Videogames responsible for V Tech Shooting

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Originally posted by Darion
Yes, imagine if they shut down for the day every time a double murder in a dorm popped up. They'd hardly have time to learn anything.

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That's precisely my point. Sure, a double murder is pretty clear. But it's fundamentally not all that different from two students yelling and carrying knives. You can kill thirty-odd people with a gun; you might not be able to kill so many so easily with a knife, but it's certainly deadly. Ultimately, you'll get to the situation I described - two people start arguing, there are knives in the room, let's lockdown immediately.

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Originally posted by Belair

What is not often known to foreigners (and please correct me if I am wrong), is that Americans are unwilling to restrict gun availability due to a powerful and deep-rooted suspicion of government; a fear that a renegade president or military official could abuse the power they wield upon their own people.

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I am no political scholar and I am very Democrat, which means I don't like guns overly much.. BUT.. the whole usual debate on guns is that our Constitution states that we have the Right to Bear Arms.

Second Amendment: declares "a well regulated militia" as "necessary" to maintaining a free state, and as explanation for prohibiting infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

So of course many in our country debate just what that means. How far is our right extented. I personally am not afraid of "Regegade President Bush, " so I must go out and buy a fire arm.

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That's precisely my point. Sure, a double murder is pretty clear. But it's fundamentally not all that different from two students yelling and carrying knives.

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:eek :eek :eek :eek :eek :eek

Did you actually just say that? In what universe are the two even remotely similar?

I presume that you are saying that educational facilities should not shut down for cases of simple assault, or perhaps even assault and battery. Terrific, I agree.

Extending that logic to include a double murder (or hey, even one little old murder) is ridiculous in the extreme, ESPECIALLY so when you consider that there were no suspects in custody after the original V-Tech double murders were discovered. Now you're talking about a double homicide with the killer loose on campus, but if the grounds are locked down it's somehow worse? It seems like basic principles of physical security.

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Originally posted by Ismenia

Second Amendment: declares "a well regulated militia" as "necessary" to maintaining a free state, and as explanation for prohibiting infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

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Which is quite a noble thing to put in place, certainly back then anyway. Like you, Ismenia, I'm no fan of guns, and I can't see how it's applicable in current times to arm a civilian population with them. If a civil war type thing erupts in the US, whoever has the well trained soldiers and military hardware on their team is going to win.

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Originally posted by Darion
:eek :eek :eek :eek :eek :eek

Did you actually just say that? In what universe are the two even remotely similar?

I presume that you are saying that educational facilities should not shut down for cases of simple assault, or perhaps even assault and battery. Terrific, I agree.

Extending that logic to include a double murder (or hey, even one little old murder) is ridiculous in the extreme, ESPECIALLY so when you consider that there were no suspects in custody after the original V-Tech double murders were discovered. Now you're talking about a double homicide with the killer loose on campus, but if the grounds are locked down it's somehow worse? It seems like basic principles of physical security.

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The difference is in degree. To be sure, there's a difference in that one results in death and another doesn't. But most really-dangerous situations are slightly-dangerous situations that got worse.

You don't prevent shootings by ramping up security once two people are dead. You prevent shootings by doing something while they're still alive. And that usually means reacting to something that isn't an issue.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't lock-down after a double murder. I'm saying that situations are seldom so simple that it's impossible to make the wrong judgement. Somebody made a judgement call to avoid panic. If it turns out that that decision wasn't the best one to make, that's quite possibly true, but it doesn't negate the fact that he had a choice, and he chose caution and not panic.

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Originally posted by Rosuav
The difference is in degree. To be sure, there's a difference in that one results in death and another doesn't. But most really-dangerous situations are slightly-dangerous situations that got worse.

You don't prevent shootings by ramping up security once two people are dead. You prevent shootings by doing something while they're still alive. And that usually means reacting to something that isn't an issue.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't lock-down after a double murder. I'm saying that situations are seldom so simple that it's impossible to make the wrong judgement. Somebody made a judgement call to avoid panic. If it turns out that that decision wasn't the best one to make, that's quite possibly true, but it doesn't negate the fact that he had a choice, and he chose caution and not panic.

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The reason that leaders of institutions get paid so much money is because they are expected to make the right decisions when faced with a difficult situation. The foremost concern of university leadership should be the safety and security of their students and facilities. It is completely unacceptable for a double murder to occur and for the campus to not be immediately locked down.

As for your concern over where the line gets drawn and how much panic is created, that's what the big guys get paid the big bucks for. It is not an easy job and these aren't easy decisions. Not everyone will agree on where to draw the line, but in extreme cases rational people should be able to agree. Murder should lead to immediate lockdown of the campus. Verbal altercation with knives in the room might warrant a visit by campus security, but definitely does not require the campus to be on lockdown.

Security doesn't exist to stop any harm from happening. It exists to provide a quick and appropriate response when someone is harmed to control the situation and keep it from escalating. Bad things will always happen for a multitude of reasons. Social conditioning needs to be employed to reduce the number of bad things. Security exists to respond when that social conditioning has failed.

To get slightly back on topic...Entertainment is part of our social conditioning. I'd be interested to see statistics to show violent acts per capita in areas and times when entertainment was largely non-violent compared to today when it is hard to escape sex and violence in our entertainment sources. There may be a link to violent entertainment and an increase in violent acts.

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/gvc.htm

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Since 1994, violent crime rates have declined, reaching the lowest level ever in 2005.

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Graph shows data from 1973-2005.

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Homicide rates recently declined to levels last seen in the late 1960s.

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Graph shows data from 1900-2002

Might I add here that the rates were highest in the mid 70s-early 80s and again in the early-mid 90s. Data shows that in the 20s-30s, murder rates were nearly as high as the peaks in the 70s and 90s. The only one of those three periods (20s, 70s and 90s) which might even have a chance of being influenced by violent video games is the mid-1990s, however, since then the rate has steadily gone down.

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Robbery rates declined after 1994.

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Graph shows data from 1973-2005.

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Assault rates declined since 1994.

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Graph shows data from 1973-2005.

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The proportion of serious violent crimes committed by juveniles has generally declined since 1993.

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Graph shows data from 1973-2005.


Grand Theft Auto III for PS2 was released on 10/22/2001. GTA: Vice City was released on October 27, 2002. After the release of both of these immensely popular games, assault, robbery and violent crime rates all went down over the next 3 years. Homicide data only runs through 2002, so only GTA: III would be included, but again, after the release, the rate went down.

Sorry, I just don't buy the argument. It's time for us to move on and stop giving attention to those that make baseless, unfounded statements about their personal perceived threat to the world due to violent video games.

Next.

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Originally posted by Belair
Of all the elements of American exceptionalism that make the country so different from the rest of the developed world - such as its religiosity, its patriotism, its economic tolerance for large disparities of wealth - it is the gun culture that is least understood by foreigners.

If guns were very difficult to obtain for both the household defender and the criminal alike, would we not observe less carnage and domestic shooting? To many from Europe, Canada and Australia, the gun culture of the US strikes as the most tragic mistep for the greatest civilisation on Earth to take.

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Shifting back a little...you're right Belair...it is one of the major things most of the rest of the world thinks the USA is crazy for. As much as it rains in the UK, I'm glad we kicked out all the religious nuts and gun freaks...better to keep those two groups together...don't let them watch video games though for Aether's sake (the last bit is sarcasm!).

Back to the point... I'm agreeing with whoever is saying that video games don't cause violence. I'm at my most calm, spaced out state while mudding...even when borging. I'm more emotionally detatched then, than why I'm trying to get to sleep. Roleplaying makes the brain switch off to allow the character to take over - yeay! Encourage RP! Then again, I'm not a FPS player...even so, its a method to take -out- aggression in most intelligent individuals, not implant ideas of how to commit GTA or battery, even in the less intelligent!

This thread reminded me of an interesting article I read some months back when it was first published. It's in one of the more accessible (less technical) Sociological journals. The article is called "Do Video Games Kill?" and explores how and why the media and politicians latched onto this idea. You can read the full thing HERE , but here's an excerpt:

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As soon as it was released in 1993, a video game called Doom became a target for critics. Not the first, but certainly one of the most popular firstperson shooter games, Doom galvanized fears that such games would teach kids to kill. In the years after its release, Doom helped video gaming grow into a multibillion dollar industry, surpassing Hollywood box-office revenues and further fanning public anxieties.

Then came the school shootings in Paducah, Kentucky; Springfield, Oregon; and Littleton, Colorado. In all three cases, press accounts emphasized that the shooters loved Doom, making it appear that the critics’ predictions about video games were coming true.

But in the ten years following Doom’s release, homicide arrest rates fell by 77 percent among juveniles. School shootings remain extremely rare; even during the 1990s, when fears of school violence were high, students had less than a 7 in 10 million chance of being killed at school. During that time, video games became a major part of many young people’s lives, few of whom will ever become violent, let alone kill. So why is the video game explanation so popular?

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So why is the video game explanation so popular?

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Because people have no imagination, no concept of psychology, and no desire to realise that possibly, they could have been wrong.