Video Games Are Evil! (a pre-emptive strike)

[supermanNBC]

America can't ban guns, their too afraid UK will invade.....lol

but heres the thing, video games is a quick and easy way to get people off topic so that they don't actually realize the actual issue...GUN CONTROL... Wasn't it like a few years ago shootings were blamed on bad movies...whatever happened to blaming a school shooting to Natural Born Killers... then wasn't music blamed...its funny how the most popular fad gets blamed each time... US is constantly kept afraid from tv, commercials and all the violence covered daily...its no wonder US is pumping out these shooters... High school is also another major thing that should be looked at..

When i went through high school... i had no friends, wasn't a wanted child, and was teased everyday. Even my art work was vandalized in art class with "loser" written all over it.. Did i think about shooting people, Ill admit and say yes, i wanted too, just certain people..but i knew it was wrong and i played video games everyday to get my mind away from school. So if video games cause violence then i should a gone off years ago..

"Side Note"
I moved out obviously, i have lots of friends, i work in the game industry as a 3D artist, no girlfriend at the time...too busy working ...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Americans fended off your piddling little island with guns

Nip back and read your history. Find out how close it actually was. The Redcoats were using guns as well.

There's a reason England had an Empire y'know.

I also was extreamly bothered by The_root_of_all_evil comment...
(he's talking about US vs brittish social support.)

"Nope, the UK has an atrocious support network and a far more infringing social structure. Again it's down to size and the fact that our cities that are multi-cultural have enough leeway to prevent gang warfare."

I can't find any better source right now but here is wikipedias list of serial killers by country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_country

The US has at least twice the amount of serial killers as any other country (which is a result of their social support). The US has atrocious social support while UK has average for a western country, even though average isn't good.

Given Wikipedia's US-centric bias, doesn't it make you wonder why a country of 302 million has only twice as many serial killers as a 60 million country? And I think you'd be very hard pushed to link social support with serial killing in any case.

I'd simply put forward the facts that there are parts of England that are under American Martial Law, there is no right to silence, the anti-terrorism act, the suicide rate whilst the UK gives out a greater percentage of it's income in charity each year than any other country in the world.

We have the most insecure and wide-ranging database that the public are blocked from and even parts of the Internet itself is blocked to UK ISP's.

Three of the four countries have had wars with England, one of which is in ceasefire and it's closest neighbour has been at war more times than any two other countries in history.

I'm extremely bothered by it as well, doesn't mean it's untrue.

And as for the multi cultural thing.. the US is a "melting pot" it's the personification of multi cultural...

Not an awful lot of Russians, Africans, Iranians, Australians, Greek, Scottish, Icelandic or even Native Americans though...
That's without going into World Knowledge, or can you honestly point directly to where Iraq is?

And as far as sice goes, Los Angeles inhabits 4 million people while London inhabits 8 million and the ruffest parts of LA is worse then the worst parts of London.(This last part was just my opinion but i think most of you would agree?)

18,000 families are homeless in London.(Guardian).
12,000 individuals in L.A. (L.A. Homelessness Report).
L.A. contains one of the greatest percentage of poor people in the U.S.(Above report)
London contains most of the greatest wealth. (Common Knowledge that one)
If Washington D.C. or Silicon Valley or Hollywood had 18,000 homeless families (1 in 3 with psychiatric problems) wouldn't you think that the President should do something about it? Or at least work on the upcoming Olympics.
London also has the congestion charge to make up for the fact that a litre of petrol here is more expensive than a gallon of it over there.

Make up your own minds.


BTW, I still think Fox are mental, but that's probably due just to them cancelling Firefly et al.

P.P.S. Anyone who hasn't thought of violence when they haven't got any Valentines is lying.
It's the RIGHT to do something about it that's the dangerous part.

 

[Scubamike1978]

Personally I'm glad the wackos go for guns rather than bombs. 5 people killed out of a room with 140? That's much better odds than said wacko going in with a home-made nail-bomb or two.

The prevalence of hand-guns / assault weapons in the USA is concerning.
Hand-guns, machine pistols, assault-style weapons are meant for one thing: Killing people.

Before I signed up, I had gone 26 years without seeing an automatic weapon or hand-gun (except overseas in Germany, Thailand, USA and Greece). Plenty of bolt-action rifles and shotguns but those are for hunting. You need to be very proficient (and I know America has had a few ex-military people do this) with a bolt-action rifle to kill many people. And if there was better support for those who risked their lives and limbs there would be much less violence amongst US ex-military.

 

[Zeddicus Zhul Zorander]

Now I know I'm throwing caesium into water here, if you'll excuse the nerdy reference, but my conservative sense is tingling.

You misspelled cesium Mr. Nerd.

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

Guns don't kill people. Crazy and stupid people kill people. People have always been killing other people, and they always will. If society keeps cutting more slack to those committing crimes, then the crimes will get worse. Cave paintings didn't drive people to kill others, music doesn't drive people to kill others, music doesn't drive people to kill others, poetry doesn't drive people to kill others, books don't drive people to kill others (most of the time), comics don't drive people to kill others, movies don't drive people to kill others, and videogames don't drive people to kill others. Get off your asses, pay attention to your child, don't abuse or neglect them, teach them right from wrong, don't let little Billy play "Super Mega Killing Area 6: Hellraizer on Earth, the Sequel".

