Video Games

[paulgt2164]

I play a few video games, and grew up playing a few back in the Commodore 64 and PC days. Doom, Wolfenstien, etc were all the rage.

My parents limited the time I was allowed on the computer, and they filtered what TV / Movies we watched. However TV was a bit different back then (early 80s) compared to now.

I remember it was a big deal when they allowed me to watch Terminator 2.

I partially agree with Waterdog, as I have seen the effects of non-parent involved overactive video gaming. I have a friend, who's fiance has a son, and since he was about 10 years old - does nothing but play ultra violent video games (Like Grand Theft Auto.)

You wouldn't believe the crap that comes out of this kid's mouth when playing this game. Racial slurs, cursing, threats, all of it. No filter - and he is saying it to other people playing the game (multiplayer/online.) Predictably the kid (who is quite smart...) does poorly in school and has serious issues when in social environment and has trouble dealing with other people "in person." He can't function without a cell phone, and all the social media.

His mother doesn't want to limit/oversee all this because she wants to be the "cool" parent as her and the kid's father are divorced - so it is a competition. She also lets him vape, and of course he is on a couple meds for his ADD / ADHD - ignoring that the issues with the kid are horrible diet, horrible sleep patterns, and staring at screens 12 hours a day.

I really feel sorry for the kid.

The issue I see here is not the games necessarily, but the parents allowing children to play games when they are not mature enough to do so. 10 year olds have no business playing video games that celebrate killing / sex / drug use / crime. When they are older - and have been taught / understand what is acceptable then play away. Same goes for TV. They have the ratings on these things for a reason.

Couple the desensitization provided by these games, TV, and movies - add some un-needed mind altering medication, no parental involvement, and social media ridicule and what do you end up with?

On the flipside - I have a couple friends who actually do parent their children (and video game usage) and both kids are fans of the "Battlefield 1" game (which is set in WW1) and these kids are constantly borrowing my WW1 History books all the time, and any chance that we all go to the range beg me to bring my Enfield or M95. Coincidentally enough, these kids are not on any meds, have involved parents, and are not dependent on what facebook tells them every 5 minutes.

[Tim McBride]

Let's blame video games. Great idea. Or maybe it's D&D getting kids in 'Satanism'? Oh that was the 80's...
Oh and spoons make people fat and guns cause crime.

[Ballistic Therapy]

Personally I can't stand video games of any kind.
I think they are a waste of time and money.
It amazes me how many people waste their time playing them.
People can't even walk down the street without having their nose stuck in a cell phone or game of some kind.
Todays parents don't want to be bothered with their kids so they give them video games to set around and play for hours on end.
I have no scientific proof that it effects these kids but I am sure it isn't doing them any good.

[Racewin]

I've been working with kids and families on a volunteer and professional basis for about 15 years. The parenting part far outweighs the violent video game component. The video games are one of many symptoms of poor parenting.

[Tim McBride]

Let's blame video games. Great idea. Or maybe it's D&D getting kids in 'Satanism'? Oh that was the 80's...
Oh and spoons make people fat and guns cause crime.

Being a moderator, I would think you would take a neutral position.

I have seen happen multiple times in other forums and especially gun forums, where someone in a position of power slowly lets their ideologies and opinions become the rules.

Hope that don't happen here.

LOL, because I'm a mod I can't have any opinion?

[deadshot556]

Blaming video games is right up there with blaming guns.

I played shitloads of violent video games growing up with my friends.

Played "guns" with my friends too, running around the neighborhood park and our parents' yards trying to kill my friends with toy guns.

Watched tons of graphic and violent movies depicting gun violence with my dad and my friends.

I'm 34 now, never shot up a school. Never even thought about taking a gun to school.

Even when I was in college and started carrying a gun. I never did on campus, I wouldn't even leave one in my truck. Just left it locked up in my safe at home.

Weird huh?

Exactly.

[knockonit]

Id have to say a bulk of the issue is parenting, having all girls, we dealt with a gaggle of young men and women that had only one parent, or even that parent was a flake,
we practically raised a few of each age daughters friends, later on even helped them thru college a bit, it always amazed me of mothers or dads who didn't wanna spend time with their spawn, to be a good parent it means some sacrifice and compromise. I'm proud of my girls, all successful, well imo, a couple married shiatheads, who are the laziness of earth, hehe, have already fired one after a day,

hard to put a finger on it, but imo it begins at home, we always had consequences for bad behaviour, as we did with good behavior and good grades,
I went to a military school, let me tell you about bullying, started at the 4th grade and made it to what would have been senior year, had days i didn't wanna leave my room, upper class men and hazing, but once i learned to box, around 11, i took on the upper classmen, figured i lost more than i won, but they eventually stopped, cause the pain they endured in my meager attempt to be me, wasn't worth it, even had to stand for a few friends. Never understood the need to belittle someone, my wife is a pacifist, and i had the girls learn kick boxing and some major choke holds, and told them to take no shiat from anyone, and if rightous would back them, and back them i did, best part is at least two of them were in teh same school at the same, time and they had each others back, a bully needs a stomping, a bad one, jmo

i'd say parenting, is the basis of successful child to adult hood.
Rj

[DmN]

There are a lot of talking points behind this discussion and some great sentiments which have been posted.

Just my $0.02...

These shootings continue to get shoved down our throat by local, national and social media platforms every time one occurs. The causes which lead to these shootings are not because of violent video games, medication, kids being bullied or the lack of parental involvement. When a machine is not wired correctly, there are problems which are bound to happen. Evil is as evil does. Perhaps the video games, medication, bullying and poor parenting contributed to pushing that person over the edge but wasn't solely the cause of a major psychological breakdown... I think trying to focus on any one of these aspects through regulation or prohibition isn't going to help.

One thing we continue to do is talk about these shootings over and over again and I feel that is one thing that propagates these mass shootings to continue.

[WRMorrison]

Correlation does not equal causation. My son loves gaming (and I play with him on occasion); most of which are FPS-type games. He has absolutely no interest in real firearms. I've bought him a couple (a .22 cricket and a single-shot .410), and they can rot away in the safe for all he cares. He's 12 now. I wish that he were more interested, but I don't want to push it on him and make him grow to hate it. He'll come around or not. He's emotionally stable, was raised in a good environment and is a good student; but I'll keep an eye on him nonetheless just in case he's a ticking timebomb...

-WRM

[Tim McBride]

Being a moderator, I would think you would take a neutral position.

I have seen happen multiple times in other forums and especially gun forums, where someone in a position of power slowly lets their ideologies and opinions become the rules.

Hope that don't happen here.

LOL, because I'm a mod I can't have any opinion?

Nah, you do what you want. But this place is just like a radio, s*** music comes on...I turn it off.

[Basher]

Were these cowards video gamers?

Garlic Festival shooter - Santino William Legan
El Paso Shooter - Patrick Crusius
Dayton Ohio shooter - Connor Betts



Christchurch NZ shooter was gamer


All of these dysfunctional POS were gamers

1. Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook Elementary, was a frequent player of violent first-person shooter video games. It was said his existence largely involved playing violent computer video games in a bedroom.

2. James Holmes, went on a rampage in a movie theater showing The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012, He was a frequent player of violent video games including World of Warcraft, an infamously addictive role-playing game.

3 Jared Lee Loughner, Tucson, who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others in Tucson in January 2011, was both mentally ill and a video gamer.

4. Eric Harris, based on his journal, a panel of psychologists, psychiatrists and FBI agents point to Harris' contempt for others and his total lack of empathy and conscience as evidence of his psychopathic tendencies. He also enjoyed violent video games.

5. Elliot Rodger, killed seven young men and women, including himself. He was hooked on violent video games from a young age from his own admission, hiding himself in World of Warcraft, where he felt comfortable and secure.

6. Nehemiah Griego, killed five, including his mother, father and his three younger siblings. He loved playing violent video games and even enjoyed talking about them to crime investigators.

7. Jacob Tyler Roberts, played violent video games (his rampage enacted a violent scene in Grand Theft Auto)

8. Anders Behring Breivik shot 68 people dead at a youth camp of the Norwegian Labor party, another nine in a bombing of government buildings According to the judgment rendered against him, he liked playing violent games. He actually used the video game Call of Duty to train for his shooting massacre.

9. Michael Carneal shot girls as they prayed in a prayer group. Carneal never moved his feet during his shootings, and never fired far to the left or right, but instead fired only once at each target that appeared, just as a player of video games maximizes his game score by shooting only once at each victim, in order to hit as many targets as possible.

