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Trump's Meeting With The Video Game Industry To Talk Gun Violence Could Get Ugly (washingtonpost.com)
Anonymous readers share a report: President Trump is set to pit the video game industry against some of its harshest critics at a White House meeting on Thursday that's designed to explore the link between violent games [Editor's note: the Washington Post article may be paywalled], guns and tragedies such as last month's shooting in Parkland, Fla. Following the attack at Marjory Stoneman High School, which left 17 students dead, Trump has said violent games are "shaping young people's thoughts." The president has proposed that "we have to do something about maybe what they're seeing and how they're seeing it." Trump has invited video game executives like Robert Altman, the CEO of ZeniMax, the parent company for games such as Fallout; Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive of Take Two Interactive, which is known for Grand Theft Auto, and Michael Gallagher, the leader of the Entertainment Software Association, a Washington-focused lobbying organization for the industry.
Three people familiar with the White House's planning, but not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed those invitees. A spokeswoman for the White House declined to share a full list of participants on Wednesday. ESA confirmed its attendance this week, but the others did not respond to questions. Opposite of them are expected to be some of the video-game industry's toughest critics, including Brent Bozell, the founder of the Parents Television Council, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from Missouri, the three people said. After another shooting -- the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. -- they each called on government to focus its attention on violent media rather than just pursuing new gun restrictions.
Three people familiar with the White House's planning, but not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed those invitees. A spokeswoman for the White House declined to share a full list of participants on Wednesday. ESA confirmed its attendance this week, but the others did not respond to questions. Opposite of them are expected to be some of the video-game industry's toughest critics, including Brent Bozell, the founder of the Parents Television Council, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from Missouri, the three people said. After another shooting -- the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. -- they each called on government to focus its attention on violent media rather than just pursuing new gun restrictions.
FFS, editors should really check that there are no âoes in the posts.
The meeting shouldn't be any more interesting than the Take Two Interactive and the Entertainment Software Association showing the studies that violent video games do not increase violence, and then everyone else sticking their thumbs up their asses. Then again I doubt it will go that way.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
that's designed to explore the link between violent games [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled],
The link between violent games may be paywalled?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Thousands of game journalists have been proclaiming for years there is a link between sexism in games, and sexism in real life. They also constantly whined there were too many violent shooters and so on.
So why would you not expect any non-gamer to read what the game journalists wrote and take it to heart? Trump would seem to be well-aligned with what the press has been saying for years, that games are affecting behavior.
A little late to back out now fellows now that someone you hate has finally listened. Who did you think would listen to you, the game developers that actually have to make money from what they sell?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For someone who's looking to go room to room with a weapon some of the current FPS are pretty handy.
https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2016/05/6-military-video-games-used-to-train-troops-on-the-battlefield
Fuck your second amendment.
When did it become 1993 again?
I still like the irony that, for all his pissing and moaning about Clinton, now Trump is barking up the same wrong tree.
The biggest, most longstanding criticism of our "self-regulated" entertainment industry is that violence has been given a free pass. Why do kids turn to violence to solve their problems? It works for their heroes.
It seems to me a significant portion of the video game industry is based in Japan, where guns kill between 10 and 20 people each year. Meanwhile in America, 500+ are killed by guns accidentally going off, 10000+ murdered with guns and 40000+ kill themselves with guns every year. Must be the video games they said. We need to do something about the video games to save our children.
Did anyone else see the news about the elephant in the classroom last week? It doesn't seem to have gotten the attention it deserves.
Like someone else said on the internet:
Real guns = Good
Fake guns = Bad
Which is to write, may the fake news shine its ever-loving light on you, because the rock you hide under is dark, and damp, like Stormy Daniels box, but that did not stop David Dennison from eating it up like a missionary in the Belgian Congo.
... take away focus from the REAL culprit of evil!
Dungeons and Dragons... Satan's game! You're children, like it or not ...
Presumably the attendee's only know about the boss fight after finding themselves in a room suspiciously full of ammunition and health packs.
2300 educators say something different, but who cares what the professionals say?
Games are indeed the problem. Every other country had to do the same in the past, and this is why right now on safer places - like Japan - we have finally ended all that video game nonsense.
Gotta go after that damn Dancing the kids like so much next....
The President thinks he's getting good visibility / PR with these free form live discussions where he can say whatever he wants (without following through on anything). I would expect the same with this one as was done with gun session and the dreamers sessions - and expect more of this. Echoing back to the Apprentice and him talking at the board room scenes....he probably really likes this - even if nothing gets done legislatively. He's getting back to being able to be on talk TV again.
Did "videogames and movies" -make- you guys all gun-nuts? strike-that, excuse me, weapon-enthusiasts?
A gamer from the EU
I don't think it's a bad thing that someone is talking about morals and video games.
It's apparently completely acceptable to a sizable chunk of society for kids to play video games where they kill people. What if someone made a video game that allowed you to simulate raping people? Imagine if you could buy an artificial vagina or human head that integrates with your gaming console so that you could rape it. Perhaps this will happen in a few years. This sort of thing is fundamentally bad.