 

[Nerdfury]

If I recall, many of the world's violent crimes in the roaring twenties were blamed on the rising evil of jazz and allowing black men to perform on stage.

And in the fifties, it was blamed on television.

And in the eighties it was Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, and let's not forget about the brief period where people were convinced that old-fashioned comics were the cause of rising homosexuality and violence.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

If it's easier to get ahold of guns more people will use guns. The argument "If someone wants a gun he will get it, if not legaly then illegaly." is very popular and it's very convincing but what would happen if we legalised drugs? A lot more people would use drugs. Accesibility is a big part of usage when it comes to every type of merchandise there is and the above argument does not take this into consideration. If it's hard to get guns, less people will get them.

Drugs were legalized for the vast majority of America's history and they weren't nearly the rampant social problem they are now. Not to mention there weren't hordes of gun-toting people running around fighting each other and the police for the rights to sell our country's children drugs off street corners.

Nip back and read your history. Find out how close it actually was. The Redcoats were using guns as well.

There's a reason England had an Empire y'know.

Are you always this humorless? My five year old niece could have seen the humor in my statement. Oh, and I didn't use an ad hominem argument earlier so go re-read the definition of an ad hominem argument and get back to me when you're ready to not be a moron. I pointed out that America's war on drugs has done nothing and that a "war on guns" would likely be equally as ineffective. In no way was that an appeal to emotionality but a logical assumption based on past historical events.

 

[Haliwali]

Guns don't kill people, magic missiles do.

 

[sapient]

Now I know I'm throwing caesium into water here, if you'll excuse the nerdy reference, but my conservative sense is tingling.

You misspelled cesium Mr. Nerd.

Oxford Dictionary, under the bridge at 9:15. Bring it, son.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Are you always this humorless?

About Death? Usually.

My five year old niece could have seen the humor in my statement.

See, that's the problem. That's an ad hominem argument.
[wiki = replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.]

Oh, and I didn't use an ad hominem argument earlier so go re-read the definition of an ad hominem argument and get back to me when you're ready to not be a moron.

And again.
Your original one was you compared banning guns to banning drugs (where drugs have an emotional involvement to the reader - negative), whilst banning guns would draw on positive emotions. So, the reality of it would be far different to banning something that is illegal anyway. Merely dismissing ideas because it's been tried before with something else entirely different seems a stretch.

You have no idea how long I've been wanting to discuss gun laws with people from the UK..

But then you come in telling us what we're doing without proper research. Bush tried that with solving our Northern Ireland problem. I can't tell you how much Sinn Fein laughed at that.

Oh and it's humour.


BUT....I think we're straying away from the original point here.
I can't judge America because I haven't lived there.
I'd suggest, and it's only a suggestion, you look up the Dunblane Massacre & Hungerford to see how we do respond to events like the one mentioned.

And in a return to the OP, it's often because the BBC don't sex it up as much as FOX. America's thirst to be TEH GRATEST IN TEH WROLD EVAH!!! also extends to it's serial killers.

This story, though best left buried for the family's sake, will sell 10,000 extra newspapers, 2 more episodes of Oprah/Dr. Phil and even a McDonald McMurder Burger range.

 

[DantehMan]

Guns don't kill people,, people kill people and after they have been killed or arrested the Police usually burst down the door miss all the clues and see a games console and see some kind of violent game like Peggle! and immedietely assume the worst

It's only natural for someone to jump on the band wagon that games are bad, then the media has a field day with it and spins things way out

Let me put it this way im a 21 year old Ex Student with a Degree in Information Technology Software, and a very comefortable job in IT fixing till systems in a very large company spanning most places that have tills around the globe,,, i own a 360 along with just about every console ever made ever (-the PS3 but i really HATE SONY for shutting down Lik-Sang) a huge LCD TV a nice computer Flat, Electric Bills, Girlfriend

The Works Basically

and I sometimes play violent games, so what??? my managers at work who are in their 40s are playing things like COD4 and some other stuff that needs not be mentioned like Barbie Horse Adventures..... all we do is sit and chat about it then get back onto the job at hand. I haven't seen anyone around the office randomly jumping out and stabbing people to death then T-Bagging the corpse.

Its only the already disturbed that do things like this and 9 times out of 10 its not even related to video games.




I wonder what the politically corrects arguments are to my ranting here then??

 

[Fire Daemon]

Gun laws can't and will not be changend. Its like cigarette companies and a want to ban cigarettes. Too many people have and want cigarettes. Making them illegal will anger millions of people, remove thousands of jobs and hurt the economy. Its the same with guns.

And even though guns and Cigarettes kill hundreds (more like thousands) of people every year they are making WAY to much money and have become FAR to popular for anything to change.

