Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed

Dr_LHA writes: "This story on Yahoo! reports that the federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that claimed the influence of video games and movies where what caused the Columbine High School massacre. Obvious to those of us who play GTA3 regularly but still manage to overcome the urge to plough over pedestrains on the way to work in the morning, but good to see someone high up showing some sense."

Comments

Re:Video games cause death?

[einTier]

It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one listening to Metallica in high school and playing Shadowrun and violent video games to help work out some of the rage I felt on a day to day basis.

I think in earlier times, it was easier to work out this rage, either fighting was more accepted (my parent's time), or you had to actively hunt for food (grandparent's time), or by 13 or 14, you were out fighting [i]real[/i] wars.

I don't think I was an atypical teen, but I had a lot of anger and angst I needed to work out. Luckily I had an outlet for that. I don't think it was unhealthy, most of my angst was about things I couldn't control and didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with yet. Adolescence is a very hard time to deal with. Mine was made better knowing that someone felt the same way I did (or at least did at one time) and there were outlets for my irrational rage and aggression.

Unfortunately, I see many parents trying to take away every one of these outlets, on the idea that they somehow cause violence. They'd like to ban everything from football to video games to violent television, because they aren't comfortable with the violent aspect of them. Somehow, they think if you just take these things away, people will somehow stop being "animals". It doesn't work that way. Man is violent by nature, and I'm sure that's part of the reason we survived to build society. You don't breed that out in a generation or get rid of it by legislation. And, the more you close off the places to get rid of this aggression safely, you will encourage more and more school shootings.