10. Jose Reyes, a 12-year-old boy who opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun at Sparks Middle School last October, killing a teacher and wounding two students before turning the gun on himself, had watched violent video games for months.

11. Dylann Storm Roof, spent much of his time playing violent video games.

12. Jeff Weise, a 16-year-old, shot dead nine people at and near his high school in Red Lake, Minnesota, had an obsession with violent animation.

13. Chris Harper-Mercer, shot dead nine people and another seven injured in a community college in southern Oregon.

14. Evan Ramsey, snuck a shot gun into his high school and shot a student and the principal and wounded two others. He claims that a video game, Doom, distorted his version of reality: "I did not understand that if I pull out a gun and shoot you ... you're not getting back up. You shoot a guy in Doom, and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in Doom eight or nine times before it dies."

I bet they all drank water, breathed air, and ate food, too! The bastards!

Gimme a break...

I grew up playing first person shooters. Not once have I ever had an inclination to shoot up work, church, or the mall. Yes, parents absolutely have a responsibility to moderate what their children have access to. Games are rated just like movies for that reason, so people know what content to expect within them. Parents are also responsible for educating their children and helping to instill respect, common sense, and some level of intelligence into their offspring, yes. So you got that part right. But the games aren’t the problem. Literally hundreds of millions of people enjoy a little escape from reality with some gaming. The number of them who lose their minds is low enough that you’d likely need to use scientific notation to express it on paper as a percentage.

[Quake_Guy]

got piss poor parenting right, but blaming video games in this day and age is like blaming kickball in the 1950s, every kid did it.

Millenials and everyone younger than them has been taught by the public school system that the world is going to end in their lifetimes. Everyone is depressed. The entertainment has gotten exceptionally nihilistic as a result, think Rick and Morty and many other shows.

Combine that with a middle class that has been hammered from politicians of both parties and people think they are freaking doomed and start acting like the world is over.

Plus someone just said social media and the internet allows an individual to immerse themselves in a 24/7 s*** show with like minded individuals normalizing their behavior. Used to be if you were a total weirdo, you would have a hard time finding like minded weirdos over your entire lifetime. Maybe you would run into one or two here and there. Now you can go online and find scores of them in 1 or 2 hours.

[338lapua]

I recall that in school disagreements were settled with fists in the bathroom and the argument was settled toe to toe. Now, to be fair video games were not yet in existence then. Bullies did what they did and sometimes got beat down. Nobody cried to the teacher. Different world today. Issue is parents that don't parent, mental health issues unaddressed and technology that makes killing look painless and shows these kids the reset button fixes all. We have a country full of fat kids, lazy kids and parents that let the little fockers sit on their butts and game instead of getting outside and playing / burning up energy and getting fit. Ask me how I know - I now have 3 grandkids moved in with me between the ages of 3 and 8. When they arrived all they did was game. I sorted that at the router level. Got them bikes and a trampoline and the game fixation is gone, the energy levels lowered at bed time.
I am sure there are many causative factors with this shooter phenomenon. We all know it sure as s*** is not the gun's fault.

Parents are not allowed to parent, throw your kid a ass beating and you may go to jail for it. Watched a neighbor go through it when he slapped his kid for lying. 15 months of court hell and lucky his ex was crazy and he got a judge that saw through it. But the kid is home and back to failing school and playing video games. Half the time when I take the dog out at 3am you can still see the flickering light from the kids window as he plays video games on a school night.

All you really missed was the this is done by design to take this country down as there is no winning a shooting war with the US, At least until so many fake shooting have happened that they finally take our semi autos away and then we are toast as a nation.

[Basher]

Yup! 18 in the list above.

And tonight most responsible, knowledgeable gun owners are sitting on edge of their seats, wondering what the Prez is going to say tomorrow.

K, so.... 18 out of how many millions? If I pull a random number out of the air, let’s say 100,000,000, then that’s 0.00000018% of gamers will crack. Compare that to the number of drunk or otherwise impaired drivers as a ratio, and you’ll get my point.

Look, I get it. One mass casualty event is one too many. But blaming a game is the same as blaming the gun. It’s a red herring. Violence is too prevalent in society, yes, but that’s a symptom, not a cause. Try again.

[xerts1191]

I go with the three Ps. Parents have been letting the computer and the tv raise their kids for a long time now.