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Games Had Nothing To Do With V. Tech Shooting
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that an inquiry into the Virginia Tech shooting in April of this year has revealed no connection whatsoever to videogames. The shooter's lack of interest in violent gaming was widely reported among game news sites at that time in the year, despite the exploration of the idea on cable television news. The official report, filed with the governor of the state, lays that 'motive' to rest. From the article: "The report, which includes a mental health history of the shooter, Seung Hui Cho, notes that during his childhood he had 'played videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog,' yet 'none of the videogames were war games or had violent themes.' This flies in the face of statements made on Fox TV news by Jack Thompson in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, which laid the blame for the incident firmly at the door of videogames."
File this one under 'no shit'. Is anyone even remotely surprised by this?
Someone gets the point - and has a proof, too.
"(he) played videogames (yet) none of the videogames were war games or had violent themes..."
Jesus, he was abnormal. Why didn't anyone notice this obvious deviation from normality in time to stop his brutal rampage?
Seriously. I play violent games so I don't kill people. As games have gotten more violent, violent crime has gone down in the big gamer demographics...Correlation may not equal causation, but it is nicely suggestive.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Video games WERE responsible for Jack Thompson senselessly shooting his mouth off.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Here I was wondering how video games could not be involved at a shooting at vTech. It's amazing the lengths of madness Dora the Explorer can send people to. *tsk* *tsk*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Maybe if he had played such games, he would have gotten it out of his system in a virtual world instead of the real one. Rumor has it some studies find comparable criminal violence has decreased precisely because games provide a safety valve, relieving such psychological pressures.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Can you put that on a post-it for me, and entitle it 'SHIT. I. ALREADY. KNOW!'.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Jack Thompson now has all the proof he needs to show that non violent video games are just as dangerous as violent ones!
What's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah! Scapegoat!
The game.
There was one thing and one thing only that caused this horrible event to occur...Cho was a crazy fuck. There is no reason to dip into his past, no need to point the finger at anyone...it was no one's fault. The ONLY thing that could have been done to prevent this is if he were under lock and key in an institution. Short of that, this was going to happen. Why? Because he was a crazy fuck. In the words of Chris Rock, "Whatever happend to crazy? What, people can't just be crazy no more?"
Look. This is past. Cho is dead, the unfortunate people who were in the right place at the wrong time are dead, let their families and friends mourn in peace.
Living With a Nerd
then it sounds like they drew their own conclusions on the root cause without ever having any evidence that they should have been investigating video game links in the first place. Looks like the investigators were already trying to implicate videogames instead of using the available evidence to draw a conclusion.
Maybe if he had played violent videogames, maybe he wouldn't have shot students. Perhaps he would've rather gone after terrorists, demons, or evil mind-controlling aliens.
Jack Thompson is just another idiot on Murdock's payroll who talks out of the part of his body that most people poop from. If he wants to start blaming video games, then he needs to be blaming the media (i.e. himself) as well.
While I do think that violent games desensitize us to some extent, I don't think they are at all the cause of the problem. Seung Hui Cho was just another angry kid, as were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They felt cast aside, rejected, and victimized because they didn't fit in with their peers. So took their anger out on the world around them...
Honestly, I'd think being involved in an online gaming community, no matter how violent the game, would've probably helped. Many people (likely the Jim Thompson type) percieve those addicted online games as being anti-social. Yet from what I've seen, most gamers seem have an elaborate network of online friends. This could've given Cho, Harris, and others a sense of community and a place to "fit in" or at the very least, escape from the world around them.
What I do think is a very real and disturbing issue is that they decided to carry out their anger with automatic weapons and how easily they could obtain them. The reasons behind this have very little to do with video games...
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
Could we all get the name straight?
In writing, Virginia Tech or VT (use the former if you're worried about confusing us with Vermont).
In speech, VT (Vee Tee), Tech, or Virginia Tech, please. Not "Vah Tech", please (yes, it even bugs me when Jim Rome says it). How often to you call Georgia Tech "Jah Tech", or Virginia the "Vah Caveliers"?
Sorry, off topic, I know.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Will we now hear the big "no connection to games" story on faux news? Certainly not. We won't hear a thing now. Until the next shooting where someone happens to have some game that's considered violent or at the very least somehow controversal, and bang, we'll be bombarded with "games are bad" pseudoinformation for weeks.
What does the average audience get? That every time there is a report about shootings, games are involved. And the immediate connection is that whenever there's a shooting, games are involved (because you only hear of those where some kind of connection can be made). Result? Consult your imagination.
It's not that the news lie to us. Well, not always. But they do something that's about as bad, they select and skew stories. Everything that fits their agenda gets reported. Everything that goes against it is squelched. And of course, if you only hear that A is bad or B is good, you start to believe that this isn't a selected few cases, but that it's the way it is.
Be careful when you hear a few stories about something. It could be that you get to hear the occasional stray exceptions instead of the rule, because that's what furthers someone's agenda.
And yes, that should be common sense, and probably is on this board. But where else if not in a thread like this would a "no shit, Sherlock" information fit in?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I read many of the documents on the Cho repository last night so I can't recall which had this quote, but one of his former roommates said that it was conspicuous that Cho played no video games at all whereas most university students did. This proves nothing but is a possible argument in favour of video games as a way to relieve stress. Of course, Cho had a very abnormal personality so he's hardly a baseline upon which to formulate opinions of average people.
Aside, these documents are a fascinating read. If you're interested in psychology, security, forensics, or criminology you will find much interesting material here.
That Sonic is dangerous. He's all spikey, that's never a good sign. And he's got an attitude. Is this the message we want to be sending to our kids?
But two years from now, when he actually DOES start to do that ... well, you won't be laughing then, will you, funny man?
I don't understand the delay in getting a Shoot Jack Thompson Dead video game out on the web or on store shelves? What exactly is the hold up? This would be far more appropriate, not to mention fun, than the games about Columbine or V Tech...and I can't imagine he would protest this, would he? You don't know Jack...Thompson!
i watch those cop shows all the time and I always rute for the underdog. If only they had some 2x4 with nails in it that could really give that cop a run for his money, if only he'd brought an uzi etc...
Seriously, I don't know why they show them on TV when all there doing is slowly turning me into a terrorist.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Introduce porn,
Watch sex abuse statistics go down.
Perverts are too busy having a wank to actually go out and assault someone.
just as with games, violent people are too busy venting their frustration in the virtual world to take it out on the rest of us.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
A failed career as a real lawyer and a desire to obtain money to pay off his drug habits and AIDS treatments? I think so!
The bottom line is that people go on shooting sprees because they're batshit. But if you want to make a desensitization argument, I'd look at the news, frankly. Look at an hour of CNN or any other cable news outlet. You'll see much more in the way of realistic depictions of violence than from an hour of Battlefield 2, or what have you. Having grown up watching horror movies and playing Mortal Kombat I can tell you that neither of these things prepared me for seeing an actual dead body in real life, and I can safely say that I would have to be off my rocker to look forward to killing someone.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
As stupid as Jack Thompson is and as much as we'd like this to be an "I told you so," The report basically said that he played Sonic, therefore violent games didn't have a role. A "no shit" conclusion. If investigators found that he played more violent games, they and the media would have jumped to the conclusion that playing those games must mean those games played a role.
Don't you see?
This was all caused because he had a "lack of interest in violent gaming". If violent games hadn't existed, he wouldn't have had a lack of interest in them! You can't have a lack of interest in something that doesn't exist!
Think of the children!
Well, there's someone who believes violence must exist, boil, and escape from a person's mind. Remember that thoughts are not physical objects. Thoughts can appear, vanish, be rebuilt, or flow past without any consequence. And not everyone contains violence which must somehow escape.
Clearly his obsession with Sonic the Hedgehog fostered his robocidal tendencies. What happened at V-Tech was a warning. It would only have been a matter of time before he took out his rage on a REAL robot. Thankfully the system works and stopped Cho before that could happen.
+0 Meh
Both trends coincide with the dot.com bubble. The economy has been known to have an effect on crime. ("Crime in the US is also concentrated to certain areas. It is quite common for crime in American cities to be highly concentrated in a few, often economically disadvantaged areas.") In fact, weather has been known to have an effect on crime. Tempers rise as temperatures do, and who wants to burglarize a house in the middle of a thunderstorm or blizzard?
Methinks the drop in crime was due to lower unemployment and more jobs, and the increase in video game usage was a result of more disposable income being available to spend on computers, consoles, and games.
In short, nothing to see here!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Sonic the Hedgehog? Oh, so he was one of those weird "Sega" kids (if you don't know who I'm talking about, you probably are one). If his parents had bought him a SNES he'd probably have been normal. So obviously, his parents are to blame.
adventure-today.com
The report stated that he "played videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog," so it's pretty clear what the cause of the shooting was, and it's clear what needs to be done to prevent further shootings. Children must not be allowed to wear helmets, sneakers, or move their legs in a blurry pantomime of running while they are playing videogames. If you play videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog would play them, the risks of going insane and shooting up a school are much too high.
As someone that left that campus just this May, I really wish more people would act in this way, rather than exploiting a horrible event for their own gain, or to further some cause or position.
I believe that the argument that video games lead to violence is not valid, and at the same time I am disgusted by groups trying to use that day's events as evidence for the position I happen to support.
Jack Thompson is a hack, we saw that in our last discussion on the topic. Please, don't feed this troll by posting news about him. This discussion here and now is kinda pointless.
He was allegedly obsessed with a violent Korean film.
How come no one has a problem with the unrealistic levels of violence and people's ability to survive it in films?