality we all live in is that we are one overlooked detail away from someone making our lives much more difficult.

Sounds like they already have.

I've never actually met anybody who has actually ever had a violent break-in to their house. You're much more likely to be injured or killed by being distracted on your phone while driving or crossing the road. Maybe your country and state is particularly violent or something?

I would rather the law abiding rule the non-law abiding through fear of death by gun owner.

That's an interesting choice of words. I thought America was founded against the idea of having "rulers" and instead was about freedom and democracy. The idea that gun owners should "rule" others is pretty creepy. The only rule should be that of law. And that same fear that you want to wield against the criminals is just as easily used by criminals against the law-abiding. Fear of being shot is not exclusively a criminal phobia.

Also, your idea of the law-abiding against the others seems rather black-and-white. Have you never broken any laws? Really? You've never broken the speed limit? Not crossed the road at an intersection? Embellished your tax returns? I don't think any of us can claim to be 100% law-abiding.