News Media Links Shooting To Games

Via Kotaku, an MSNBC report entitled School shooter followed video game-like 'script'. If you're going to scapegoat in the wake of a tragedy, who better than the entertainment industry? From the article: "What I mean by 'a script' is that when you look at popular culture, movies, video games, you will see this kind of "shoot 'em" pathway running through many of them. It's not an original idea of his; it's something that kids are exposed to by the millions." Given that another story on the MSNBC site states that the suspect talked about shooting people before the incident, it seems like there is more than enough finger pointing to go around.

Comments

An original idea

[StocDred]

It's not an original idea of his; it's something that kids are exposed to by the millions.

Or, maybe, if you intend to go somewhere and kill people, walking and shooting are pretty much your only options?

I always thought video games got the idea to walk and shoot from real life. Now I know better! Thanks, MSNBC!

Re:An original idea

[MrHanky]

Of course it's not the only option. Poisoning the water supply could be far more effective, and probably easier to get away with. It doesn't make a great game plot, though. And it's hard work (you need lots of poison). Or, for the less ambitious, a well placed bomb could just do the trick.

So maybe it's a good thing that games take the most spectacular but least effective route for killing people. If the kid actually gave some thought to his murders instead of just going on a FPS rampage, he could've had more success. So computer games may once again have saved thousands of lives.

But then again, he might have just chosen his strategy from the available weapons and transportation vehicles. As they say: If all you've got are your legs and some guns (and a chainsaw!), all problems look like Doom.

It's not just shooting

[Winckle]

It's kinda hard for me to talk about this, but back when Mario bro's first came out, I couldn't stop playing it, but then I took it too far. I decided to see what Mario's magic mushrooms were really like, and from then on it was a downward spiral of jumping on turtles and falttening brown mushrooms, I've been clean for a few years now, and I hope that kids jsut don't get influenced in the same way I was.

Bah!

[marcus]

Kids go to school by the millions.

Perhaps schools are the reason(hint)?

Every kid that has done this, has had parents.

Hmm, parents are the problem(hint)?

Millions of kids drink water evey day.

Wait, every criminal ever coinvicted has been exposed to drinking water. That's it! NO More Water! NO More Crime!

Re:Sure it's the games

[Ayaress]

Something I'd pointed out before when a case like this came up: In my state, there was a school shooting in 1980 or 81. It made Columbine look like Sesame Street On Ice. Something like 90 people were hospitalized, and it came down to a gunfight with the police. The shooters (there were six of them, all social outcasts as if I had to point that out) were more organized than any of the ones on the news here. They positioned themselves so that there was no line-of-sight from outside to them, and blockaded themselves into a hallway.

All the crimes that get blamed on video games have one thing in common: They have no special identifying characteristics. Had those six gunmen in 1980 been dressed in red and yelled, "Death to the Amerikanski!" they would have been called Communists and Russia would have been blamed. As it happened, they had long hair and thusly drugs were blamed.

This guy was sick, in more ways than one. Look at his MSN profile. That's not the result of somebody playing too many video games, it's a product of a very deeply disturbed mind.