Are Video Games To Blame For Violence In America?

No. Simple answer. This has been surveyed, studied, and experimented on to death over the past couple of decades and you get either side of the scale. Either fixed studies to favor the anti-game people or the truth which is blame the damned individual. This country has such a hard time blaming the source. That needs to be fixed first before they can bring anything else in.

I'm so tired of seeing this stuff over and over, it never will stop us from gaming.
"Virtually every piece of violent content can be dangerous if the wrong person is subjected to it."
Pretty much sums up what I wanted to say.

Is it to blame? No. It is wholly on the individual.
Does it play a part? Yes.
The way it plays a part is the same way movies, tv, and books all play a part. It gives more and more imginative ideas and also glorifies voilence. Though it does these things, it it no way makes a sane sober person do an evil act. That is on the person.
Just like alcohol, cigs, driving, and gambling there is and continues to need supervision and age/maturity requirements. Yet even with all those things people make wrong decsions and hurt other people.

Pretty much this^. Even if video games were as bad as they're trying to make them sound, you know what else causes violence? Beer. Ya ready to get rid of that too, Murica?

I actually want to write my own article about this on my site, but I think it has been done hundreds of times over people are just tired of reading the whole, "Are video games to blame for violence?" thing. It is probably the most over studied thing around right next to dinosaurs. It seems to just be the American government concentrating on this. There are more important things going on like bringing our troops back, jobs, stop printing money, things like that? But, no ****ing video games.

I have little reason to doubt that there are politicians and career public 'servants' who breath a sigh of relief every time one of these events occurs. It's a safety valve. It lets them beat their chests and valiantly advocate for illegal legislation which has no chance of passing and which they don't have to live under if they don't really want to any how. They get to have lots of face time telling everyone what good people they are.

Once again lets start looking at our country and reality. The country that is in perpetual war. That invades other countries. That kill civilians and even children in drone strikes to get "terrorists". That spends a $1.030

$1.415 trillion on military while fellow Americans loose their jobs, become homeless and drug addicted and cannot seek medical help without going bankrupt. Infrastructure outdated and crumbling. Public schools that pressure parents to put their kids on Ritalin and then doctors who put them on Antidepressants at the same time! A younger generation that has to put on giant student loan debts just to go through college and then 80% move back in with their parents and cant find a job in their career field, Most taking minimum wage just due to debt. A country that ranks below the top 10 countries in the American Dream. The things we are doing to each other in reality have a far greater effect on our psyche than the things we are watching in entertainment.

Ritalin or Adderall*

It our expenditure on our military that keeps us on top.

I think the real problem is the 24/7 news media which immortalizes shooters posthumously. I bet most of you can probably remember the names of 9/10 shooters/assassins but probably can't remember a single name of a victim.

The media chooses what to report on. Knives kill more people each year than guns BUT NO ONE REPORTS ON IT and the few murders that are reported on stay in the headlines far shorter than a gun crime.

Humans have been violent LONG BEFORE movies and video games. Movies and video games certainly didn't exist for the last 2 thousand years - these things are fewer than 2 centuries old. The non-existence of video games and movies however did not stop a single murder, assassination or rape did they?

There were evil people, mass murders and shootings before video games, let alone violent video games. Someone gets in their head to do something violent, they will do something violent, some steal ideas theyve seen in various media and the fingers get pointed.

I already mentioned this in another article, but whenever someone brings up the violent video game, movie, TV, music, etc. issue I like to just point out this:

They consume the exact same violent media in other countries like the UK & Canada and yet they do not have anywhere near our levels of violence or shootings like these. The only thing I can think of that sets the US apart from these countries is our gun obsession.

And stubborn insistence on the retarded Imperial System

In chemistry there is something called a catalyst, which makes a chemical reaction happen easier, but does not cause the reaction. At worst video games act like a catalyst to violence, making it easier for someone to become violent. Video games don't make you violent, they only make it easier for you to become violent.

Chemistry hasn't been this interesting since I watched my 12th grade chemistry teacher fist her anus on the Internet (true story, ask me about it sometime)

OK it's sometime, and I gotta ask. (You can PM me the story, if you don't want write here.)

It's all about messing with everyone's fears and trying to simplify every issue so that everyone can understand. The media and certain activist groups tend to think everyone else can't grasp complex issues and want one source for all the problems. Sadly, video games tend to fall under this a lot.

Do me a favor. Shut the **** up with these video-game-violence posts. Fucking annoying.

Don't like, don't read.

Calm down, it happens every mass violence (like you don't already know).

I read this elsewhere today and thought it summed up my thoughts pretty well.

Violent video games don't create violence in society, they reflect it.

Want to figure out if media is to blame? Let's figure this one out by starting with two obvious well known non-videogame examples.

1 - The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Mark David Chapman alleged that the book inspired him to kill John Lennon because Lennon was a 'phony'. While I won't dispute that Lennon was a phony (ask Frank Zappa's ghost about what happened to a recording of a joint concert at the Fillmore) the idea that the book enjoins anyone to kill 'phonies' is absurd. That was all Chapman. He assigned it that message, made it there where it was not. If you need proof read the book and see if you desire to stab Al Gore (note: if you have paid attention to Al Gore post failed election campaign you may be struggling with a desire to stab Al Gore already - consult a professional for measuring techniques to determine if variations in your stab-o-meter are due to Salinger or Gore himself).
2 - Taxi Driver. Watch it. If you attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan or develop an unhealthy fixation on Jodie Foster, maybe they have a point. Exactly one person did this, millions of people saw the movie. Like Catcher in the Rye, like every video game played by a generation that is less violent than the one which came before, the ones who commit the evil deeds are going to be both rare and abnormal - both psychologically and morally.

John Lennon was the man and that's what's up

Seriously, search Youtube for Frank Zappa John Lennon Fillmore. Your respect for him should take a nosedive.

Also consider that parents have found a sort of babysitter in Call of Duty and other video games...meaning if I am a somewhat crappy parent and am just tired and need a break is it wrong for me to relegate the kids to the den to play a video game for several hours while I focus on something else? How often can I do this before I am considered a bad parent...and who is judging me?
Note: I have no kids, just being devil's advocate. The point I was making though is that video games have to some extent become a parental crutch with regard to keeping the attention of young kids for prolonged periods of time, reducing the time needed to deal with crying and actually interacting with the child. Now if the rated M call of duty game that your kid sees you playing is the cup a tea to make them stop bothering you...where is the line drawn with regard to annoyance when you let them play a game clearly not made for their age group? Oh the grey area...it's not that big of a deal if I let the 12yr play CoD...they play the game better than me...what's the big deal...its only a game...they know the difference

If a child has already developed the capacity to distinguish fiction from reality then isn't the discussion no longer necessary? Isn't the fundamental premise behind legislating violent media out of children's hands that they cannot understand that it is not real?

You raise a great question but I think there is also an argument that it is not only a misperception of reality vs. fiction but a further restriction on content. Games are not segragated by the ESRB into kids and adults but rather into 6 distinct categories. There are three categories alone just to get to content appropriate for age 13. Thus I don't know if it is simply a matter of distinguishing fact from fiction but certain false subject matter can have concepts and ideas that are deemed by some to not be suitable for any age. I think one of the arguments being made is simply that exposure to violent stimuli increases the likelihood of violent behavior thus reduce violent stimuli and hopefully there will be a correlation in reducing said behavior. Sound like it makes sense but, that doesn't take into consideration the numerous other extraneous variables which lead to said behavior.

I would put the complete social withdrawal of the middle class as the top reason. Ignorant parents and a lack of healthcare are up there too.

Any game teaches one to use rational thought and/or reflex to complete an objective. From chess, to Pac-Man, to Call of Duty, they essentially make us more effective human beings. So if someone were to say video games helped a criminal commit a crime, I'd say "Sure." Smart people tend to be better criminals than twits. But when people think a video game could be a motivation and/or catalyst behind an act of violence, that's just silly.

While phrased like a dickhead, I agree with 213EDD's sentiment. We at GR all know video games aren't to blame for violence so personally the less I hear about it the better. Same reason why we never need to discuss things Jack Thompson brings up, we know he's wrong so why even talk about it.

Let us not put our heads in the sand, in the vain hope ignoring an issue will make it go away. Without discussing it, how would we know that there is a move to blame video games and thus remove them from our society.

And don't take the defeatist 'hold back the tide' stance either. The gun rights movement took that position for years, and what did we get? Tens of thousands of unconstitutional laws. They stopped taking that position, fought the hard fight and made their case to anyone who would listen and what happened then? Shall-issue CCW is the norm in most states, the assault weapons ban died in 2004 not with a bang but a whimper and now, largely defunded, the gun control movement has to opportunistically move from tragedy to tragedy to maintain even a single iota of relevance. The Brady bunch can't even find their best blood-clogs before their professional ghouls start their stump speeches atop piles of human corpses.

I have a couple of controlers and headsets that would say yes, video games can occassionally drive someone to violence.

U KNOW WHAT VIDEO GAME HATER SHUT THE **** UP MAN JUST DO IT!

murder has been around ever since life in human plants and animals u cant stop it it has been forever no way out of it

I agree man u awesome :)

give me liberty or give me death i have nothing esle than games i live with my grandparents that are pretty old and no other kids in the nabohood and no fiernds to come over gaming is my entrtianment

no offense but how old are you if your are past 35 then u r a low life i am so sorry but yeah i do agree with u

video gamers that turn into murders is less than 1% so this is stupid leave video games away from your crazy delusions

NO NO NO NO NO NO HELL NOOOOO WHY DO PEOPLE WANNA BLAME VIDEO GAMES FOR GUN VIOLENCE, IT IS THE LACK OF MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTES AND CAUSE FROM THOSE THAT WERE NEGLECTED OR ABUSED WHEN THEY WERE LITTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!