Oddly enough, more people die of drunk drivers and drugs ( not neccessarily illegal drugs ) than they do shootings. In fact most death by shootings are suicides. It's the school shootings that have pushed the issue. It's made people afraid and rightly so. Yet, the problem is social. Society is creating our criminals and we think by dissarming them that their anger won't still bite us back - how many kids, now knowing a schoolmate could flip, still heckle him to death? How many of us turn are backs knowing someone needs help, how many of us know someone who is disturbed? How many of us could say - we saw it coming and did nothing.
Well, well, it turns out I'm behind the curve. I went to the gym today and related some of the topics discussed here earlier. I got quite an earful. It turns out that the same whiny buttinskis who want to ban firearms are also the same whiny buttinskis that want standards and controls on video games. It's not the shootings that emboldened them, it was the recent action on sugary soft drinks in New York City. It appears that video games are not covered under free speech, but a video game is a product and/or a service. As such, there's a ton of case law for safety, commerce and regulation. My, my, this is going to be interesting. Better stockpile the Grand Theft Auto discs and the pizza rolls, boys, looks like there's a-storm a-comin' and I get to cheer for liberals. Ain't America grand? What I'm waiting for is the kid who argues that his freedoms are Constitutional and everyone else's are not. Edit: Here was my written response: Frankly, a video game is a product and/or service and is not covered by free speech protection. This is one of those items that can be signed out of existence with a stroke of a pen. That's what happened to Wisconsin's balisong knives under then Atty. Gen. Jim Doyle. Doyle opined that a balisong knife had no use other than as a weapon, and voila, the knives were gone. If our present AG decides that video games are a credible adjunct to violence, then the same procedure applies. I must admit, I won't miss that faction of the cyber world. I always felt that modern video games tread dangerously close to misogyny and pornography while the use of weapons and visuals of carnage was child abuse. We don't need 'em, and our kids will be better off without them.
Wow. Just wow. Sounds like tourist would have the government lock us all up in padded rooms and be force-fed nutritional slop. Then we'd all be 'safe', right? Or how about this; According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motorcyclists are 35 times more likely experience a deadly accident on the road than those in passenger cars. Imagine how many lives could be saved if we could just pass a law banning motorcycle use. ...are you really this naive on freedom?
Well, we have to do something. Every time some nutball lives out his fantasy it's the law abiding adults that lose gun rights. And knee jerk reactions with hardware solutions are not going to stop out of control kids. Let's start finding real solutions, and video games are part of it. Here's what one parent wrote: My wife and I always knew what was in our kids bedrooms. We told all three of them, "This is our home, you just reside here. We will routinely check your rooms until you move out." We did just that until each moved out. At one point when our son went through a year plus of rebellion, we put him on court supervision to get his attention. One search resulted in cigarettes. Despite a look of amazement from his juvenile probation officer, we turned him in, and he got sanctioned some more. Actually, I had him drug tested routinely throughout high school even though he was off probation. Of course, I knew his two probation officers. You have to take an interest in your kids and do your best to keep them honest, however, even that doesn't always work. I see some great parents in our court with kids who are hanging with the wrong crowd. Then again, parents are limited by the courts. We have judges who thing spanking is child abuse. Another reason we are where we are today in America. I'm not going to lose my guns because some kid got a high score in Halo and now thinks life works that way, too.
I'm sorry, but in the face of this, I'm just gonna bow out of this debate. There is ZERO scientific evidence of a link between violent video games and murder. No more than violent music, violent movies, violent books, violent magazines, and a violent internet. But you refuse to address this fact, and you insist on blaming Halo, (which is old, get up to speed on the things you hate.) and saying that people shouldn't have the freedom of playing the games they want. You want to infringe on my freedoms, to uphold your own freedoms. I don't care about any editorials, or letters from parents, how about facts? In the 62 mass shootings in the last 30 years, the average age of the shooter is what? 16? 18? No, try 35. And how many of them happened in schools? 90%? 80%? No, only 12 out of 62. So before you start banning my right to play whatever game I want, hit me up with facts, instead of your 'gut-feeling' or 'we have to do something'...
Sheesh! This is how you treat your kids when you want them to hate and despise you for the rest of their lives. There's a difference between being a parent and being a prison warden.
JJ, I'll let you in on a little secret--I don't think video games cause violence either, but a lot of folks do. And like it or not, video games are going to come under scrutiny. Why did I yank you? Because now you got a little taste of what gun owners face. Because there are angry folks and junk science. In many cases, outright lies. Do you remember that old "43 times as likely" crap the Brady organization used to trumpet? Heck, honest citizens kill 2,000 felons per year. If we're 43 times as likely to kill ourselves that means there are 86,000 corpses out there, per year. It took us fifteen years to tally 53,000 in Vietnam--during a war. Guys like me--the ones with the most guns, never hurt anyone. Heck, Ted Kennedy's car killed more people than all of my guns over four decades. But the moment a nut commits a crime I wind up having to go through evermore useless paperwork and needless legislation. I'll bet Dianne Feinstein wouldn't know a high-cap from a baseball cap. The parts in an AR-15 are the same parts as in a Browning BAR Safari, one of the finest hunting rifles in the world. So I show you how this works in your life--I foolishly attack something you love, and bingo, out come your claws. Your freedom is at stake. Some clown is going to jam regulations into your life for someone else's crimes. But make no doubt, video games are on the block. We all are going to risk freedoms because Dianne and Chucky want to be white knights.
I've never understood the argument of 'Guns protect our freedom!' If the government transforms into a police state, it comes down to whether or not the military is on their side. If it is, the populace is doomed. A few guns aren't going to protect you from the massive resources that the government holds. If it isn't, then the government has no way of enforcing the laws on a nation-wide scale. Regardless of whether you believe guns should be tolerated or banned, you can't honestly believe that the current laws need no reform. The more rational form of protest is civil disobedience. When the government starts to head down that path, it's important to act out peacefully against it to stop it. In the modernized world, your guns aren't going to do anything for you once that path's been completed. It saddens me that Americans throw a fit over something that's long overdue, yet they're apathetic to basic human rights being violated in the name of 'national security.' Not to mention that many support the various atrocities that politicians are attempting to commit under the name of Christianity. Those are the real things that are going to gradually change America into either A.) A theocratic mess, B.) A police state, or C.) Both.
