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Real Gun Pulled At Counter-Strike Tournament
Audiovore writes "Got Frag? has a press release and interview with the president of Cyber X Gaming about an event which took place after a Counter-Strike LAN gaming qualifier in Los Angeles at the weekend. Apparently, two guys from separate teams got in a fight outside, and when staff tried to break it up one of the participants went to his car, got a gun, and pointed it at the head of a staff member (who happened to be the son of the CXG president.) His team-mates then 'encouraged the person with the gun to fire', although the situation was then calmed down and the remainder of the event was cancelled."
Now this is guaranteed be used as ammo (bad pun) for all kinds of 'family' and 'parent' groups all over the place.
Clearly the problem is the game, which makes people violent. Not in the fact that this particular lunatic owns, and is ready to point a gun at somebody's head.
I'm sure this will get modded to troll immediately, since I'm saying something most /.ers don't want to hear, but this is really something to be expected.
People sit and spend days and days playing games like this where they learn to shoot at almost anything that might be a threat. Just like an athlete that practices for years to hone their reflexes so they don't have to think about actions, but just do -- or like a musician that practices for years so their skills are sharp -- gamers teach themselves to solve problems with violence and to use weapons quickly and easily.
So it's no wonder one of them decides that's the best way to solve their problem and that the others around actually egg him on to shot another human being.
People practice basketball for years to develop skills and be able to react without thinking. Musicians practice for years to learn how to use their instruments without having to think about what they do. In both cases, people are training their neurons by repeated action. And somehow we don't think practicing using a gun day after day doesn't do the same thing?
Get real. Violence leads to more violence, even if it starts with fantasy violence.
This could just as easily have been a Football game, it just wouldn't have garnered this attention. I remember 3 years ago they pre-emptively tear gassed students at the CU - CSU football game to prevent a riot. When the police were asked for justification, they cited the riots that had happened every year for the previous 5 years.
For that matter, we tend to have some kind of riot whenever the Av's Hockey team loses.
The actions of a single individual don't define a group.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
From the article:
The police do have the names of the players and teams associated with the actions and we assume that this will reach a quick conclusion. I can tell everyone that the person that pulled the gun was not part of the BZ team, rather, friends of a certain member of that team.
I live in a country where people have riots and burn cars because their basketball team loses. Heck, sometimes when their team wins. No one ever blames the violence on basketball. Some nutcase friend of player pulls a gun and it's counter-strike's fault?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
To go BACK to his car, pull out a (most likely) LOADED gun he had LOADED beforehand and then go BACK to the guy who had pissed him off. He should be a canidate for the electric chair. Not wanting a gibsonesque future but he might not have killed someone already but he sure as hell would have with that MO.
It is impossible to say whether or not video games promote violent behavior. I do not believe that they do, but I have no evidence to support this believe.
In any case, what we *can* say with certainty is that a kind of aggressive/macho/anti-social culture does develop around certain online games. You have only to play these games to notice the angry, sociopathic tendencies of many of their participants (e.g. the rampant cheating, trash talking, causing other nuisances, etc.).
Whether or not the game itself (CS) promotes this kind of behavior is certainly an unresolved question. At the very least, I think we can agree (as another poster pointed out) that certain games attract an element of player who is already disposed toward bad behavior. I do my best to avoid these games.
The real Grade A morons here, by the way, have to be the teammates encouraging the other Grade A moron with the gun to fire...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
He's been practicing twitching, and is obviously very good at it if he spends the time to go to such an event. Just got done turning his nervous system over to the act-then think mode, with all the hormones from the activity itself, with the additional stress of some percieved inequity and resulting REAL fight. He goes to his car, and escalates things right to the cliff by commiting a violent felony from which there is no longer a way to escape without consequences. Then there is the peer pressure, from people he knows, likes, and probably respects and trusts more than most!
He still doesn't shoot!?
Everything but that small voice inside his head was screaming for a very different outcome. In many ways it isn't a surprise; it's a bonafide wonder the small voice won out.
Get a clue. I have lived in the states my whole life(30 years), and have NEVER seen a gun pulled in a violent maner.
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
So what? This sort of behaviour is common in the States, nothing new to see here, move along now.
No this behaviour is bot common. That's why it's considered news.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Actually, I only know two people who own guns. One is a guard at Rikers Island, and the other is NYPD. Neither, to my knowledge, has had need to use their firearms, but would only use their firearms in the defense of themselves or innocent bystanders.
While these incidents are painfully common in the US, they're not everyday occurences. Many of us are non-violent people. Admitedly, we're very annoying people, though, which makes it a wonder you don't hear about more violence.
