Originally posted by ShakyMo
Makes me wonder what games people played, what music people listened to and what tv shows they watched in Victorian times when the murder rate over here was more than 20 times what it Is today.

Haven't you heard? Nobody was ever murdered in mass before video games existed.

On a funny note, the people making these decisions for the rest of the country should know better, they were all alive during Victorian times! :P

I think America is completely backwards.

I've got nothing against violence but you mention violence, even on these boards, and no one seems to mind poor back alley hobo getting decapitated for no reason. Now...you mention a skimpy bikini plate girl or some Korean MMO with sexy females and O JESUS LORD INCOMING ASSHURT VIRGINS.

I really don't understand why considering that the pr0n here is bigger than every other country but Japan.

well, i blame pong, the mother of all games :p

On a serious note tough.....i have been a horror freak and games since i was 9 years young (37 now) and the more voilence in movies and games...the more i like them. I real life i hate voilence tough....because games are "just" a hobby and they aint real....i love to roleplay a bad guy but in real life i am pretty nice to people :p

So games and voilence have abso-freakin lutly nothing to do with each other imho.

People who dont have a good grip on reality tough should not play violent games.....that's just asking for trouble.

I'm really tired of putting the blame on inanimate objects, "for the children". Do these people even know what the "children" are doing today? How many violent crimes will I read in the news today about "youths" have raped, pushed someone on subway tracks, rioted in mall, assaulted, murdered, etc etc?

Unfortunately, once they cross this line, they are deemed "underaged" and untouchable in court (with few exceptions).

In my opinion, I think that when the case arises that when the "children" are to young to be punished by the court, the parents should be going to prison. Clearly, their parents are not in their lives anyways.

Start charging the parents for these crimes their "children" commit.

Also, I don't think it's right to take property away from innocent citizens because of the actions of criminals. Criminals, not inanimate objects. That's just stupid talk and these people are in charge of our lives?

Why are we not talking about psycitropic drugs? What they do to these people while they are on them and when they stop taking them. The results so far have been obvious and clear to me. I don't know the facts, but why not look at this? I'm interested in knowing.

Or does that threaten the pharm companies by looking into all these drugs they push. Ever listen to the disclaimers at the end of their advertisements? Why would anyone take these psycotropic drugs in the first place? Are people that weak?

Something sensible and realistic needs to happen. I don't think we should all be deemed by the government as mass murderers for simply playing video games.

Taking rights and property away from innocent citizens will not fly.

I got a good laugh when some news story talked about how back in the day playing SimCity, we all didn't grow up wanting to become city planners...

Originally posted by Scot

Video games do not put guns into their player’s hands. They do not make parents want to leave their guns accessible to teenagers.

This argument has been going on for decades. I loved GTA, remember the storm over that series? But it never made me want to steal cars, deal drugs or visit a prostitute.

Politicians always need to find a solution, even when you don't need one. They need to be seen to do the right thing, which too often does not help. This is a problem today more than ever, with the news media clammering for answers and 24hr news raising those calls to fervour pitch.

Society should make laws that benefit the majority or protect a minority.

While most of us would not go and steal a car or visit a prostitute, after playing a video game, few will. It is a very small minority that have a problem making a distinction between movies/video games and real-life.

The question for the law makers is that would it protect the majority interests by banning violent video games. I would say that it would not. There have been good studies on this subject in the past. The world, at least the western world, is a lot safer these days that it has ever been before. It is because of this that random acts of violence cause so much discussion. The society has a need to explain these acts by claiming that there is something wrong with the people committing these acts and video games, like movies and even music was in the past. It is a convenient explonation.

I've been playing violent video games all my life. If i find a bug in my apartment, i catch it, name it, feed it, play with it for a while, and finally release it outside. That's how violent i am.

I would listen to this argument, if someone had an actual argument to begin with.

One thing for you US guys to realise. Here in the UK with the gun laws we have, we still have the media bringing up the link between video game violence and gun crime every few years.

