Posted on 02/23/2013 4:34:29 AM PST by Kaslin
The Obama administration's assault on the Second Amendment in reaction to Newtown is not a serious solution. It's a Band-Aid on cancer. The NRA's call for armed guards in every school also misses the point. When is anyone going to get serious? The problem is violence, a violence of monstrous and horrific proportions that has infected America's popular culture.
The Hartford Courant reported on Sunday that during a search of Newtown grade-school killer Adam Lanza's home after the shootings, "police found thousands of dollars worth of graphically violent video games." Detectives are exploring whether Adam Lanza might have been emulating the shooting range or a video game scenario as he moved from room to room at Sandy Hook Elementary.
In California, 20-year-old Ali Syed went on a carjacking and shooting rampage, killing three before turning the gun on himself. Syed was a loner and a "gamer" who spent hours holed up in his room, Orange County authorities said. "He took one class at college, and he did not work, so that gives him most of the day and evening, and most of the time in his free time he was playing video games," reported county sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.
After Newtown, President Obama and other officials insisted the country needed a "dialogue" about "gun violence," but there's been remarkably little exploration of the role of video games and even less of movie and TV violence.
Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia requested a study from the National Science Foundation and was disappointed that Obama's State of the Union only focused on gun control. "While I recognize the potential constitutional issues involved in tackling media violence, mental health parity and gun control, I am disappointed that mental health issues and media violence were left out of the president's address," Wolf said.
The NSF report acknowledged that a link between violent media and real-world violence can be contentious, but explained, "Anders Breivik, who murdered 69 youth in Norway, claims he used the video game 'Modern Warfare 2' as a military simulator to help him practice shooting people. Similarly, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who murdered 13 fellow students in Colorado, claimed they used the violent video game 'Doom' to practice their shooting rampage."
No, Virginia, not everyone who has ever played a violent video game is an assassin in training. "However, a comprehensive review of more than 381 effects from studies involving more than 130,000 participants around the world shows that violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure), and aggressive behavior."
As researcher Brad Bushman of Ohio State University stated in a "PBS NewsHour" story on violent video games, "correlation doesn't imply causation," but the correlation is disturbing enough. Does it make sense for policy makers to go around suggesting that gun makers be held liable for school shootings, but fail to suggest the same for say, Microsoft Game Studios, which makes "Gears of War" series, spotlighted by PBS as especially bloody?
Neither gun makers nor video game makers mean for their products for mass shootings, but politicians like Obama have singled out the gun makers and gone soft on their entertainment-industry campaign donors. Somehow, Democrats isolate the inherent evil of a gun almost as if it's self-shooting, while denying our violent media has any influence on these under-21 shooters.
Even the mildest restrictions on the sales of violent video games -- like a California law forbidding minors from buying games rated M for Mature ("Content is generally suitable for ages 17 and up") -- were rebuked by the Supreme Court.
In 2010, Obama appointee Elena Kagan mocked the law and the entire controversy by insisting that the game "Mortal Kombat" was "an iconic game, which I am sure half of the clerks who work for us spent considerable amounts of time in their adolescence playing." But "Mortal Kombat" was a pioneering ultraviolent game when it debuted in 1992, with scenes of decapitations, electrocution and ripping out the still-beating heart of an opponent with bare hands.
I wonder if Justice Kagan would still argue in public that these games are blameless, and the Adam Lanzas of the world are never influenced by these "iconic" works. She actually suggested, "You could look at these games and say they're the modern-day equivalent of Monopoly sets." No one ever practiced for a school shooting by buying hotels for Park Place and Boardwalk. But Kagan was hailed by USA Today's Supreme Court reporter as bringing a "practical twist" to the high court. The kids aren't playing "Monopoly" any more. Three of the four top-selling games on Amazon.com in 2012 were "Halo 4," "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" and "Assassins Creed III" -- rated M, M and M.
The people who want to conduct a Newtown "dialogue" really need to broaden their gabby horizons.
