same violent video games in other countries don't result in that notion

Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien is the regulatory body.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespr%C3%BCfstelle_f%C3%BCr_jugendgef%C3%A4hrdende_Medien

I remember trying to play Wolfenstein in Germany and getting blocked.

I had to do a work around and I'm sure I technically violated some sort of law.

I'll be the first to admit I don't trust the government to be the final arbiter of what I should and shouldn't be able to consume in my media

And it's always good to turn their talking points and disinformation against them. They want to ban violent video games.so they can make real life a violent video game.

These kids use AR15 assault rifles because they are glorified in video games like Call of Duty. We need more regulations on video games and movies.

The issue is guns, and the availability thereof, not Call of Fucking Duty.

I have been a gamer for over 20 years. I have played with people from every part of the planet. South korea is absolutely crushing on the gaming scene lately and they have one of the lowest gun death rates on the planet.

If you've ever played online, more than half of the other online players are from other countries.

It's the access to guns that is the problem.

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protection_Act|

It needs to go a bit farther and target the parents that buy these kids these violent games. I have heard there are kids aged 10-12 playing shooting games. That's a scary thought.

He’s absolutely unstoppable at first person shooters. They’re just games.

Shooting games don’t make kids murderers any more than Dungeons and Dragons made me a wizard. (Or a cleric, because I always play clerics. Wizards suck balls.)

Clerics almost always save vs Hellfire, sometimes those chaotic neutrals get burnt up though.

You were probably an asshole to begin with, and the video games (or movies or rock or comic books or Jazz) was anecdotal at best.

Make him good at "games"???

that it’s actually kind of spooky. He’s kind, sensitive, has a wicked sense of humor, is mathematically gifted (though not much of a reader, tbh), and can still dominate on Overwatch. He also does a stunning Doctor Who cosplay.

I’m pretty sure I’ve got it handled quite nicely, thanks.

I won't say how young my youngest started playing these games. When my older kids were old enough I bought them. The youngest was a surprise, you aren't going through menopause, you're pregnant baby. He is quite a bit younger than the others.

I had a hard time keeping him away from them, while they were playing. I always limited their game playing time and for the most part they played the Call of Duty type of games after he went to bed. But he was exposed to them.

You will never find a more courteous and nice kid as him. I have been stopped in stores and told how respectful and well mannered he is for such a young kid.

A billion of CoD, GTA and Halo have been sold world wide and yet we are the only country where mass shootings happen on this scale. IT.IS.THE.GUNS.

When I was growing up it was the cartoons blamed for violence, then violent movies, then rock music, now video games. It is everything BUT the guns.

All those wicked movies and evil video games...

It's difficult to find a popular movie without a theme or sub story involving violence of some sort. On the major TV networks crime shows are on every night...there are even channels that seem to air them 24 hours a day. I don't know if their popularity is a symptom or contributor to fear and paranoia. I personally choose not to watch them

Our myths, across just about every culture, are filled with violence. Violence is an easy storytelling tool.

Last edited Mon Feb 26, 2018, 12:18 AM - Edit history (1)

The visuals lend a graphic reality that personally wears on me and makes me uncomfortable. We are hard pressed to recall a time in our history where war wasn’t a major focus. When studying history we teach about times of war and violent conflict and rarely spend our focus on times of peace. Sigh.

I like sports and the people who advertise violent movies or games during sporting events are shameless.

It's failure of critical thinking...

On any issue.... If someone can make an argument that on the surface sounds legit and supports the side of the listener.... Then there's no need to think deeper.... They have all the evidence they need to believe what they want to believe

Limbaugh and Fox and the rest of the rightwing propaganda machine tells these kids about these ideas. Stop the lies to fix America. Fix our gun problem, in particular

and I find the comparison ridiculous on par with the idea that rock and roll makes people satan worshipers.

How often do you see someone shaking, crying and having PTSD after playing video games?

They’re just repeating a debunked and idiotic NRA talking point.

The problem is that the right wing propaganda media allows that false talking point to make it into public discourse. If we stop the NRA from lying, and stop the right wing lie machine, these kids will no longer believe the false idea that we need more guns.

Propaganda works. The NRA uses the rightwing propaganda machine to tell lies. If we had a functioning press, that press would tell the truth that fewer guns means fewer deaths. And if we had a functioning press, the right wing lies contradicting that truth would get no traction.

Many of our problems would be solved if we stop the rightwing propaganda machine. First step: tell all your friends it’s unpatriotic to watch Fox or listen to Limbaugh and their lies are harming America.

Honestly paintball would be the game that trained people better for actual shooting, down to the desensitization to aiming at someone with something that usually at least hurts. I am more concerned that video games could lead to younger kids having accidental encounters with real guns and treating them like they're toys than I am about them necessarily being any kind of impetus towards intentional shootings among older kids because of gaming desensitization.

I suspect the extended family of those teens all have firearms, like mine does, and they've heard the arguments and buy them because they see their families as essentially "good people". They have heard about that principal capturing a shooter, but most mass shooters end up dead anyway -- if not shot by police, at their own hands. The potential for death isn't going to make most people that far gone think twice.

They don't. They play the same games we do. Japan as a nation even plays more video games than we do. So, no. That's just a propaganda tactic to deflect from availability of guns.

Or any of the other countries mentioned. I don't think the games in and of thenselves are responsible but I cannot help but think that for some it is in the background whether consciously or subconsciously. Aren't we all somewhat influenced by what we input into our lives, both good and bad?

Hence my point that it's not the games. It's the guns.

