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dark acacia · 01-10-2013, 10:37 PM

When tragedy strikes people want something or someone to blame. For the past 20 years video games have been one of the biggest scapegoats in violent crimes while the big and small screen always seem to get a pass.

Video games are an easy target because they are seen as expensive toys for kids, and for a long time no self-respecting person over 30 would touch them. I remember as a kid my mother would deliberately look in the opposite direction of the TV screen whenever I wanted to show her something I thought looked cool, and I know I'm not the only one who grew up in the 90s like that. Meanwhile, television, which has been a part of American culture since the 40s, gets a pass because the Boomers and Xers grew up with TV, and maybe the Atari 2600. "Criminal Minds" is probably the most violent and disturbing show I know of on TV and yet I don't see the anti-game coalition campaigning to get that removed.

If you look at all of the mass murderers of recent years, they were all people who had more problems going on than too many hours of playing Doom in a dark room. Doom doesn't tell people to go murder people in a school. One of the few things Obama has said about anything that I agree with is that people should be able to access mental healthcare at least as easily as they can purchase guns.

The other thing I should mention--stepping away from gaming to gun control for a moment--is that the people who are shooting up schools and movie theaters are not the ones who are responsible gun owners. My state had a massive tragedy when 20 young students and 6 staff members were murdered by someone who had taken someone else's guns and illegally acquired some other weapons. The anti-gun coalition is only out for political reasons; the Republican tide is low and the NRA is one of the biggest lobbies siding with that party, and in a blue state like Connecticut most people would love nothing more than to see the Republicans brought down even further.

01-10-2013, 10:37 PM	#3
dark acacia Banned Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 263	Re: The current hot topic of violence in video games. When tragedy strikes people want something or someone to blame. For the past 20 years video games have been one of the biggest scapegoats in violent crimes while the big and small screen always seem to get a pass. Video games are an easy target because they are seen as expensive toys for kids, and for a long time no self-respecting person over 30 would touch them. I remember as a kid my mother would deliberately look in the opposite direction of the TV screen whenever I wanted to show her something I thought looked cool, and I know I'm not the only one who grew up in the 90s like that. Meanwhile, television, which has been a part of American culture since the 40s, gets a pass because the Boomers and Xers grew up with TV, and maybe the Atari 2600. "Criminal Minds" is probably the most violent and disturbing show I know of on TV and yet I don't see the anti-game coalition campaigning to get that removed. If you look at all of the mass murderers of recent years, they were all people who had more problems going on than too many hours of playing Doom in a dark room. Doom doesn't tell people to go murder people in a school. One of the few things Obama has said about anything that I agree with is that people should be able to access mental healthcare at least as easily as they can purchase guns. The other thing I should mention--stepping away from gaming to gun control for a moment--is that the people who are shooting up schools and movie theaters are not the ones who are responsible gun owners. My state had a massive tragedy when 20 young students and 6 staff members were murdered by someone who had taken someone else's guns and illegally acquired some other weapons. The anti-gun coalition is only out for political reasons; the Republican tide is low and the NRA is one of the biggest lobbies siding with that party, and in a blue state like Connecticut most people would love nothing more than to see the Republicans brought down even further.