ANSWERS: 30
  • In my opinion, yes. It used to be claimed that by giving open access to print/video/dvd pornography and violence, that we would have less in reality, but this is not being supported by research. We are giving mixed signals to our children. On the one hand, we say:care for others and on the other we say: it's okay to kill or at least fantasise about it...
  • Violence in humans is inherent, they didnt have video games, tv or pornography (as such) 1000 years ago, yet we had the crusades, wars, religious genocide, rape, murder and violent assault. The whole "lets blame" culture is systematic of poor parenting skills, the abandoning of personal responsibility and the break down of society. The "Me" generation lock themselvesin gated communities tut tutting at the wicked ways of the world, but yet war, famine and genocide continue in all its gory glory. These are the sort of people who wail, like Rverend Lovejoys wife "Wont somebody think of the children", yet allow them to be turned into obedient automans to be systematically churned into the homogenous system that attacks anything slightly similar to independent thought. Im sorry this has turned into a rant, but I gets my gander up, this sort of thing lol
  • I think the people that commit these crimes already have a proclivity to do so however, some of the more realistic video games may give them an idea what to do (copy cat). I think it is entirely possible that frequent exposure to violence may increase one's need to actually kill people but only if they had it in them to begin with. Many people play these types of games and never harm anyone. While personally I don't like or support violent video games, I think you would find that banning them would be next to impossible. Where would you draw the line - there's lots of violence on TV and in the movies too - do you censor all of it? Imagine the outcry - our freedoms! On top of that, even if it was successful, a black market for violent items would pop up and all the people you would be trying to keep away from the violence would be the ones that would purchase it through these channels. They have made child porn illegal but it's all over the place - they'll never catch everyone but at least we know those they do catch will go to jail. You'd have a hard time making it an offense to possess video games - and you'd simply clog up the legal system even more than that it already is.
  • Great question! About 5 years ago I would have answered no. I really like to play video games and I even think that those games that have shooting are exciting. But today I have to answer YES! Sometimes the activities we think are fun, are not good. In my opinion this is because Satan disguises evil with good and fun. I've noticed that when I play a video or computer game for long periods of time, after, when I'm not playing, the images of the game flash through my mind. Do we want our kids (or anyone really) to be walking around with gruesome murderous thoughts all the time?
  • I believe violence in all its forms - murder, war, revolution - has existed since man stood on two legs. Still, there's no question that it's possible to become desensitized to violence through video games, movies and television. Just because these things exist doesn't mean we should embrace them as forms of entertainment. Just as frightening to me as the scores of young people who take up weapons because they've not learned the value of human life and the real-life consequences of violent actions are the regular citizens like you and me who say a horrific incident like the VT shootings is neither surprising nor shocking. It should be, to all of us.
  • You can't blame video games/movies for desensitizing somebody towards violence. The argument could be made for young children, as they do what they see. But that's why there are ratings on video games and movies. Young children shouldn't be exposed to violence at all. But thats off topic. For someone to think its a good idea to go and shoot a bunch of people, they already have something in them in the first place.
  • Jack Thompson is a prime example for the whole idea.
  • Bloody Yanks
  • That's such a cop-out. We are so afraid to actually take responsibility for what our children do, that we will blame it on anything. MY kids know the difference between fantasy and reality. They KNOW they can't walk around with a sword, decapitating people in REAL LIFE, but they CAN do it in a video game for entertainment purposes. Violence is in our nature. There has been violence LONG before video games, LONG before heavy metal music (remember when THAT was the scapegoat? Before video games became so wildly popular?), and LONG before television, so what do we blame THAT on? Of course, back in the thirties and forties we blamed it on Reefer Madness, when we now know that marijuana users are FAR less likely to exhibit violent behavior than users of alcohol or other drugs. We need to get our heads out of our butts and realize that it's our very nature that's to blame. We need to teach our kids that it's not OKAY to kill people, which means we need to turn off the television and TALK TO THEM once in awhile.
  • Well they have to blame it on someone or something. Heaven knows the shooters carry no blame. Poor things...the games made them do it. BULLS**T!! anyone who takes it upon themselves to walk in anywhere and start shooting people can damn well shoulder the responsibility. Of all the blame that can be spread around, a video game should be the last on the list.
  • I think that people like this already have something wrong that makes them less sensitive to other people's sufferings. I don't think the games cause it. I think that they are a symptom of a deeper problem already in existence.
  • I think a more important question is why do these games exist in the first place. What is it about us that makes our response to them so favorable... I've often heard it said that life on earth is hell, a test, some type of purgatory for us to endure before we learn enough to deliver us to a more spiritual form of existence. If this is true then violent games make sense. Banning them doesn't. We'd just find something else. The real solution lies within each and every one of us and the choices and decisions we make.
  • Desensitized....that is not what was wrong with the student who shot 32 people. Something had to be going on inside of his head. No one in their right mind is going to do what this person did. Something more is wrong inside of the heads of faculty who did not lock down or attempt to warn all of the other students before it was too late. The excuses that the Dean of VT has been giving are just not ringing true in my mind. If the person who did the first shootings was not caught immediately, ALL of the other students and faculty should have been warned at that time, not over two hours later. (Something is wrong here.) If the warning had gone out immediately following the first shootings, I feel others could have been saved.
  • Nothing of this nature is purely black and white. Children are absolutely without any question influenced by what they learn and their surrounding environment. I have no doubt excessive play of violent games could have a very real adverse effect on their moral compass. I also believe such things in moderation coupled with good guidance from parents and teachers can be perfectly harmless. It's all about teaching/learning right from wrong. If a parent is using a video game system as a babysitter the kid's probably in trouble.
  • Did Joe Lieberman say it? I'm tired of hearing about video games, movies and music being the cause of violence. The killer at Virginia Tech had serious mental problems. I can't believe he submitted multiple papers that should have raised a flag with someone that this person needed help.
  • being honest about it i don't think video games are the problem, my brother and i grew up playing and still occasionally play gorry violent games and we hav eno tendencies towards violence. i think if someone does something that horrific then it's in their nature to be that way, ok the video game may have inspired them to a certain extent but if video games were not around to give them such ideas i'm sure they would find some other act of violence to preform. again it comes back to the age old dispute of nature vs nurture, however ( i hate go on like a book) once you have guidence from you guardians and prees moral concience should kick in.
  • no, that is the most bullshit thing to attack when shootings occur. Videogames are quite recent, and have NO affect on anyone, except maybe dry eyes
  • Is'nt that what they used to say about Rock'n'Roll?
  • I think being desensitized to a game with violence is totally different than being desensitized to real life violence. I taught my children and am teaching my grand children that tv, movies and games are NOT REAL. I have also taught them to value life and their time on earth. I think if more parents were involved with their kids, less of this stuff would happen. I am not blaming all the parents. I know some kids are just mentally unstable. But others are just so selfish they cant see past their own troubles.
  • I think the constant butchery on T.V. has some effect on desensitizing our kids, not video games. It all boils down to failed parenting and today's societies demand of on parents. Home alone is the problem, no father, no mother or both, no discipline, no structure, no rules, the list can go on.
  • Video games are a convenient scapegoat for those pointing fingers when in actuality, the mass shootings have more to do with the lack of personal responsibility and parenting skills present in today's society. It's funny, when a kid does great in school and is successful in life, the parents are the first ones to say, "It's a good thing WE put him in that school and taught him all he needs to know" yet, if that same child shoots someone, they say "It's those damned video games... we should sue!"
  • In the ten years following the introduction of "First Person Shooter" games like Doom, the serious crime rate in the USA dropped by about 50%, according to the Department of Justice. Let's do an experiment: Suppose the LA Gangs, the Crips and the Bloods were all at home playing Unreal Tournament. We'll have you stand in the middle of their neighborhood, and we'll take away all their game consoles and tell them they can never play again. Will you feel safer?
  • I've played them for about 10 years now off and on. I don't think I'm more likely to shoot anyone. My son is a Zelda fanatic and he doesn't break into peoples homes to see if they have a chest he can steal from. Interesting fact, Hitler never played video games. I think that people are just good at making excuses for their behavior and are unwilling to own up to anything they do.
  • Nah, those are just the defective people making themselves known. If there wasn't video game violence those same people would have been influenced by something else. Those people just aren't right to begin with, even if it is not apparent. This is just another case of a moronic minority making a much larger group of people look bad. Most people that play violent games use them a release for real life stress, thus keeping violence down in real life by giving it alternate site of release.
  • I think it is a no-brainer. First of all, while normal mentally healthy people might not be desensitized by those games, they are going to have an inordinate attraction to those who are unbalanced to begin with, and that is the last thing they need to be attracted to. Would you take a bunch of those games to the criminal psyche ward of a mental hospital and start handing them out to the patients? But they are right there for people who haven't been diagnosed yet. And trust me, as a former special ed. teacher, there are a lot of kids in your kids school who would have been in an institution 40 years ago. Their behavior is being kept in tenuous check by medication. Do you really want them spending their evenings and weekends playing violent games and dreaming of doing likewise to everyone at school they don't like? What single positive quality comes out of those games? It wastes time. It isolates people away from others. It keeps kids from studying. It contributes to the obesity epedemic. It teaches not even questionable moral values. It wastes money. Let's all throw the nasty things in the trash and go outdoors and get to know one another again.
  • In my mind, video games can have a negative effect or a positive effect, all depending on the type of person who percieves what it is they are seeing or hearing. One could say that Nazi-ism is due in part to how one german man viewed and percieved "survival of the fittest" from the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. The Nazis now became powerful in the 1930s and went to kill millions and start a war that engulfed Europe in the 1940s. Should we ban evolution because of this? Good question, we shouldn't just because one thing happened. In this day and age, many people play many different types of video games. Say a killer massacred 1000 people, but he plays Hello Kitty Online. Now say a person plays Grand Theft Auto 4, yet killed only 1. What's the cause of the violence here? We may never really know. But it is always pointed at the video game, but alas, would you shoot down Hello Kitty Online for inciting the deaths of 1000 people, or GTA4 for the death of 1? The media always likes to use violent video games, even if it likely had nothing to do with the death/s. Now, the mentaly incapable probably cannot tell the diffence between reality and fantasy. I wouldn't ban violent video games, but I wouldn't allow these people to play them. The same goes to young children, who are impreshionable. That's my two cents on this.
  • if it wasn't video games it would be blamed on music or movies or books. anything so the people causing the violence won't have to be responsible for their actions. banning and censorship is bullshit.
  • Oh come on. We've had murders since the start of time for God's sake! People just keep looking for new things to blame. Before video games it was T.V. Before T.V. it was the cinema, before that books etc etc. In the future people will be blaming new things for murders.
  • Sure. While we're at it, let's also get rid of rap and metal music, books and short stories, television shows and movies, and board games. Just kidding!!!!!!!!
  • I think it plays a small part with SOME people...it does not make me want to murder, but, I don't play murder video games...I have seen them and think they are studpid.

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