My quibble is that you really cannot realistically compare the videogame statistics with other countries where the populace does not have equal access to guns.

And only one of them has easy access to guns, and that same country has a problem with gun violence, then yes, you can make that type of comparison. As in what's different? the difference is availability of guns. Other than that, there is no difference in the games they play.

of guns in this country. I agree the games are the same but as to the comparison, unless there is equal access to guns in both countries that comparison is invalid because we do not know what the statistics would be if they had that access. If they do not have the ability to access guns of course it stands to reason they have a lower frequency of these incidents. Maybe I could have expressed it more clearly but I hope that helps to understand what I mean.

It's just rabid gun lust encouraged by the NRA's anti-Dem propaganda.

one thing they all had in common was access to high powered weapons.

in these games is gruesome, gratuitous and again violent. I can't imagine it's helping but not sure just how big a part this actually plays...It may be a small part but a part it does play I believe.

In other parts of the world, guns are not commonplace and neither are mass shooters. It's not that complicated.

I don't think that video games are the reason people buy into NRA talking points. It's more about brainwashing and cultural resentment.

It's not video games. It's the marketing and advertising industry. I think in all of this marketing and advertising is what is making us truly crazy. And marketing is part of what is fueling this culture of toxic masculinity. Look at just about every commercial out there and you will see some of this. Guys are always portrayed as macho and testosterone fueled. If you're fed that message on a constant 24/7 cycle, eventually you'll snap.

Why aren’t the same effects being felt in Korea or Ireland or wherever?

It’s about access to Mass Casualty Weapons, full stop.

Because really, no one but the gun dealers think that everybody should be armed.

And some don't even think that.

They don't have the right to inflict this on the rest of us...which I believe is the majority.

White people, anyway. At any rate, I think it makes more sense if we say that they don't want to go back to the frontier: They want to stay on the frontier.

The NRA is little more than the militant wing of the reTHuglican party...the largest white supremacist hate/terrorist group in America. Yes, I know their are some (so-called) Democrats who are actually card-carrying members of the NRA. However, you'll find the self-loathing and traitorous in all walks of life, I suppose. Our party is no exception, unfortunately.

it sounds like the "rock music contributed to crime" nonsense

Nice catch, Major. It went from essentially none, to nearly none!

but acceptance and gun culture - normalization of guns ABSOLUTELY.
It's 24/7 advertising - whether it's movies, tv, games, etc.

I've worked with people who have purchased weapons like their "hero". They're not going to shoot up a school, but may shoot their foot etc. Hopefully no domestic violence, suicide, etc.

So do they *cause* violence - no. But contribute to the desire, proliferation, normalization of guns. Absolutely.

(movies / tv did the same thing for cigarettes in the past)

...has caused an epidemic of unregulated earth moving.

Guns are not new in society or this country.

You could buy rifles just as capable as the AR-15, or an AR-15, in the 1960s. Before 1968 you could buy them by mail and there wasn’t even a such thing as a licensed dealer.

Have video games made young people more violent? Probably not for the vast majority. Maybe for one with some sort of mental issue that predisposes them for violence it opens some doors.

However, what it has done is taken young people who have had no real introductions to firearms, firearm safety or ever been exposed to them and teaches them about firearms from exactly the wrong perspective. They are not introduced to them as a tool for hunting, or to them with training on marksmanship and competitive shooting, or in any of the traditional ways that you were prior to the 90’s when these “realistic” first person shooter games first came out. Before then if you didn’t learn about guns in a school program or at home or at summer camp you just didn’t. Now, you get “knowledge “ from video games that is all messed up and skewed and presents them as only tools for killing while glamorizing that killing.

That has led to a whole generation with really no clue. When I teach firearms safety classes to young people coming from this background I find I have to go first and try and push away all the wrong information they have and push more on how dangerous being unsafe can be.

Imagine if the only exposure to sex or sexuality we gave teenagers was hard core porn. No sex ed in schools, no talks from parents, just let them see hard core porn from an early age and develop all their perceptions of what sex is from that. How screwed up would they be and how many problems would we see because of that?

Or what if we had no drivers ed, let kids ply Grand Theft Auto and then have them a drivers license based on that?

Allowing the only exposure these kids get to what firearms are or are about or what they really are come from these games is the same as letting porn be their sex ed or Grand Theft Auto be their drivers ed.

There is also a very nasty misogynist tone to video games, and why they are as tolerated as they are is beyond me. Why would anyone be entertained by what's in these games?

If Video games contributed, why did they only contribute in one country and not in all those others?

Never forget that over 90% of all mass murderers began their life drinking milk. If you ask me, it's the milk that does it.

Could they do better than the five page rehash if bullshit that teenage father hoped CNN would let them take over a big chunk of the Town Hall meeting with? I’m sure the scripts satisfy those who are tired of seeing inarticulate AR-15 loving morons winging it.

Like all influences, some of us are more susceptible, others less.

Having said that, I certainly don't see video games in and of themselves any greater an influence than any other popular medium.

Sure, some little guy ("not all men!!!&quot will play the most violent games he can, watch the most violent movies he can, read the most violent novels he can. 'Yet the fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves', in that one troubled mind that craves violence in any form accessible.




All things being equal, garbage-in-garbage-out is a wonderful rule of thumb for a rational mind... but "all things being equal" is a necessary qualifier.

I believe that now, our most rational course of action now is the repeal of the Dickey Amendment. Everything else is just empty calories, bumper-stickers and fortune cookie philosophy.