Society is advancing in morals in some respects but declining in morals in others. For example, women have decided that it is time for men to rediscover respect for women - that can't be anything but good. I'm pretty sure Trump is not the right person to champion a moral issue. Whether allegations against him are true or false, he doesn't have any moral street cred with most of the country.
I think firearms will always be necessary and dangerous. If we don't cull the deer population, they will cull us on the roads. Some people legitimately need firearms for self-defense. Therefore, people should be allowed to have the freedom to possess firearms, and the second amendment is a good thing. The NRA, insomuch as it is an organization that teaches people how to use firearms safely and accurately, is a good thing. I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to go see a Rifle Shooting merit badge class at a Boy Scout camp. Teaching these kids respect for firearms saves lives. Do people need magazines that allow them to shoot 15 rounds without reloading? Nope. Does any serious marksman use bump stocks? Nope. Bump stocks are an attempt to turn a rifle into a toy. To its credit, the NRA isn't defending bump stocks. I don't think semi-autos should be banned, but high capacity magazines turn these things into indiscriminate tools for butchering crowds of people. I hope we end up with a reasonable compromise that saves lives and allows sportsmen to continue to be sportsmen.
I think we in the USA should do what the Israelis do: mandatory background checks for ALL gun purchases, mandatory psych screenings for ALL gun buyers, and a mandatory gun safety course.
And make it retroactive.
See, the NRA and politicians love to say it's a mental health problem regarding these mass shootings but are unwilling to do anything about it.
At the very least, we should make Connecticut's gun laws national. After they passed that law after Sandy Hook, gun violence in CT plummeted.
Let's also remember that all the mass shootings except Sandy Hook were done by legal gun owners. And as far as the Sandy Hook shooter who murdered his mother and stole her arsenal that she had because of her mental issues, apparently his mother's guns did jack shit to defend herself.
Let's face it, the gun fanatics are just delusional.
This is all just a classic misdirection technique. That campaign to call those kids who got shot up Crisis Actors in a False Flag operation was the same thing. The point is to steer the debate away from gun control and put the pro-gun control side on the defensive. Get them arguing about absurd things like violence in video games and conspiracy theories. Worked too. Even the left wing press picked up these stories and ran with them.
The funny thing is IIRC these techniques were invented by the Soviets. To be fair though it was Karl Rove that popularized their use in the Republican party.
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I understand why the political left keeps falling deeper in love with president Trump: he wants to expand the government's role in everyone's lives and the economy. People have too much freedom and need to be gently coerced into doing what is in society's interests instead of just working for their own interests. The markets have too much freedom so people buy cheaper steel instead of local steel. Everything in the economy should be centrally planned and Stalin & Mao Zedong showed the way. More central control is better, and it's distasteful (and sub-optimal) for California to have different laws than Vermont.
And it's fine. The left needs heroes too, just as right-wingers need their Rand Paul.
But what do right-wingers think of this, other than general disapproval and a promise to show up next election instead of wasting their votes on another Hillary Clinton? (Not that she was a model conservative -- anything but! -- but in a relative sense, she was far right of Trump, even if not as quite as far to the right as Obama.) Have any right-wingers been swayed to Trump despite his communist leanings? I know there are freedom-lovers on the right but you rarely hear them talk about the president. Any of you people here? Care to share your thoughts?
Does anyone know the best way to beat dead unicorns? Should I use a regular stick, something flexible like a flail, or resort to sharp implements?
Now, these discussions about violent video games ignore the one that's actually causing problems, known as "real life". In the current implementation, you force people to socialize with undesirable individuals, some of whom are violent, etc. It's almost as if they don't want to fix actual problems, and instead focus on virtual ones.
As for the games themselves... let me know if and when there's a large-scale emulation of Pacman (popping pills in dark mazes while fleeing from ghosts), Europa Universalis (especially conquering the world even more than the British Empire), Minecraft (magically creating fully-functional items from scrap) and so on. After all, if violent behaviour can be learned, so can anything else.
Don't fuck with video games. What the fuck is this shit? You trying to get me to pwn out? I'm going to go load up Hitman and fiber wire some weak suckas.
This is a funding, favors, and pictures show. The meeting is voluntary. Media will not be invited in, otherwise gaming executive will not show up. Trump is a showman. This media "leak" is to "prove" he cares.
The games are sold worldwide. School shootings are only a occurrence in the US. <sarcasm>So, yeah, of course it's the games</sarcasm>
Military training is all about desensitizing soldiers so they can kill because the vast majority of humans have a strong resistance to killing other people--and many to killing anything. It's little wonder that many then come back with PTSD precisely because they're training to kill as needed is tied to environmental cues that may be triggered in civilian situations, which then brings up the recognition of all the things they've done as part of their military career, no matter how justifiable it seemed at the time.
So, do I think video games can desensitize people to violence? Sure. But like a soldier, it's conditioned upon players who are used to it within the environment of a video game. Outside that context and most people realize that "reality" is very different to a video game and are sickened about the very threat of violence. The same can be said for movies or really most sorts of vicarious entertainment, even if it's watching real world events--which also explains peoples enjoyment of violent sports.