I enjoy video games. I even enjoy certain violent video games. It’s not the violence that pulls me to a game though, it’s the content of the game itself.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare - I like
Grand Theft Auto - I hated
Both violent games but I really like one and I hate the other. What’s the difference?
To me, a game like Grand Theft Auto was all about running around and hurting/killing random people. There was no real point other than committing random acts of violence.
Modern Warfare on the other hand is all about having an objective and completing that objective while working with and competing against other players from all over the world. You are soldiers and it is a simulation of war. It is not some thug running around car jacking and killing. There’s a huge difference.
One game promotes random violence while the other promotes teamwork and strategy to accomplish directives.
At one point in time I gave up on console games and solely played PC based online games. Some were real time strategy games such as Dark Reign while others were MMORPG’s such as Everquest. It was always the online collaboration and competition that suckered me in.
I’m not crazy nor am I violent. I’m very calm and level headed even while dealing with stressful situations. Labeling all video games as “violent” and saying they impact the mental stability of a person is about the same as labeling certain firearms as “assault weapons” and saying they make normal people commit murder. People label weapons as “assault weapons” without even having a basic understanding of firearms. It is the same thing as when people apply the stigma of “violent” to video games. We might as well start calling them assault video games and get it over with!
If you haven’t tried some of these games, I encourage you to do so. It may provide you with a better understanding of what they are actually like. I recommend Modern Warfare as it is my favorite at the moment!
Do you have any idea how much variety is in the world of metal? There’s a lot of it that’s far more morally acceptable than rap and hip hop.
I’m a 60 year old woman. Not interested in violent or any other video games. I prefer books.
http://faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/Mast-McAndrew-Aggression.pdf
Violent Lyrics in Heavy Metal Music Can
Increase Aggression in Males
That’s a bunch of kuzo. Have you looked up any metal bands?
Yeah, pits get pretty violent, but not every show is that kind of show.
Is this violent? http://www.lyricsfreak.com/i/iron+maiden/flight+of+icarus_20068031.html
Individual Americans watch and play an aggregate and cumulative total of trillions of hours of movies/TV & games every year.
That a handful of people suffer a lethal snap does not indicate a meaningful correlation thereto - if anything, it proves no causality.
I like racing motorcycles off-road. The Sierra Clubbers don’t understand the attraction, so it is therefor senseless that I, as well as a large contingent of thrill seekers race motorcycles off-road wrecking their idea of a pristine desert being preserved for yet unnamed persons or whatever to enjoy without visiting. Of course, they’re OK with the climbers who drive pitons into the face of El Capitan in Yosemite. I suppose they understand the attraction.
Your “not understanding the attraction” doesn’t qualify for public policy making. I don’t care for video games at all, cannot understand the attraction, but would tend to use scientific studies with real numbers arrived at without the prejudice of an agenda to ban someone else’s idea of a good time.
When did I never mention banning any video games? I asked questions. You assumed something.
And I don’t care what you do to the desert or the mountains. They have survived worse than motorcycles and climbers, I suppose.
See my post # 26 above.
Do you understand the attraction of capture the flag? of paintball? of hunting for those who don’t like to eat wild game, but still like to hunt?
Whether you attribute it to the Fall of Man, or to evolutionary circumstances, most male human beings have an innate aggressive urge. It can be misused in violent crime, or pointless brawling (which used to not be a crime if everyone involved was cool with it, though it may be now, even if no one involved wants to press charges), or used well in self-defense or to defend innocent others or one’s society in war. Violent video games provide a harmless outlet for this aggressive urge, which our society has gone out of its way to suppress, rather than channel, and are, thus attractive.
As I noted in post 26, my own favored outlets for aggression are a bit more cerebral — simulating being the army commander rather than the foot soldier, or taking place more slowly than the reflex driven pace of a first-person shooter, but the triumph over an opponent (in hex-grid wargames or M:TG) or contrive opposing circumstance (in D&D or a turn-based computer strategy game) is still part of the charm.
Okay, now I get it. Testosterone.
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