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Violent Games Blamed For German School Attack
Bret540 writes "A Reuters news story reports that German lawmakers are considering a crackdown on 'violent computer and simulated war games' because a youth decided to attack other students at his school. The young man was apparently already under police consideration for weapons-related violations, and was described as 'someone with no friends.'" From the article: "Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said it was time to consider banning games that simulate wanton killing. 'We need effective guidelines to protect children from exposure to different types of media, but we don't need (simulated) killer games that can lead to brutalisation,' Bosbach was quoted on the Netzeitung news Web site as saying." InfoWorld has more details on the event as well.
when things like this happen, video games are blamed but when someone claims they killed/attacked someone because God told them to do it, the bible isn't blamed?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's a very sad situation in Germany. The attitude towards computer games is a joke. Games get bashed for everything. Unfortunately, the ban may also include the production of violent computer games. If it passes (which, I hope, it doesn't) you may as well say goodbye to "Crysis" because Crytek is German... I submitted a story about this, too, but it is still pending...
Every german politician shouts about 'banning games' and that it'll be the solution to the problem. Few are asking how the kid could get weapons and explosives.
I disagree that there's no reason for a high school student to have a cell phone. In my part of the US, at least, the schools won't let students have access to telephones via the school except by pay phone. When I was in high school I would frequently go places with my friends after school, and my parents' ability to keep tabs on me was what let me do this. I agree that they're annoying as all hell when a ringtone is unleashed upon a class full of unsuspecting students, but they should be turned off in class, not banned from the school. FYI, people sometimes have cell phones ringing in college classes.
Students should be treated as semi-adult in schools, and shouldn't have much of anything banned. Rather, if they use something to damage school property or disrupt class they should be punished for the disruption. The attitude of "one person used it to do bad things so it must be bad" is a terrible attitude to have since it relegates all priveledges to the control of the least common denominator. If the worst kid in school does something bad with their cell phone, then suddenly nobody is allowed to have them lest they turn into the same kind of disciplinary problem.
SRSLY.