No matter what your laws and crime rate is on guns, drugs or the sex trade the finger gets pointed at video games. Video games are the new comics, which used to get blamed for the downfall of morals and responsibility in society. Quite simply, if teenagers have an activity like reading comics which their parents did not have, then that activity is to blame for societies woes.

We will not see an end to blaming video games until today’s 30 something gamers are all in their 70’s.

Games like CoD and WoW dont make me want to kill anyone.

Shows like Jersey Shore and HoneyBooBoo make me want to kill everyone

Its not the video games. Its the guns. Japan, South Korea and any number of other countries play a lot of video games and they have nowhere near the gun violence United States has. Its the guns. Americans have lots of them and it is hard to take them away from them once they are out there.

Restricting sales helps, but we won't see improvement in a long while. Meanwhile, the NRA and their buddies will say the current government is breaking their constitutional rights and the measures taken don't work because there won't be an immediate reduction in gun deaths now, will there? Like I said, you can't get the guns back that are already out there.

Well... its a mess. I don't think there's enough good people in America to solve this one.

Lets ignore all the rpa music that preeches about gangs, drive by shooting, bitches n hoes and all that other crap that a huge portion of teenagers and young adults listen to and try to idolize who really never touch a video game or at least give any serious time.

Also the effects of aggressive behavior is very short term.  There is as much if not more when one sees an image of a gun, that is not comparing to the effects of TV media.

Really if they are gonna censor violent media then your gonna have to live in hippie flower land or something.  Heeeeyyyyy mannn

Originally posted by Scot

One thing for you US guys to realise. Here in the UK with the gun laws we have, we still have the media bringing up the link between video game violence and gun crime every few years.

No matter what your laws and crime rate is on guns, drugs or the sex trade the finger gets pointed at video games. Video games are the new comics, which used to get blamed for the downfall of morals and responsibility in society. Quite simply, if teenagers have an activity like reading comics which their parents did not have, then that activity is to blame for societies woes.

We will not see an end to blaming video games until today’s 30 something gamers are all in their 70’s.

Yes, they will continue to blame inanimate objects instead of the person. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore.

I have to ask you, according to crime statistics, per capita, the UK is the #4 most violent country in Europe, #20-something in the world, about 20 - 30 rankings higher than the US. Are all violent crimes blamed on violent video games, or just the ones that envolve guns? I read that the number of stabbings has dratically increased after your ban on guns, so I was wondering if there has been a shift in blame that accounts for that as well.

I don't think its just the guns that is the issue, I think its the lack of proper use of the guns that is the problem.

From what I understand, almost everyone knows the very basics of Gun, but have no knowledge of the power of Guns and their ability to take a life.

If we educated everyone who want to purchase a gun, just like getting a driver's license. We would eliminate all the Gun related accident deaths.

Age does not determine ones responsibility, knowledge does. Just because you are 40 years old, does not mean you are automatically given the knowledge to drive a car, nor does knowing how to drive a car, automatically teaches you how to ride a motocycle or a Truck. Each different cars requires individual licenses, the same should apply to Guns.

And when will you ever need assault rifles or Full Automatic guns or Machineguns.

Don't stop people from getting guns, teach them, make them get licenses then the responsibilities is in their hands.

Then we can say that if you let someone else handle your gun, you lose your license and all the guns are taken away, until you reapply your licenses.

Originally posted by ShakyMo

I wonder if there's a cultural thing of having this mannered, calm, well behaving attitude and bottling things up until they explode.

I'd say you're on to something there.

Just did a google search on violence and video games (and other terms like fighting, etc...) and all I found was gamers doing fun stuff and people whining about violent video games. No articles anywhere on a gamer or someone that played violent videogames a lot (I suppose less than 1 hr a day doesn't count really) doing violent deeds. At least, not as main reason for the act of agression...

How about we all grab a nice glass of anything, put on some Whitesnake (Here we go again) and just laugh at the fools for a while?