Video Game Violence
If you haven’t heard the recent news of a shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec, here’s an article about it. The tragedy took place on Wednesday, September 13th, around 12:45pm at Dawson College in Montreal. A 25-year old man walked in and opened fire upon his classmates, killing one and injuring nineteen others. The gunman was shot and killed upon trying to leave the school by police. This is an all-too-familiar event that reminds me of the Columbine High School shooting back when I was in college. I extend my deepest sympathies to the victims and their families and cannot imagine how terrifying the whole ordeal was. The next day I read an article on Gamespot that really upset me, as it put a spin on the tragedy by pointing the blame finger at violent video games.
Here is the article from Gamespot: Media links Montreal mass shooting to games, by Brendan Sinclair. It is an interesting read, and brings to light for me a Florida lawyer by the name of Jack Thompson, whose crusade is to ban violent video games.
Why focus on one aspect of a person’s life… video games… and speculate that they are the reason behind this person’s actions? There’s more to someone’s life to take into consideration when attempting to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. Perhaps looking at other aspects of the gunman’s life will shed light on what it was that drew him to violent video games in the first place; don’t be fooled that it was the video games that did it to him. They act as though someone is perfectly normal and blissful in their life, but because they start playing x game, suddenly they’re transformed into a bloodthirsty killer and feel the need to go on a rampage. This just isn’t so. Violent video games don’t pull in innocent, “normal” people and turn them into something they’re not. It’s more like violence is something a person is interested in, (for whatever reasons) which attracts them to violent games, not the other way around. Banning violent video games will NOT change the fact that there are people out there who will still do such things regardless, and getting rid of violent video games will not stop violence from happening… it will only change who or what the blame finger gets pointed at this week. Remember when it was rock music, or heavy metal music that was to blame? Video games are simply this generation’s scapegoat just like the Beatles were the reason Charles Manson did what he did.
The Florida lawyer, Jack Thompson, refers to violent video games as “violence simulators.” Considering the gunman in Montreal’s situation was in fairly close-proximity and he was shooting continuously “for about 30 minutes” (quote from the article), it sure does say a lot for how well those games actually “simulate” the real thing, huh? If those games were truly a violence simulator that the gunman used to practice on for his rampage on Wednesday like Jack Thompson would like you to believe, don’t you think the casualty list would’ve been 100 times longer? We should be thankful that Thompson is wrong and that video games are not murder simulators, or more people would have died in Montreal. I don’t mean to sound insensitive because I am thankful that more were not killed on Wednesday in Quebec and wish the tragedy wouldn’t have happened at all, but Jack Thompson’s theory and scapegoating act is a load of crap and does a real injustice to the victims and their families.
It’s situations like this that make me glad I held on to an article from a year or so ago that I read on GameRevolution.com. It is one of the smartest articles I’ve ever read on the topic, and it’s called Caution: Children At Play, The Truth About Violent Youth and Violent Games, by Duke Ferris. The article is basically explaining statistically how violent video games are NOT the reason for youth violence, and the proof comes directly from the statistics published by the very same people who are blaming video games for violence in the first place.
Highlights of Duke’s article show actual charts and real statistics pulled directly from the U.S. government and the FBI’s own published data showing that violent crime is at the lowest it has been in thirty years. It also shows factual evidence that youth homicide has actually dropped and quote “Recently, the offending rates for 14-17 year-olds reached the lowest levels ever recorded.” according to the Department of Justice report cited in Duke’s article. In October of 2005, Duke updated his article to include the FBI’s crime report for 2004, which showed that murder rates are at a new forty year low… in the same year that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was rated the best selling game. It’s amazing to me and angering at the same time to see the nasty propaganda and lies being created by the media and people like Jack Thompson to be used as a scapegoat instead of looking at what else is truly to blame.
I think Jack Thompson and people like him are part of the problem. It seems as though in today’s society we’re lazy; it’s quicker and easier to point a finger at something or someone else rather than to look at ourselves and truly get to the root of the issue. We seem to favor the quick and (lazy) solution rather than taking time to focus on the real issues at hand and do something about it. So what else is truly to blame? According to the U.S. Surgeon General, there’s actually twenty-seven other things that rate higher on the risk scale than violent media, and yet we blame video games because it’s easier; video games can be banned, while things like poor socioeconomic status and bad parenting actually require effort.
Articles may not be republished elsewhere in whole or in part without permission. Feel free to link directly to this post. ©2005-2008 by Lesley Karpiuk (Toque of pinktoque.com)