U.S. Senator Seeks New Study of Violent Videogames

[charge52]

Oh and BTW China and Japan have had mass stabbings so gun control is a waste of time people will kill people if they want to.

http://nyctalking.com/mass-stabbing-in-china/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre

People got stabbed so that makes gun control useless?
In china, 22 injured with a knife, no deaths.
In Japan Akihabara with a knife, four deaths.
In Japan Osaka with a knife, eight deaths.
In America with a gun, twenty-six deaths.

Tell me again about how not having guns makes no difference.

Sorry 1 hurt is still 1 too many. We need to solve the problem not blame the tools used. I am not going to play bait the troll and I have nothing else to say about this...

That was not the point, maybe you should re-read it instead of putting words in my mouth(keyboard?).
I never said someone hurt was fine, or that banning guns was all that was needed, my point, which you completely ignored, was that your original statement about how knife attacks make gun bans a waste was stupid. My point was that 3 knife attacks in 2 different countries did not have as many casualties as 1 shooting, combined, clearly showing that guns are more dangerous, and that without them criminal's cannot kill as many as easily.

Again, tell me about how not having guns makes no difference.

 

[dmase]

So basically do a study that's been done and already agrees with current regulations on movies and videogames?

Why should scientific inquiry be ordered to stop just because other research has already been done? That's the exact opposite of the very notion of peer review.

Now granted, if this Senator had called for an exact replication of previous studies right down to their methodology without evidence that the previous study had failed in some way, you might have a case for criticism. But to my knowledge that is not the case.

If gamers truly believe that their medium does not cause violence, they should have the confidence to let it be examined.

Politics isn't science I'd be more interested in a study started by an academic then a politician. And my point still stands the study wouldn't effect legislation at all except for possibly some type of censorship law but I doubt that would happen.

 

[Steve Waltz]

Oh my, what a waste of time and money.

Violent video games are (usually) not made for children. Even if they find some sort of negative result they'll have nothing to act on, considering there are warnings on the boxes of games. What do they plan to do with the results? Shove it in the face of the video game industry and say, "Look what I found!" They very well might find something, considering how impressionable children are, but there's nothing productive they could possibly do this the results. They might as well study the effects adult films have on children for all the usage this study will bring.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm less and less worried about these moves.

Let's say that he actually goes through with new legislation against violent games.

In the cases when a violent game has any importance as a culturally relevant piece of art, (Spec Ops, Dishonored) it's already being supported by hardcores who heard about it online anyways, so further limit on sales to children, or on store sales, wouldn't cause much if any harm to them, it might even encourage bringing other genres forward. Advnture games, strategy games, etc.

If EA and Activision would make less money from pandering to millions of teenagers with their gun-glorifying "realistic miliatry shooters", so be it. For all I know, it might even really help the USA's fucked up cultural mentality about guns and shootings.

That's a good point. Thanks for finding a positive way to look at this.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Is it wrong to admit as a Canadian I really enjoy watching America tear itself to pieces whenever something like this comes up? It's goddamn good entertainment really. 27 people die in shooting, America argues with itself for months. I'm always rooting for some semblence of sanity to fall over the country and everyone has a happy ending, but it never does. But hey, least I'm entertained while watching the fallout.

 

[Something Amyss]

I really don't like talking with people when they don't even have the common courtesy to be polite while trying to make a point by replying to me.

Me too. Fortunately, there's no real relevance here, so I can only assume you're making some random unrelated observation.

Though if you REALLY want to know, while I am against banning guns all together because I think that there are just too many of them now in our system for it to do large amounts of good and it will be depriving more people of those that want to use it for self defense and not so much those that want to use them to cause harm because they won't be above acquiring guns illegally, I do believe that we need more strict gun control laws. What should they be? I don't know. I'm only a first year college student, I don't have the answers.

There.

So you didn't answer any of the related questions I asked you, but instead decided to go on a speech about the exact thing you don't think belongs here?

I'm a little lazy and didn't check, but did I ever ask you your stance on guns or gun control?

 

[Erttheking]

I really don't like talking with people when they don't even have the common courtesy to be polite while trying to make a point by replying to me.

Me too. Fortunately, there's no real relevance here, so I can only assume you're making some random unrelated observation.

Though if you REALLY want to know, while I am against banning guns all together because I think that there are just too many of them now in our system for it to do large amounts of good and it will be depriving more people of those that want to use it for self defense and not so much those that want to use them to cause harm because they won't be above acquiring guns illegally, I do believe that we need more strict gun control laws. What should they be? I don't know. I'm only a first year college student, I don't have the answers.

There.

So you didn't answer any of the related questions I asked you, but instead decided to go on a speech about the exact thing you don't think belongs here?

I'm a little lazy and didn't check, but did I ever ask you your stance on guns or gun control?

I couldn't help but feel that you weren't being that polite.

Uh, you kinda did, with the whole "what would for feel more comfortable with your kid bringing to school, Mass Effect 3 or a gun" question. Really, had I no freaking clue what point you were trying to make with that little rant you were going on, and given the topic, I thought that you were talking about gun control and my opinion on it.

Ok, this conversation really is over now.

 

[Thanatos5150]

Nor does it make this any of the government's business. I believe the phrase is "it takes a village," not "it takes an uncaring pack of federally funded, pandering idiots." Federal government should stick to the federal level of governing and stay the fuck out of people's homes.

If we know that smoking is unhealthy, then government might "stay the fuck out of people's homes", but at least they are expected to control advertisements that would glorify smoking, or selling cigarettes to children in shops.

It's the same with video games. IF there is reasonable proof that violent video games increase agression in children, that can be a pretty good reason to stop advertising violent games on mainstream TV, or limiting where they can be sold.

Point of contention: there is no amendment of the US constitution guaranteeing your right to use drugs. There is an amendment guaranteeing your right to free speech(it's pretty early in the list). The federal government's own framework forbids it to create any restricting legislation in this matter(and as we saw earlier in the year, prevents the states from doing anything about it as well).

We're not talking bout parents letting the 360 babysit the child. All studies indicate an increase in violent/destructive behaviour with as little as 30 minuets of gametime.
Of course, this increase in destructive behaviour is also noted with violent movies and television as well, with the differences in intensity being either fairly minimal (and statistically irrelevant) or incomparable.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

So funny. Countries have been doing studies for years to find if they cause violence. An in every case there was no credible link. But then they blame everything, used to be heavy metal and rock and roll, EC comics and also horror movies.

I want a study about whether guns cause people to shoot others? You know the feeling, that gun just sitting their un used, full box of bullets just begging to be slotted into someones squishy body? Some people just have no willpower. ;-)

 

[00slash00]

my how time flies, is it demonize video games o'clock already? are we going to look into banning violent books too, since those have been linked to a hell of a lot more shootings than games or movies? seriously, the government has this same conversation every year

 

[kenu12345]

Wait what the hell does the recent shooting have to do with video games. Theres not even proof the murderer did play them. There was proof his brother did but we all know that means jack chiz

 

[punipunipyo]

YES!!~~~ this is how we all should do it! when a crazy decides to shoot up kids, we should take action!~ study kids(that are left) and their games!~ "wait... what? Grand Thief Auto is NOT game for kids? We are still going to try to pull that off the shelf, just because SOME ONE have to take the fall (and we know CAN'T BE NRA because they bring us great lobby... I mean SECURITY!~ like AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN FOR HUNTING!~) for these kids' death... and we know ALL PARENTS HATES VIDEO GAMES!~~~"