Where you murder your mom and then slaughter 26 others in an elementary school.

And seriously... they say another shooter "trained" himself hitting buttons of a gamepad on first person shooter?!? For fuck's sake, that's ridiculous. That sounds about as asinine as saying your little boy is training for a professional sports career in the NFL by playing Madden 2012 on the XBOX for 4 hours/day.

I'm in Afghanistan... right now, as I type this. (seriously) When we're bored without anything in particular to do or at the end of the day we fire up the consoles and play Call of Duty BOII (or Halo, or MMA or whatever) sounds messed up, but hey, whatever. We do it because it's entertainment and totally detached from the fact that we're stuck in a shithole country. It's a nice distraction. It it not realistic and it is not preparation or practice in any way shape or form. All it will do is make you fat your eyes strained. The dudes probably spent so much time playing video games because their real-word lives sucked... they certainly didn't shoot everyone up because they were happy.

Everyone seems so hell-bent on blaming everything possible but the actual asshole who shot the people (mental illness, guns, his mother, video games, etc...).

The concept of using a virtual system to practice real events is technically present, but the details and level of system relationship just aren't there. You are comparing a $300 console game to a multimillion dollar super-computer powered flight simulator. I'm guessing I've got more hands on experience with military flight simulators than the average person, so believe me... that comparison is laughable.

A) A weapon's manual of arms is in no way related to two joysticks, a D-Pad, and a few buttons. A real flight simulator has *identical* control interfaces, look and feel. The seat, avionics interface and all other relevant equipment will be present. This builds muscle-memory reflexes and reaction times.

B) A simulator is programmed to test specific upcoming real-world missions or scenarios. This builds system knowledge as to how your system would react to numerous inputs. There's a bit more than 16 buttons in a cockpit. Like I said before, there's no school-shooting levels to be found in C.O.D. and I don't think clearing a hijacked-freighter full of Russian Spetsnaz to disarm a nuke by down holding the 'X' button is terribly good practice.

C) Most FPS video game levels exist in a vacuum, you generally can't deviate from a storyline. A real flight simulator gives you realistic free will. Although your instructors usually crawl up your ass long before your simulated flight to Walter Reed makes an unscheduled stop in Amsterdam.

The army has simulated ammo-free gun ranges & scenarios to practice on. Exercises like this, basically real-world video games, actually DO provide for a safe practice environment where you can learn.

that sitting behind a console can take one to a higher skill level . . . .

you can defend your "hobby" all you like - but those are the facts.

I will continue to assert that a consumer console/computer game makes a terrible training aid for a first person shooter (which is what is mentioned in the OP.

What---they don't play video games in other parts of the world?