This fool at my school thinks he's so badass for knowing a lot about guns from video games, and wants to be badass like the game characters. Which apparently correlates to bringing several knives to school. He wasn't going to stab anyone, he was just going to act like he was going to stab someone. I'm not saying video games cause violence, just that they might make edgy kids even edgier. Of course, kids can find edginess from any source. Let's just do a little less of glorifying violence and mental illness. It's like those kids who act like they are insane because they think the joker's cool.
Knowing something doesn’t make a person act on it- but a person wouldn’t be able to act on something they know nothing of. A pack a day smoker likely wouldn’t figure out to cultivate, process, and smoke Tobacco if they never knew cigarettes existed. However- that’s an appeal to ignorance. Keep people ignorant of things they MIGHT act negatively on? That’s a line from a dystopian nightmare or a fantasy fiction villain. The fact violent games and the like exist and are so popular shows us that without these things- People would still have those thoughts and urges because these things have come from countless collective imaginations. Instead of creating a society that hides and repressed violence inherent to most all- we should work to cultivate outlets and constructive uses for these urges, reward more noble behavior but also start to reward violence instead of shun it when violence is used appropriately. Ignorance is rarely the key to any door worth opening.
if you think video games give you an accurate representation of how specific guns work and how to use said guns effectively you might need to rethink your understanding of video games. The only thing you could learn from a game about a specific gun is "oh look you pull the trigger and the gun fires and my screen goes up." that says literally nothing about irl recoil, literally nothing about how to time shots, and literally nothing about how to shoot the gun in an actually accurate manor.
I like your points, Beth, but I like your typographical error even more :p I think you were going for manner, but manor paints a much more entertaining picture.
Don't get me wrong-I think there are some serious flaws in the logic that video games make people violent. And I think that advocating for ignorance is a poor decision in any subject. However-I do want to point out a flaw in the response. There is no way in hell your school taught you the strategies nessicary for successful genocide. The women's (inaccurate) statement was that video games taught her son how to use guns. And if that were somehow true (I'm genuinely excited for the future of gaming where video games can teach you how to use real guns) then "school taught me about genocide " would be a pretty weak agrugement.
Especially when there are actually good arguments. Like the fact that shooting a gun is a fairly intuitive task, where as using one effectively specifically at the target you want to hit is so difficult that trained marksmen still miss on a regular basis. So learning how to use a gun well actually makes you less of a danger when using a gun.
1783 the American Revolution ends. People who lived through it are alive for the war of 1812. That war ends and in 1846 people alive for it see the Mexican American war. Those vets live through the civil war. Those live through the Spanish American war. We still have people alive from the civil war when we end WW1. The WW1 guys are alive for WW2. WW2 vets are alive for Korea and Vietnam, Nam vets are still around for the gulf war. A decade later those guys are around for Round 2 and Afghanistan. Not a single American generation hasn’t been without a major war since the country was founded.
All that said- is certainly concur that if I were looking at things which might cause violent behavior- the newcomer to the ring- video games, certainly wouldn’t be my first thought. Being taught to respect a gun, to be safe around guns, all very good ideas. If we treat guns like “porn” or toys- we take away the gravity of what they are. If we treat them like forbidden fruit we build a mystique of power. They’re tools- like a power saw. Respecting tools and not playing with tools and using tools responsibly is always a good lesson.
@guest_ I believe your point was intended to be violence isn't new. And I agree completely, both with that being true and with that being a good agrugement.
Also, on the matter of near constant war, it isn't just Americans either. Humans have been at war somewhere on the planet in most every year of recorded history. Some places have certainly seen more war than others, and we have seen periods of relative peace, but most of those have been localized to particular regions. Humans, as a species, have always viewed violence as an acceptable means to survival. If not our own personal survival, the survival of our families.
@the kaylapup- I agree. I used America because a list of wars world wide would be very long lol, and I already used a while post just on only major American wars. Plus since I’m American I didn’t want it to seem like I was picking on any country instead of just giving examples. But yes, humans have never needed video games or movies or books to act violently. We also have no evidence that there is a rise in violence nor any serious links to such a rise correlating to the introduction of video games.
Looking at a world with an increasing number of people competing for fewer things and living closer together, a world where technology and tactics have caused escalation in force required for a goal, generations desensitized from real atrocities, shifts which give more people more time and resources to dwell or act on such things versus worrying about survival or other life imperatives.... I mean- if you’ve got 20 people in a football stadium it’s much easier to not only know the rest, but control your interactions. And of all 20 are busy all day with survival based chores they will encounter each other less. Now pack that stadium with 20,000 and give them much more idle time and suddenly.... by default if 1/20 snaps they can do less damage than if 1 in every 20 out of 20,000 snaps.
So I believe that video games do not cause violence, but they can inspire or influence those already prone to socially unacceptable violence. But the culprit isn’t the video games. Mass shootings weren’t really a “thing” in the bygone days and I don’t think you’ll find 1 culprit to pin it on. Sure- it’s harder to shoot up a school with a musket than an AK. But it isn’t easier to get weapons than it was when most homes had guns and laws barely existed. People used to default to bombs for mass killing, and those weren’t hard to get or make either at the time. So there are certainly cultural shifts involved as well. People want to blame video games for being toxic, but that’s because people want to know “why” when bad things happen and rarely want to actually dig for answers that likely have hard solutions. It’s easier to blame one thing and feel emotionally validated than to do the actual work to fix things.
Especially when there are actually good arguments. Like the fact that shooting a gun is a fairly intuitive task, where as using one effectively specifically at the target you want to hit is so difficult that trained marksmen still miss on a regular basis. So learning how to use a gun well actually makes you less of a danger when using a gun.
Also, on the matter of near constant war, it isn't just Americans either. Humans have been at war somewhere on the planet in most every year of recorded history. Some places have certainly seen more war than others, and we have seen periods of relative peace, but most of those have been localized to particular regions. Humans, as a species, have always viewed violence as an acceptable means to survival. If not our own personal survival, the survival of our families.