I have decided:

[Turkey Beard]

Every time I hear that we need more gun control laws I'm going to repond with a call for more video game controls. I'd venture to say that video game like Mortal Combat or any other shoot-em-up video game would be more influencial on some disturbed kid than a handgun. If you spend hour upon hour hidden away by yourself, playing a game that glorifies killing and blowing stuff up, it just HAS to desensitize you.

[savduck]

 

Yep

[davisd9]

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you to an extent.  I grew up in the video game generation and even though I am 26 years of age now I still play video game.  I play alot of the Call of Duty games, war games.  Just because I play these games does not mean that I am going to walk through a school and shoot children.  It all comes down to the home you are brought up in.  My parents taught me the respect of firearms and taught me the value of human life and no video game is going to change that. 

Now I was not allowed to sit on a video game for hours on end and was mosly only allowed to play if the weather outside was bad and my homework was done.  I admittly play my xbox about every day when I get home from work if I am not hunting while I wait for my wife to get home.  It is a way for me to unwind.  I play online with a friend. 

Video games are just an object like a firearm and cannot make a person do anything.  A person has to decide to do it.  Just like a gun does not just shoot a person. 

I grew up playing wrestling video games but I never killed my little cousin trying to do a move.  I played Mario Brothers and never decided to eat a mushroom to see its effect.  My point being that some people may be negatively influenced by the video game but it is such a small majority that it makes as much sense to blame a video game as it does to blame a gun.

I hope that I have gotten my point across in a respectful manner and understand that this is my opinion and I do not state my opinion as facts.  I am an example of people that play video games and most of my friends grew up in the same generation and play the same games.  I can say that from my knowledge my of my closest friends that play these games would never hurt anyone.  Thanks for listening to my opinion on the subject.

[barry]

davisd9,
You make a valid argument and in a most respectful manner I might add. BUT as you stated you "were not allowed to sit on a video game for hours on end"...you had other interests as well.

Turkey Beard's point was focused on those that "spend hour upon hour hidden away by yourself, playing a game that glorifies killing and blowing stuff up"

Not being of "the video generation", I'm 51 years old, I think it's a sin for a child to spend "daylight hours" playing video games. Just my 2 cents.

One last comment...I don't know the background of the young man that committed this latest act of evil but I would be willing to bet he had never been introduced to shooting sports and/or hunting as we know it and if he had been this tragedy might never had occurred.

[ILIKEHEVI-13]

I see both sides here and I agree with what was said. 

But here's where you got to draw the line with reality.  What is real and what isn't?  And what about a persons self-control and self-realization of playing or pretending vs actual carrying out or doing a perceived act of violence?  That's the bottom line here.  When a person can't distinguish the difference or doesn't care to, that's when you have a problem that's only waiting to happen later down the road like what happened recently. 

[savduck]

I think everyone has touched on one very important fact.

PARENTS taught the children respect for guns. The first thing my father did was show me his guns and explain to me that the were not toys, he made sure we handled them, helped clean them, and enforced proper handling EVERY time. I never had a weird fascination with them, I never had to go grab them and show them off, to me the were about as interesting as a spoon in the kitchen. I have done the same with My three children. I have a 7, 5, and 3 year old. I keep my guns locked up, and other than one pistol I keep loaded, all my ammo is separate, but my children still act as if the guns are no big deal. Now their little friends whose parents don't have guns flip out over guns. They make a big deal of wanting to see them and handle them. They point play guns and pretend to shoot each other, my oldest lectures em quick.

If you sit back and think about reality.....a persons reality is based on the environment they are brought up in. To my kids, reality is that guns are a dangerous tool that has to be respected but not feared. They know you don't point or shoot at anyone and that video games aren't real. They are around guns, so just like me they are about as interesting as a plate on the table

Now you take a neighbor kid, whose parents don't have them around guns. The gun is fascinating to them. All they know about guns is what they see on TV, video games, etc. Guns to them are something spectacular, it gives them power, etc. This is where gun problems come from.

[5bites]

Guys if you're gonna blame games you might as well blame guns. It's a heart condition.

I was raised around guns for hunting. I've also been playing games for over 22 years now. I still play all kinds of games including first person shooters (counter strike to be exact). I let my boys play appropriate games. I also love to shoot with them. I plan on picking up a 20ga for them this week. They will be brought up knowing what guns are for, how they function, and how to respect them. They are also being brought up in a Bible believing Baptist church. They love Jesus. That friends is the difference. The farther this country moves from God the more evil will have its way. It's been proven from the beginning.

[ctwny1]

I agree 100% with what Turkey Beard said. Why parents allow or buy these volient games is behond me.

[turkey_slayer]

It all boils down to common sense. If you don't know the difference in right or wrong, fantasy and real life then you have a mental issue.

[Frankinthelaurels]

I agree some of these video games are going way way way too far.. I was stunned watching my nephew playing some of them..and any kid that doesn't have all his oars in the water could easily misunderstand them in a mind that can't separate reality from fantasy..and let's not let the movies that they watch get off the hook..everyone wants to be a super hero, the sniper, the swat guy that shows up on TV in their black suits and don't let the police off either..the shooters are dressed exactly like the swat teams down to their body armor!!! AND then let's not let some of these weapons off either, do we really need 100 shot clips..no checks at gun shows with only the words private dealer!! There's a lot of things that need a little change... and let's no forget about how we treat mental health and it's reporting..much more restrictive than physical health.. we do need to do something, we just can't sit there and watch this anymore... the profile of these kids is taking shape and it's becoming very clear..surely we can do something.

[chatterbox]

I don't know the background of the young man that committed this latest act of evil but I would be willing to bet he had never been introduced to shooting sports and/or hunting as we know it and if he had been this tragedy might never had occurred.

I had read that his mother took him to a shooting range, thus increasing his exposure to weapons.
Unfortunately, he viewed them as a tool for very evil purposes. My biggest problem with all of this is that his mother knew he was unstable, and still opened up his world to weapons.
I don't know how much he played video games, but he was a computer geek, that destroyed all his computers, shot his mother while she slept, and choose victims that he could easily kill.
He was a cowardly, weak punk that chose victims that were defenseless, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spent alot of time on his computer playing very violent video games.
Put an unstable person with a working knowledge of firearms, and you have a deadly combination.
I'm sorry for the rant, but I have never, ever been this angry about anything in my life

[BowBendr]

As a therapeutic foster parent to over 40 mentally challenged children in ages from 4 to 21, there's one thing about the video games that I would like to add.

People such as myself (age bracket) grew up without video games. When we were exposed to these games at the age of 20-25, we were already hard-wired, our view of the world was already formed in our minds, the games didn't seem to effect us negatively a we understood the difference between reality and fantasy.

Take a child, any child and let them start becoming emmersed in these type games at age 8 and leave them with it for hours. Let them play it for hour upon hour and they soon become de-sensitized to reality. Nobody shoots back and if you die, you push reset.

Now couple in that with a mental handicap such as autism, bi-polarism, or the various forms and stages of mental retardation and you've got trouble mister !

Reality is not a valid concept to the mentally challenged that are treated and raised such as this school shooter apparently was. More details are pouring out as we speak. It's not a good story.

Just like firearms, some people have no business playing these games. Their brains are not hard wired to relate to it or process it down as fantasy/reality.

Just something to think about....

[davisd9]

I think everyone has touched on one very important fact.

PARENTS taught the children respect for guns. The first thing my father did was show me his guns and explain to me that the were not toys, he made sure we handled them, helped clean them, and enforced proper handling EVERY time. I never had a weird fascination with them, I never had to go grab them and show them off, to me the were about as interesting as a spoon in the kitchen. I have done the same with My three children. I have a 7, 5, and 3 year old. I keep my guns locked up, and other than one pistol I keep loaded, all my ammo is separate, but my children still act as if the guns are no big deal. Now their little friends whose parents don't have guns flip out over guns. They make a big deal of wanting to see them and handle them. They point play guns and pretend to shoot each other, my oldest lectures em quick.

If you sit back and think about reality.....a persons reality is based on the environment they are brought up in. To my kids, reality is that guns are a dangerous tool that has to be respected but not feared. They know you don't point or shoot at anyone and that video games aren't real. They are around guns, so just like me they are about as interesting as a plate on the table

Now you take a neighbor kid, whose parents don't have them around guns. The gun is fascinating to them. All they know about guns is what they see on TV, video games, etc. Guns to them are something spectacular, it gives them power, etc. This is where gun problems come from.

Agree with what you have said!

[Turkey Beard]

I appreciate all of the comments and insight. I think that we're basically all on the same page here. One thing that I do want to make clear to davisd9 is that I wasn't really wanting to pile onto video games (and yes, movies should be included here), I was more wanting to point out that if we're going to blame guns then it's equally logical to blame video games. I strongly feel that there is no sense of personal responsibility being promoted in these United States of America; I feel that a sense of entitlement and a shifting of blame for anything that happens is what is being promoted and I blame a liberal, "if it feels good, do it" mentality.

"It's not MY fault that I'm pregnant."

"You OWE me a living because I'm just that special."

"Flipping burgers is a job that's beneath me. I DESERVE a job with full benefits and a $60K salary right out of high school with no job experience."

I don't feel that the majority of the citizens of our nation are worse or better than the general population has ever been but the minority (and I'm not saying that in a racial way, purely a "numbers" way) is way worse than the bad element has ever been and it's getting worse. To pick a scab off of another area of concern, with the idea that homosexuality is OK because people are just "born that way," how about if we say, "OK then, let's make child pornography and bestiality permissable since people are just born that way?" Nero fiddled while Rome was burning... has the match been lit within our borders?

[5bites]

I appreciate all of the comments and insight. I think that we're basically all on the same page here. One thing that I do want to make clear to davisd9 is that I wasn't really wanting to pile onto video games (and yes, movies should be included here), I was more wanting to point out that if we're going to blame guns then it's equally logical to blame video games. I strongly feel that there is no sense of personal responsibility being promoted in these United States of America; I feel that a sense of entitlement and a shifting of blame for anything that happens is what is being promoted and I blame a liberal, "if it feels good, do it" mentality.

"It's not MY fault that I'm pregnant."

"You OWE me a living because I'm just that special."

"Flipping burgers is a job that's beneath me. I DESERVE a job with full benefits and a $60K salary right out of high school with no job experience."

I don't feel that the majority of the citizens of our nation are worse or better than the general population has ever been but the minority (and I'm not saying that in a racial way, purely a "numbers" way) is way worse than the bad element has ever been and it's getting worse. To pick a scab off of another area of concern, with the idea that homosexuality is OK because people are just "born that way," how about if we say, "OK then, let's make child pornography and bestiality permissable since people are just born that way?" Nero fiddled while Rome was burning... has the match been lit within our borders?

This is off topic but I'd like to add that comments like this and others here let me know I'm in good like minded company. That's getting hard to find anywhere but especially on the web.