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Video Game Industry Starting To Feel Heat On Gun Massacres
An anonymous reader writes "While much of the scrutiny following the lone gunman-perpetrated massacres at Aurora, CO and Newtown, CT has fallen on the National Rifle Association and its lobbying efforts against gun control, the shooters in both of the aforementioned incidents seemed to have been encouraged by violence in movies and video games. The New York Daily News' Mike Lupica reported last week that investigators of the Newtown case found a huge spreadsheet in the Lanza home where 20-year old Adam Lanza had methodically charted hundreds of past gun massacres, including the number of people killed and the make and model of weapons used. A Connecticut policeman told Lupica 'it sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research', and added, '[Mass killers such as Lanza] don't believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet. This was the work of a video gamer'. In response, the Entertainment Software Association and other lobbyists representing the video game industry have ramped up their Washington lobbying efforts. While still tiny in dollar terms next to the NRA's warchest, this effort seemed to help derail a proposal to fund a Justice Department study of the effects of video games on gun violence, offered as an amendment on the gun control bill by a Republican senator. A spokesman summarized the ESA's position: 'Extensive research has already been conducted and found no connection between media and real-life violence.'"
You honestly think people don't use bombs because they're illegal? That's rich. I guess we should ban murder, and then no one would do it.
You know, it would be really nice if the US started putting more effort into early identification and treatment of these whackjob crazies *before* massacres happen. But that will never happen because American culture demands mental illness be swept under the rug.
It would also be nice if American culture would start focusing more on actually being nice to one another, and by extension, the rest of the world. But that will never happen because American culture revels in greed and self-importance, and there's no room for being nice when you're busy amassing more wealth than your next door neighbour.
So this is going to keep happening. Innocent children will continue to die, everyone will wring their hands and bemoan how bad the world is and how video games caused it or movies caused it or purple goldfish caused it, and in the end nothing will change.