NRA Blames Violent Video Games and Everyone Else

[Aristotle]

So legendary bomb thrower Wayne LaPierre gave the NRA's press conference.

Full transcript

NRA blames games in wake of shooting

I think this is a losing strategy for the NRA. A lot of gamers are pro-gun rights. The NRA needs those gamers if they want to maintain healthy membership numbers through this generation and the next. Games are also the dominant form of entertainment and that gap is only increasing. Alienating that industry is just foolish.

Not to mention the fact that putting blame on games is just dishonest.

1) Canada, Japan, Korea, the UK, and many other countries play games as much or more than the US. Korea in particular has a much higher % gamer population. And yet violent crime and gun deaths are dramatically lower there than they are in the USA. How are gamers in those countries magically able to avoid shooting everyone and yet they just can't resist in the USA?

2) The rise in popularity of video games (and in particular violent video games) directly coincides with huge drops in violent crime in the USA. Explain that, Wayne.

To hit some high points from the NRA's screed:

"And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal:"

Who is "concealing" the whole violent video game thing? Its all over the media constantly. Nothing is being concealed. It is one of the mainstream media's favorite go-to lazy stories to trot out whenever they have nothing better to report.

"There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry"

SHADOW INDUSTRY? SERIOUSLY? You want to talk about a shadow industry? Gun/trade shows where people are able to buy massive amounts of guns and skirt the usual laws and regulations. *THAT* is a shadow industry, Wayne.

"And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years."

Since his screed, I would wager than a thousand times more people have now heard of and played that game than had ever heard of it in the previous 10 years. That's an absolute ZERO of a game that nobody knew about.

"How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?"

Well, Wayne, because your research department is looking for a scapegoat and the rest of the world isn't stupid enough to think that irrelevancy of a game has any influence on anyone.

I don't blame guns. But I sure as hell don't blame video games. And when I see someone playing a despicable game of dishonest blame deflection, it disgusts me.

[xaxer]

"I don't blame guns. But I sure as hell don't blame video games. And when I see someone playing a despicable game of dishonest blame deflection, it disgusts me. "


I am very pro firearms and 2nd ammendment...
and though some Video games may desensitize to a degree
I think that it is more to the fact that we dont let children under 17
see certian movies or under 18 buy cigarettes
I think that there should be more control over games marked MA
not being bought or used by under18, unfortunitly many parents
use video games as a childs buillt in Babysitter .

The knee Jerk reaction to a very sad event though is
not the answer to firearms or video games

It is parents being more involved in their childrens lives

I am sure more about the shooter will come out
but a 20 year old ( unemployed) and probbly bullied
when in school intrevert - Probbly needed some professional help
and perhaps showed this long before this event happened.
or so I believe...

[Tartun]

There's a huge generation gap when it comes to video games AND guns. Young people don't understand why gun rights are so important and old people think that video games are some kind of mind melting black magic. It doesn't surprise me that when things like this happen, the two sides are pointing at one another as the culprit.

What is interesting is that the Connecticut school shooting is a case of a kid who was of legal age to purchase and play violent video games and see r-rated movies, but his ACTUAL mental age was WAY below what we would consider a mature adult. His mom did her best to take him shooting, and familiarize him with guns and gun safety, as a means of spending time with her child, and he did his best to take out terrorists and zombies in daily video games blurring the lines of fantasy and reality. What you had was the recipe for a perfect storm of mentallly ill rampage.

The solution isn't ban guns that look scary or magazines that hold more rounds (He could have killed those kindergarteners with a sharp stick) or to ban violent videogames, or enact more strict laws about sale to minors (the guy was an adult.) because there is no way to know how or why someone is going to go on a killing spree.

In the NRA's defense, as a lobbying group and advocate of gun ownership, I would probably want to shift the focus to violent videogames, too. They aren't going anywhere and this school shooting isn't going to harm them. But we have a presidential administration who desperately desires to infringe the right to bear arms that is protected ONLY by the second amendment.

Even the news station that has "conservative bias" is blabbering on and on about so-called "assault weapons" so I'm not surprised that the NRA is flailing desperately, gasping for air in this flood of criticism.

What they should point to is that violent crimes are still WAAAAY down compared to the 80s. Turns out that was because of leaded gasoline. Maybe all the windmills are driving people crazy now.

[Tartun]

1) Canada, Japan, Korea, the UK, and many other countries play games as much or more than the US. Korea in particular has a much higher % gamer population. And yet violent crime and gun deaths are dramatically lower there than they are in the USA. How are gamers in those countries magically able to avoid shooting everyone and yet they just can't resist in the USA?

2) The rise in popularity of video games (and in particular violent video games) directly coincides with huge drops in violent crime in the USA. Explain that, Wayne.

1) What's the actual stat on that? And Korea isn't a country. It's two. The north half is not something we should be emulating. And the Japanese solution to subway rape is "Don't get groped" signs. Also "Violent crime" and "Gun Deaths" are two totally different things. There's a lot more to that kind of comparison than just throwing out a blanket statement like that.

2) The consensus of the scientific community is that the youth of the 80s were the last generation in the US to be exposed to unleaded gasoline, one of the symptoms of low level lead poisoning being violent tendencies. Last thing I read about it, was that they were studying the effects of unleaded gasoline in violent regions of Africa, to see if it was a factor in all the violence there.

[kestra]

I shot my first hand gun 2 years ago at a shooting range for my birthday present. To my surprise I really enjoyed it. I loved how the Springfield .45 felt, and didn't care much for the 9mms. I could see myself getting into range shooting, eventually getting into shotguns and such, but can someone explain to me the need to have a semi-automatic, or rapid-fire whatever in their household? Does it come down to a freedom of choice issue, like having a super charged engine in your vehicle or obnoxiously large 4x4 in your driveway?

[kestra]

In addition, I am entertaining the idea of hunting for my own meat, as I'm tired of all the tainted meat scandals that pop up in Canada. (tough gig though when your fiancee is vegan....). Nevertheless, if I ever decided to purchase weaponry, it would be for the above reasons, and not home defense.

[Gromgor]

but can someone explain to me the need to have a semi-automatic, or rapid-fire whatever in their household? Does it come down to a freedom of choice issue, like having a super charged engine in your vehicle or obnoxiously large 4x4 in your driveway?

The Right to Bear Arms isn't in place for sport shooting, deer hunting or to deter criminals from breaking into your house or to prevent rapes/muggings. The second amendment is in place to keep the citizenry armed against the government. If our military and police is going to have assault rifles, fully automatic weapons, then so too do it's citizens need to have those weapons. The greatest problem with all this debate is that people forget that it doesn't matter if video games inspire violence. it doesn't matter if rabid deer are threatening to break into your home and you need a fully automatic grenade launcher to fend it off. We have a second amendment to ensure that each and every one of the other amendments are adhered to by our government.

That is why we need to be allowed to have them.

[khaltek]

Do they follow the Constitution all the time? If not, when was the last armed rebellion when they didn't?

Just wondering.

[Aristotle]

can someone explain to me the need to have a semi-automatic

As Gromgor explained, the primary purpose of the 2nd ammendment is something even bigger than to protect hunting and sport shooting.

But keep in mind that with the except of antiques, almost every single gun manufactured is semi-automatic.

All semi-automatic means is every time you pull the trigger, it fires 1 shot and loads the next round without you having to perform some other action (cocking it, pumping it, etc).

So aside from pump action shotguns and bolt-action rifles, every modern weapon is semi-automatic.

[kestra]

I'm referring to assault weapons and high capacity magazines. In other words, big fucking machine guns that are found in video games and in modern warfare movies.