But you've already seen Bowling for Columbine. You know that these incidents are less common than the US media makes them out to be. In the NYC area we see a few reports of violent acts on the news every night, but in a metro area of several million people, the odds are pretty good that somebody's gonna fly off the handle every day. Even if this violence is a on-in-a-million shot, we're still guaranteed to see it every day at those odds.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
I have rtfa and the interview and the submission here and I can't find any evidence that the playing of the game (Counterstrike) caused the gun to be used violently. There was a gun and violence and a game of Counterstrike, so what? Was the gun toting individual affected by playing Counterstrike? Were his actions justified? It's not likely, but we're not given enough information to decide for sure. What about the actual team members that encouraged the associate to shoot? Why didn't they just grab their friends gun and do it themselves if they were so demented from hours of Counterstrike. There is also something about the press release that doesn't add up. The only reason I could think to get to work immediately on such a carefully crafted announcement would be to preempt some type of legal action by either party, but the lack of specific details within it raises some suspicion here. I would be interested to know what action Hill Jr took to 'resolve the matter and stop the fighting'. Maybe neglect in developing any conventional social skills landed him in water over his head? I know I can organise a decent gaming session without any real violence breaking out. Why does trouble seem to follow Jr around? Who's to know? Sr. makes some general speculations about what causes these outbursts. He suggests yep it's our fault, it's the games fault, the empathy of the community is to blame. Not much of a defence... And why defend the gaming community? Because the media told you so? No thanks.
Marylin Manson said, 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume.' Is Mr. Hill milking a bit of free advertising? Would guards and metal detectors repel the gaming masses. Hardly! I wish I could make sense of mindless acts of violence but this story does nothing to help me do so. I love the idea of guns as much as the next FPS gamer, but I could live a lifetime and not own one, let alone present it at someone. There are an estimated 2.5 million plus people that play Counterstrike worldwide - and one of them gets a gun pulled on him by another? Even if this is what happened, the only reason I care, is to chuckle at the over-reaction to it by the gaming community.
Why do you go to a computer gaming contest (of any sort) with a gun in your car?
How does someone who is obviously not the sort that should have a firearm get a firearm? They get the firearm because the screening processes used when purchasing a firearm in the US are ineffective.
No wonder other people (Non-Gamers) get touchy about computer violence, when people can go out and purchase these things and indulge their late night fantasies.
Or even more damning: aggravating a already dangerous and volatile situation by encouraging this guy to commit murder! Hopefully some police action was taken against all the people involved.
Does violent gaming increase violence? Last week I would have said "I don't know" This week I say "In an already violent culture, like the American culture perhaps it does"
And as far as all of people who say that violent gaming does not promote violence, I suggest that you help prove your words and make sure that you and you friends are still here in the real world and not letting your fantasies go to far, rather than encouraging one an other in violent antisocial fantasies.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Violence is cowardice. Cowardice is beating up people who are merely disagreeing. Cowardice is pulling a gun on someone because you disagree.
No. You may find cowardice distasteful, and the violence used in this story also distasteful. That does not let you equate cowardice and violence, however. The two are definitely different.
An action is considered an example cowardice when someone weights risk of loss involved the an action overly highly relative to potential gain, and acts based on that judgement.
An action is violent when it causes injury to another.
When a racoon comes near a bird's eggs, birds will frequently try to drive off the racoon, even though they are smaller and at physical risk. They are attempting to do violence to the racoon. They are not, however, cowards in any kind of the traditional sense -- they are risking their lives to protect their eggs.
I disagree that cowardice is beating up people who are merely disagreeing. To do so may be aggressive, but certainly not necessarily the act of a coward. I might attack a professional boxer with my bare hands because I disagree with him. Such an action might be quite stupid, but not that of a coward.
May we never see th
Yeah, I've lived in a major US city for over six years now, and I've never seen a gun outside of "sports" shops. I've walked through "the hood", wandered Chinatown at night, traveled by public transit everywhere, and I've still not seen a single gun. I do know someone who was mugged, and I heard about an armed robbery at a store a few blocks from our house and saw the police cars, but that stuff happens in the UK too.
My family came over to visit, and were amazed to discover that kids of various races played peacefully on the street, running in and out of the unlocked houses. As "Bowling For Columbine" explains, the media paints a completely distorted view of America. Sure, NYC has 8x the per capita murder rate of London, but that still only means 17 murders per 100,000 people. Or to look at it another way, you could live there your whole life and only have a 1% chance of being murdered--and remember that most murders are committed by people known to the victim, so the chances of some random person shooting you are even lower than that.
I volunteered at a local public school. UK readers may be surprised to hear that there were no bars on the windows, no metal detectors, and none of the kids tried to sell me crack or knife me.
The funny thing is that "Bowling For Columbine" IS NOT ANTI-GUN. Yes, it takes the NRA to task for being grossly insensitive, but its main conclusion is that it's the MEDIA that's mostly at fault in perpetuating the culture of violence. Sheesh, you'd think the gun nuts would have enough brain cells to follow the movie and work out that it supports their position, but no, they assume that any documentary which criticizes their beloved NRA must be anti-gun Commie propaganda.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak