Are Video Games Breeding an Assassination Generation?

[Onkel Neal]

Are Video Games Breeding an Assassination Generation?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...eneration.html

Bear in mind, Daily Beast. But interesting article and the author is credible.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, “What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?”

[Dowly]

There’s a proven correlation between video games and gun violence,

*Closes page*

A response to Grossman:

Alas, for those peddling this tired old nonsense, the data does not hold up, even at a cursory level. Gun deaths are much higher in countries where gun ownership is higher. There are many countries with very high rates of video game playing and almost no gun deaths whatsoever, and extremely low violent crime overall. And even in the U.S. with its rather high murder rate, violent crime has fallen over the same period of time that video games have gone mainstream. This is all simply true and irrefutable. It is not based on soft science, but actual hard data on things that actually happen.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain.../#23d8f5915d78

[Oberon]

*Jack Thompson intensifies*

[August]

There is a huge industry dedicated to influencing peoples thoughts and opinions in a 2 hour movie or a 30 minute TV show or even a 30 second commercial but it's completely outrageous to think that hour after hour of simulated murder and bloodshed might have any effect at all on anyone.

Whenever this topic is brought up there will be folks who say things like "Me and my friends play those games day and night and we're not trying to recreate the carnage in real life". Well nobody I know ever bought a pet rock either but apparently enough folks did since 1.5 million of them were sold at $4 a piece.

[Platapus]

"The only common denominator in all these tragic massacres that have plagued our country has been exposure to violent video games."

This is what tells me this is faulty reasoning. I am sure there are many common denominators between these people. If one is going to try to make the transition between correlation and causality, one has to account for all the common denominators.

“What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?”"

What video game is this? I might want to conduct some "independent research".

Originally Posted by Platapus

"The only common denominator in all these tragic massacres that have plagued our country has been exposure to violent video games."

This is what tells me this is faulty reasoning. I am sure there are many common denominators between these people. If one is going to try to make the transition between correlation and causality, one has to account for all the common denominators.

“What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?”"

What video game is this? I might want to conduct some "independent research".

The obvious 'common denominator' for mass shootings is access to firearms. Just saying...

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Platapus

"The only common denominator in all these tragic massacres that have plagued our country has been exposure to violent video games."

This is what tells me this is faulty reasoning. I am sure there are many common denominators between these people. If one is going to try to make the transition between correlation and causality, one has to account for all the common denominators.

Yeah, that's true, there are more than a single thing contributing to this. There were gangs and juvenile crime long before video games. Still, I think it's hard to reject the thought that violent video games are part of the mix.