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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.'"
The legal uses still result in far more accidental death and injury than protection from illegal uses.
What the...? Then we learned and put impenetrable doors between the cockpit and the cabin. Box cutters won't work anymore. Next straw man please?
Nobody is talking about gutting the second amendment. People are talking about mandating background checks whenever a firearm is transferred to a new owner. And magazines to be limited in the number of rounds that they can hold to a sane number. If you require more than 10 rounds in a magazine in order to get one of them to hit the target, you have absolutely no business operating a firearm.
Considering the blow back from even modest regulation, it's hard to take you morons seriously.
The Second Amendment is a stupid anachronism. It needs gutting.
There is no longer a need for a militia - the USA has a nice big standing army with which to defend itself and it has much better weapons than assault rifles, like aircraft, helicopters and tanks. And if you want to claim you need guns to defend yourself against the US Government, well it has a nice big standing army with aircraft, helicopters and tanks. How long do you think the militia with the weapons it is legally allowed to own is going to last against the US military?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe