Ban or Censor Video Games, Not Guns?

[Koios]

Exactly!!! For example, this fact: we do, nearly, all agree that letting everyone have nukes is not a good idea nor protected in the 2A. Okie doke.

So if reasonable limits on types of "arms" is cool, why not survival / assault weapons on the ixne list?

Back to you ...

Wrong thread.

Wrong!!!! This is guns and video games (the point-and-splatter variety, aka, pick a virtual assult rifle of your choosing). And I'm almost certain that survival / assault weapons = guns. Surely I recall reading it in my American Rifleman mag, praise babywayne.

Back to you ...

 

[catzmeow]

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Does serving in the military cause people to commit violent criminal acts? If your argument were true, serving in the military would increase offending rates.

Is that the case?

LEOs also use video training. If your hypothesis were true, this training would increase the odds that a law enforcement officer would commit a violent act against an innocent party. Does data support this?

 

[Foxfyre]

Please take the gun discussion to a gun thread. Thank you once again.

 

[Koios]

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Does serving in the military cause people to commit violent criminal acts? If your argument were true, serving in the military would increase offending rates.

Is that the case?

Nope; just dramatically raises the likelihood (on average) that you will, if you sign up, rather than stay home and not join the military.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I LOVE video games. One of my favorites is a Microsoft Big and Huge games called "Rise of Nations". Though there is one format that allows you to take a purely defensive posture, the most fun goal is to bring your country forward from a very primitive time to the modern age and conquer enough or all of the rest of the world to win.

So first rattle out of the box you have to attack other countries though you do focus on their military installations and armies. But your defenses automatically attack any non military citizens they see too if those citizens aren't our own.

The thing in the game that most bothers me is a limitation on the population each country is allowed to acquire. So when I get to the point that I am at the population max and need more military types, I can identify my 'idle' citizens and eliminate them. Hit the zap button and they scream and die.

And that bothers me though not enough to not play the game. You do wonder if it somehow programs a vulnerable and perhaps unstable young mind though. And my game is way WAY less violent and graphic than most of them out there now.

Why not just put the idle villagers to work? There's always metal, timber, and farms to be tended. New capitals to build, and new universities.

 

[Koios]

Please take the gun discussion to a gun thread. Thank you once again.

As in one that has the word "gun" in the title? Or do I look for threads with the word "rabbit" in the title?

Whadaya think?

 

[catzmeow]

I don't intend for it to be obvious because the truth is, I don't know.

I do know if I focus on blood and gore and violence or torture or other unpleasant thoughts, my mood is far less pleasant than if I focus on good, positive things. I refuse to watch movies that are downers any more. I want movies that elevate the human spirit, that have me on my feet cheering at the end. Why? Because I just enjoy those emotions a whole lot more.

Since there were no video games and little graphic violence in the movies or on television and none in music when I was a kid, I have no experience of how those things made me feel. But after a good Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy movie we all would go out a play cowboys and robbers and shoot up the neighborhood. It was great fun.

So that is why I want to KNOW whether there is a serious negative effect on kids when they are exposed again and again and again to this stuff.

If there were a serious negative effect on kids when they are exposed to these games, there would likely have been an increase in juvenile delinquency in the 2000s to present when these games were introduced and began to enjoy widespread consumption.

This did not occur.

In fact, overall juvenile offenses (both person and property offenses) decreased during that time period.

So, while these games may have effects on kids, there appears to be zero evidence that the effects include criminal involvement or mass murder.

Hope that relieves your concerns.

 

[Swagger]

You certainly don't have the data to prove that isn't a possibility.

I am not the person in this thread who made a clear, affirmative claim of harm. Read the OP.

The OP is the one who made an affirmative claim and is required to substantiate it with evidence. I've shown that the affirmative claim (escalating mass murder) did not occur (mass murder statistics are flat), thus rendering the affirmative claim moot.

Neither did Foxfyre in her OP. She relayed what she says she heard on the radio, and invited others to opine/comment on what she heard. If she'd written that she suspected and/or believed that the violence that's more prevalent on our screens today is influencing the perpetrators of these massacres to seek a target and act upon their urges/violent inclinations, then I'd agree with you when you say that she's made a "clear, affirmative claim of harm". But she hasn't.

 

[JustTheFacts]

The OP is clearly asking for OPINIONS on whether there is correlation or not, I think it's pretty obvious that she herself thinks there is, but she hasn't claimed it as a fact.

As for an escalation of mass murder, I think we can safely say that isn't true based on ONE person. Genghis Kahn, certainly he didn't play video games as a child, he was just an asshole.

But that is IRRELEVANT to whether video games can cause kids to turn into killers.

No one here has the expertise to render an informed opinion on the subject, so evidence is important.

If video games caused kids to turn into killers...

Video game consumption has increased steadily since the invention of gaming consoles, going from zero percent of teens in the late 1980s to 97% of children between the ages of 12-17 in 2008. source: Over half of American adults play video games, and four out of five young adults play. Among adults, computers are the most popular gaming device, but among young adults gaming consoles are preferred. Virtual worlds only draw a small crowd. | Pew Int

During the same time period (late 1980s - present), there was a strong decrease in violent crimes committed by juveniles. Source: Stats - Basic Statistics | Juvenile Justice | FRONTLINE | PBS

In other words, while game consumption by juveniles has drastically increased over the past 15 years, violent crimes committed by juveniles have fallen steadily.

If violent video games were designed to turn kids into killers, they're failing, miserably.

That's completely true Catz, but you are ignoring the absolutely true statement I made earlier about video games from 2006- on are COMPLETELY different than video games of yore. They are not the same and should not be treated as the same. So let's look at only that time frame. I'd be interested in seeing that data.

You jack online with Call of Duty on an Xbox360 on a 50" led tv and it doesn't leave much to the imagination.

I stand by my assertion that these are NOT kid's games and I absolutely believe that if a child is predisposed to violence these games can blend their sense of reality.

Do you or have you ever played video games? I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm asking an honest question. Have you seen the types of games that are on the market today?

There are actually games out there that are so bloody that the game creators themselves put in an option to turn off the blood, because frankly it is disgusting but some people like disgusting.

I don't know the answer unless we are going to start charging parents for some crime for allowing their kids to play these types of games, but there is ZERO doubt that these games are at best unhealthy for young minds, that is why they are rated the way they are.

 

[JustTheFacts]

You certainly don't have the data to prove that isn't a possibility.

I am not the person in this thread who made a clear, affirmative claim of harm. Read the OP.

The OP is the one who made an affirmative claim and is required to substantiate it with evidence. I've shown that the affirmative claim (escalating mass murder) did not occur (mass murder statistics are flat), thus rendering the affirmative claim moot.

Neither did Foxfyre in her OP. She relayed what she says she heard on the radio, and invited others to opine/comment on what she heard. If she'd written that she suspected and/or believed that the violence that's more prevalent on our screens today is influencing the perpetrators of these massacres to seek a target and act upon their urges/violent inclinations, then I'd agree with you when you say that she's made a "clear, affirmative claim of harm". But she hasn't.

Exactly my point, she did nothing more than offer up an article and ask for opinions. My guess is that neither Fox nor Catz has ever even played any of these video games , but only one is pretending as if they know one way or the other for sure.

 

[Ravi]

Here is an interesting piece in WAPO citing those who argue that violent video games provoke violent thoughts etc. in players and those who argue that this has not been confirmed. Both make credible arguments.

I am not going to excerpt any of it as I think you have to read the whole thing--it is fairly short--to get the whole argument presented in the piece:

The Checkup - Study links violent video games to violent thought, action

He's also been found to be a bad researcher with an agenda.

Proponents against the video game violence and aggression effect state that Dr. Anderson's research has been criticized at times for overstating his results and failing to adequately acknowledge alternate views or limitations of the data on media violence. A number of scholars have expressed the concern that his statements of causal certainty regarding video game violence effects are not well supported by the existing data.[3][4] Anderson also had ties to the former National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF), which Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health Science University, likened to a lobbying group,[5] and some of his studies have been funded by NIMF.[6] In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, testimonies were provided criticizing Anderson's studies, noting that they "have been rejected by every court to consider them", "do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively", and "suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology".[7]

wikipedia

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Reflexes.

 

[Foxfyre]

I like to play video games, although they are a little to sophisticated for me today. I've played some of the older Elder Scrolls games. Even the most shoot em up of shoot em up games are really games of strategy. The end is always the triumph of good over evil. Like Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. They have a definite story line and goal. It's more like being an interactive character in a good movie than simply a game.

Let's take the Elder Scrolls. In Skyrim, l there is a very clear sense of right and wrong. You can and will kill, but if you kill innocents, you'll be hunted and locked out of the major cities and the people hate you.

Sure, Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto are completely anti-social, but they are satire for the most part. (GTA IV dropped satire for the main story)

But then the Modern Warfare series has you selflessly fighting for puppies, God, and the American way. Of course the Moscow Airport scene in COD Modern Warfare 2 is the most disturbing thing I've seen in any media.

I haven't seen any of the more questionable video games some of you folks have mentioned. It is suggested that Civ IV and Rise of Nations, both of which I do have, are less realistic than the newer games, but in Rise of Nations, especially, unless you take the defensive mode which is boring, the object is to conquer the world. So your armies mow down everybody they see, military and civlian alike. The civilians scream as you kill them. Does playing that game have a negative effect on me? Not that I can tell. But then I am not a kid and I don't play the game endlessly for hours.

 

[Uncensored2008]

He's also been found to be a bad researcher with an agenda.
wikipedia

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Reflexes.

Also developing team work and an understanding of battlefield tactics.

 

[catzmeow]

He's also been found to be a bad researcher with an agenda.
wikipedia

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Reflexes.

Exactly. They aren't used to desensitize military personnel to violence, because real world violence is not the same as video violence. They do, however, teach personnel how to identify and respond to threats appropriately, and in collaboration with peers.

Real world exposure to violence has much more demonstrable effects, including trauma and mental health ramifications.

Both children and military personnel understand that a game is a game, and a game is not the real world. And, if they don't, they have serious mental health issues that are separate from their video game use.

 

[JustTheFacts]

He's also been found to be a bad researcher with an agenda.
wikipedia

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Reflexes.

Hmm, really? Wrong. Try again.

Reflexes LOL laughable on the surface. I have GREAT reflexes in Madden 2013. I'd get killed if I was to ever play QB in the NFL though.

 

[catzmeow]

Same question I asked Catz, maybe you'll answer. IF there is no correlation between violent video games and becoming predisposed to violence, why does the US military use them as a training aid for that express purpose?

Reflexes.

Hmm, really? Wrong. Try again.

Reflexes LOL laughable on the surface. I have GREAT reflexes in Madden 2013. I'd get killed if I was to ever play QB in the NFL though.

My son had never shot a gun until he was 14, but his dad introduced him to Halo and Call of Duty starting at around age 11. A neighbor was doing some target shooting on his property and invited my son to participate. My son didn't miss a single target. The skills required to accurately shoot someone in a video game are virtually identical to the skills required to target a drone or hit a target with an actual gun.

The correlation between the skills required to play Guitar Hero or Madden 2013 are only distantly linked to the skills required to actively perform a football pass or guitar play, but on a first person shooter, learning to target accurately is very similar to targetting accurately in real life.

 

[Koios]

I like to play video games, although they are a little to sophisticated for me today. I've played some of the older Elder Scrolls games. Even the most shoot em up of shoot em up games are really games of strategy. The end is always the triumph of good over evil. Like Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. They have a definite story line and goal. It's more like being an interactive character in a good movie than simply a game.

Let's take the Elder Scrolls. In Skyrim, l there is a very clear sense of right and wrong. You can and will kill, but if you kill innocents, you'll be hunted and locked out of the major cities and the people hate you.

Sure, Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto are completely anti-social, but they are satire for the most part. (GTA IV dropped satire for the main story)

But then the Modern Warfare series has you selflessly fighting for puppies, God, and the American way. Of course the Moscow Airport scene in COD Modern Warfare 2 is the most disturbing thing I've seen in any media.

I haven't seen any of the more questionable video games some of you folks have mentioned. It is suggested that Civ IV and Rise of Nations, both of which I do have, are less realistic than the newer games, but in Rise of Nations, especially, unless you take the defensive mode which is boring, the object is to conquer the world. So your armies mow down everybody they see, military and civlian alike. The civilians scream as you kill them. Does playing that game have a negative effect on me? Not that I can tell. But then I am not a kid and I don't play the game endlessly for hours.

I bought my children Grand Theft Auto since I thought it healthy for them to develop a hate for police and enjoyment in cop-killing.

 

[catzmeow]

I bought my children Grand Theft Auto since I thought it healthy for them to develop a hate for police and enjoyment in cop-killing.

A lot of the cops I know play GTA. Your strategy is destined to fail.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I haven't seen any of the more questionable video games some of you folks have mentioned. It is suggested that Civ IV and Rise of Nations, both of which I do have, are less realistic than the newer games, but in Rise of Nations, especially, unless you take the defensive mode which is boring, the object is to conquer the world. So your armies mow down everybody they see, military and civlian alike. The civilians scream as you kill them. Does playing that game have a negative effect on me? Not that I can tell. But then I am not a kid and I don't play the game endlessly for hours.

They are very different games. I loved RON back in the day. But never would consider it violent in any way. It's a real time strategy game with implied rather than actual violence. Civ is similar in ways.

The first person shooters are where the real violence is. Call of Duty games are essentially war simulations that get more realistic all the time. They are violent and deal with very adult themes. The airport scene I alluded to earlier has a very bad Russian mob boss leading a team of terrorist through the Moscow airport and slaughtering everyone in sight. It's very disturbing, but also has a very black and white morality to it - the backdrop of WHY going to war is justified.

I agree with Katz that the lack of moral compass, rather than the actual violence is the problem.

Oh, and I don't think Call of Duty games should be played by anyone under 18 - ever.

BTW, you ever play Empire Earth? Similar to RON but without the population caps.

Empire Earth II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lousy graphics, brilliant game play.

 

[Koios]

I bought my children Grand Theft Auto since I thought it healthy for them to develop a hate for police and enjoyment in cop-killing.

A lot of the cops I know play GTA. Your strategy is destined to fail.

Nah; just not fully implimented strategy. My bad. If only I'd completed the project by making them disenfranchised losers and buying them assualt rifles for their 18th birthdays. Maybe then I could drive home faster, with fewer cops around.

God bless the USA. Amen.