Guns, mass shootings, and related.

^My concern is, if you make something trivial, then it becomes trivial. If you haven't properly taught to feel empathy and shown the value of human life to a youngster, killing sprites on a screen is not that different from killing people. Both have no value as anything for the person.

Now obviously I would neer ask for a ban on games. And they ARE regulated (not that parents or retailers follow regulations though). The culture that creates and makes these games thrive is the problem. Good luck fixing that.

I was wondering when we'd get into the video game thing!

Not to be mean but the whole: video games/movies/music may be part of the problem is a load of horsesh*t.
Could go into why but really, I think most people understand this.
If you really are affected by a game to do such things, you have some type of issue and that is usually the real problem anyway.

Teo is right, there actually IS a system in place and whenever I've been buying video games the store usually enforces it.  Now I look well over 17 so they don't, but I see them ID younger kids. You could try to crack down on game sales but again, you're going down the road of doing a lot of work, for something that wont work and isn't rally the problem.
As for the culture, IDK....I always loved GTA, Resident Evil, blowing people up and I hate guns and violence soooo yeah

I have played Grand Theft Auto at a young age. When I was 12 years old I was playing Grand Theft Auto and watching South Park and violent action films. I was listening to Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest and Slayer. I was around guns and people who hunted for a living. 

Finnforest wrote: The Doctor wrote: Well, Jim, if you have the resources and desire to make a fortress of your home, yes, you are right, the chances of them catching you by surprise is little.  However, back in 97, while living in an apartment with sliding glass doors and watching television, a rock came crashing through that door.  Now it just so happened it was some punk kids just causing havoc in the hood.  But if it had been armed thugs, they could have walked right in on us and even had I had a gun (I've never owned one), they would have caught us completely by surprise and there would have been nothing we could have done about it.  Of course I will no longer live in an apartment with sliding glass doors.  But in most instances, if a criminal really wants to get into your house and catch you by surprise (a home invasion), there's not much you can do about it unless you have your house locked up tighter than fort knox.   I wouldn't call it a fortress.  We needed new doors and windows anyway, so we simply purchased materials that would be quite difficult to get through.  We don't have a sliding door.  We have two good entrance doors with those full security glass Larson storm doors over each.  Those are a bitch to break through.  The glass on the windows is also very hard to breach.  They could, sure, but they'd make a lot of noise in an area where there are lots of people nearby. So we spent money we needed to spend anyway and got a little peace of mind.  Your Fort Knox characterization is a bit silly, our house looks like any other house and we are modest folks. What we did will prevent the easy smash n grab which was the main motivation.  But it will also provide a bit of a noise warning if someone does attempt a break-in while we're there.  Give us time to dial a 911 or whatever.  You'd have to see the place, but it was a very sensible reaction to what happened here.  And it cost only a bit more than any other door/window job would have cost.  Our doors and windows were terrible and needed to be changed.

I wasn't trying to say that there is anything wrong with adding extra layers of protection to your home if you so desire and have the means to do so.  But I do think a lot of people think a gun alone will protect them from robbery, violence and so forth.  That's simply not true in a great majority of cases.  Simply having a gun in your home will not protect.  If someone wants to get you, they will..

Now, as to the larger issues at play in this thread, I agree with those who point out that guns are not the only issue, that there is a definite decline in empathy in this country, that we are being desensitized to violence and that there are problems with mental health services.  Guns don't make people bad or insane.  But, a bad person + a gun = a bad person with a gun.  I think it's silly of those on the anti-gun side to dismiss the non-gun related portions of the problem, but it is equally silly for the pro-gun side to ignore the gun part of the equation.   And for the pro-gun lobby and its followers, I think it's wrong of them to take any talk of sensible gun control legislation off the table. 

They probably raised you to regard other children as children, as other people that had rights and obligations like you. 

The T wrote: They probably raised you to regard other children as children, as other people that had rights and obligations like you.

Yes, but never said that

Indeed, preaching to the choir, don't get it.
Environment is part of it, I only met one guy personally who's like that from where I live (most say what we do, a handgun is fine) but in Pennsylvania they are more open to it. One friend actually did own an AK 47. Obviously not used by him, just to collect? Just to say don't touch my guns? The less urbanized upbringing? I have no idea.


Edited by JJLehto - December 22 2012 at 13:44

That quote is great!

The T wrote: Quick question: do you think the glorification of guns and the military in video games adds to the problem? I don't have any stats related to use of games in other countries, but here things like Call of Duty are more popular than movies. Now, I play those games but I started playing as an adult, well into adulthood, first person shooters in general (as a child I only played Marios and the sort). But I work and see how many parents buy first person shokters for their children, and it's obvious that these games are played by wrong the audience. Do you think shooting people in a screen eventually desensitizes youngsters from shooting people in general? From violence? Makes them want to try the real stuff?

Epignosis wrote:

What an idiotic - and highly unoriginal - quote.   I thought he had a better mind than that.