In Australia there was a massacre in Port Aurther originally named the Port Aurther Massacre. Well in 1996 one man armed with an Ak-47 killed 35 (don't trust my history) people. After this the newely elected Prime Minister Howard proposed to ban Automatic Fire arms in Australia. The argument was meet with anger by our local gun nuts but when it came to turn in the guns many people freely turned over their fire amrs and some decided not to take to cheque that the government gave for each gun that someone hannded in. It was public opinion that guns are bad and kill people and now we have one of the lowest amount of deaths by gunshot.

But in America is it not a God Given right that every man woman and children should have guns? America is a gun loving country and no amount of innocent deaths are ver going to change that.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Video-games don't kill people or make people want to kill other people

I decided to sumarise what everone has been saying so I can give my opinions more easily.

Look you can't say that. You Have no idea what is going in their brains or what they believe is the right thing to do. While most sane people don't think turning guns on people is a good thing to do this isn't allways the case with insane people.

Lets say a little boy saw his father hit is mother everynight, would you expect or be supprised to find out that the little boy hit his wife (or husband prehaps) evernight? Would you claim that the boys fathers actions didn't change his actions.
Ok now lets say that a differant boy was given and xbox and Manhunt for his birthday could you not claim by the above logic that the killing and violence in manhunt may leave impressions on the boy.

NOW I'm not saying that videogames turn us into killers but they do change us slightly.

Heres an example:

After I had been playing Gears of War heavily for about 6 months my dad and I watched the Dawn of The Dead remake. Well (spoiler alert) in the crazy bus scene when the bus slips and the old man holding the chainsaw cuts the lady in two (End of spoilers) I didn't even flinch, I just sat there waiting for what will happen next meanwhile my dad who sat next to me jumped back in is seat and stopped looking at the screen out of pure shock. Its the same for my friends who play Gears of War and who don't. The ones who didn't and owned less violent titles jumped back while my Chainsaw buddies (does that sound gay) sat there watching the screen not even flinching.

Another example while watching Hot fuzz (more spoilers look out) in the scene when the reporter has the stone spike land on his head, turning his face to a bloody....well actually none of his face is left and is replaced by part of a church and then his headless corpse stumbles around for a bit and then falls down all in the space of a few seconds. (end of those evil spoilers). Well like the above example I didn't flinch because seeing heads get knocked off is nothing special in gears of war but people who hadn't played GoW jumped back in their seats and where fraked out quite badly.

So what I'm saying is that if I (with no mental problems) become imune to gore and death in media then is it not possible that someone with severe mental problems that is subject to the same forms of media that I'm subject to (videogames) is it not possible that this person may want to and think its ok to kill someone because they have done it so many times before?

There are many other reasons why someone might kill people in their school or work place and while one of the main building blocks is without a doubt mental condition prehaps videogames are a building block aswell?

Don't take what I've said above as "videogames=sin" argument but instead see it as a "Games should only be played by people that are allowed to legally play them and parents should pay more atention to their children" argument.

 

[stompy]

I thought he was aiming at an ex-girlfriend or something. Clearly Shakespeare's 'Othello' is responsible for this.

Very well spotted. Anyways, my 2 cents. Jack Thompson and the like don't know what they're talking about, but unfortunately, people still listen to them. I reckon the gaming industry needs a representative, or group. What if Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo made some sort of committee, which worked on game PR. I mean, its a long stretch, but still, what's wrong with it?

 

[Sniper_Zegai]

There is absolutly no evidence to suggest that video games can be the cause of violence in people who are not violent by nature.

One study showed that violent people respond to violent imagery, which includes video games, film, TV, books.

People like Jack Thompson have no problem quoting this study completly out of context and at other points completly lying about the facts including saying that other school shooters "trained" on video games like counter strike which simply is'nt true and even if it was; think about this for a second. If you could use games like counter-strike to train people why would'nt SWAT teams and the Army use counter-strike to train soldiers or at least have them play it their spare time to keep them sharp.

The simple truth is that there is no evidence ever connecting video games to violence as the main cause of said violence.

Its all bullshit and Jack Thompson getting disbarred will be christmas come early, you hear that Florida?

 

[Raziel Paragorne]

I'm not sure exactly where this thread is going any more, but if the core subject is still "Do violent video games influence people to kill?" then my comment would have to be this:

Video games are a form of media and any media can be interpreted wildly differently by different people. On top of this all our minds will interpret what we experience differently, some people will naturally be more affected by the media they're exposed to than others. However there's no black and white, yes/no answer here...

I say that on this logic; a person may be naturally inclined to violent actions and in that case will seek out sources of violence, hell that's glaringly obvious...we as humans will naturally search for people and information that affirm our own beliefs, by and large at least. So can you label a game as the trigger that caused person to kill? Well yes, but by the same note you can classify *any* form of media they were exposed to as the exact same thing.

I agree that Jack Thompson and other's of his ilk are hugely misinformed to level the finger solely at video games. If they pursue that line of thought then next thing they should do is start point the finger at music, television shows, podcasts, magazines...even books. Personally I've never seen *any* conclusive study or evidence by any real institution that games stand out from other media in terms of neurological effects.

The bottom line is simple; No it's not video games that do this, it's a culmination of *everything* that person is exposed to as well as their own inherent programming...if someone was wired screwy to begin with then why are we surprised when they snap?