The point then isn't whether video games desensitize people. It's arguable that if anything the greatest strength video games have is the opposite: they help place people in the roles of others and grant them the ability to sympathize with conditions they're personally not acquainted with. Therefore, a reasonable discussion of video game violence would not be about ratings and violence but about the fact that too many games follow very narrow tropes and don't venture into asking difficult questions or presenting complex narratives.
Ie, many video game designers are lazy because it's hard to sell complex narratives but easy to sell power trips. The same could be said for movies. This is the nature of capitalism though. Risk aversion drives a push for me-too games that clone others without any attempt to deviate any more than is legally required. Game designers often want to play homages to other games they like, but clearly it's more incompetence than a motivation to simply clone other games that results in lackluster creations for many of them. After all, most other non-big-budget creations have a lot of authors and musicians that can manage to survive regardless of how artistically they're admired in their field. With game development, even indie game development, the costs tend to be prohibitive--as almost all require hiring an artist and a musician, minimally, which is not cheap.
PS -Yes, there have definitely been successful games that are one-man works, but most people won't accept the level of artwork that tends to be any more than most would tolerate xeroxed and stapled books. Now days, though, ebooks make that less of an issue--the same for music--but you can't really work around that sort of issue when it comes to games where 99% of the time is spent looking at sprites/backgrounds and listening to music. Maybe you can get really lucky and start a following of your text adventure games..
Video games have a long association with disease. We all remember the Pac Man Fever epidemic of the 1980s where thousands needlessly died, and congress stood by and did nothing!
... is a school satchel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rVKknah1Ws
In holland, they don't let people have guns, so bad man only had knives and failed to kill anyone.
People in holland play the same video games. The difference is, they don't let ordinary people have guns without a damn good reason. Even IF IT DID cause violence, you'd have to remove every cause of anger and violence to fix the problem... video games, even if they do cause violence, are not the one and only cause.
The fix is to remove guns from the populace. Not just under 21's, under 81s.
The NRA is the problem here, the money they launder distorts politics.
Look at the number of people who purchase and play games like Call of Duty, Fallout, or any other FPS game vs. the number of people who actually go out and murder people in real life. It's a fraction of a percent. It should be pretty fucking obvious that the "association" that is trying to be portrayed here is utter bullshit.
Mental illness and the ability to murder people is not created by playing fucking video games. And we literally have decades of evidence to validate that fact. This meeting with Trump is probably nothing more than window dressing.
The opposite must be true, obviously. It's all our twitterer in chief knows -- facts be damned.
It's a pile of fertilizer and it stinks.
If you believe anything you read here you're a gullible rube and should kill yourself.
Hi! I'm Jack Thompson, anti-video game activist and disbarred attorney. Will I be be invited?
At some point the release of so many squirrels into the wild has to have an environmental impact. http://www.guns.com/wp-content...
More like blame game stuff. He did the "FBI should stop investigating me and investigate the gun shooting nutter", which naturally flopped, as self serving.
He did the "take away their guns first", "NRA is the problem", then the NRA visited him and he did an about turn. (My guess is they reminded him they spent $30 million on getting him elected, and agreed... $50 million, $60 million, maybe more next time if he backs down. A deal was struck and he backed down.)
He then did a quick "25% tarif on steel... look over here, forget the guns, I've done something else real crazy, I didn't even tell the whitehouse I was going to do it, they have no financial models ready for the damage it'll cause" i.e. a crude attempt at distraction, trying to set the agenda.
This meeting? Well it was promised, but I think he'd like to back out of it, the agenda moved on, to the porn star his lawyer paid off. This meeting will only bring the gun shootings back into focus. He tried to make the agenda about trade, but paying a hooker $130k just before an election via a shell company and a dogdy lawyer with Russia ties, was sooo much more juicy.
... don't knock Trump over and teabag him repeatedly, I am going to be very disappointed.
that society reflects what happens in video games, instead of realizing that video games reflect society.
...blame something else. For crying out loud. If 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' how the hell can you get to 'video games kill people'...enough with the insanity. For crying out loud fix the problem at the source:
1) Let people protect themselves - e.g. remove 'gun free zones'
2) Enhance/enable mental health programs especially for teen/adolescent males who have been increasingly left behind in the all out attack on 'men'.
Sitting around watching people get killed and pulling a trigger over and over again is liable to lead to anti-social and compulsive behaviours and weaken inhibitions. I've had personal experiences with this, i can instantly tell someone who is a heavy video game player and/or heavy drug user, rarely am I wrong. Ive always been aghast at what drives people to play these horrible games and almost always they are the ones who end up with major problems in their lives They tend to be more self absorbed, they tend to lack empathy or concern for others or to be interested in things other than themselves and more or less exhibit manipulative and psychopathic tendancies.
There are numerous studies to back up that heavy video game use leads to poor socialization and anti-social behaviour. SSRIs and video games were major factors in major school shootings, such as Adam Lanza who was on both. He had been turned into such a zombie he didnt know what he was doing. This is why we need to keep both out of the hands of kids, we need to crack down in a big way on Aderall, Ritalin, also linked to empathy deficits as well as SSRIs, making it illegal to prescribe these, and keep kids away from violent video games, movies and other media. More needs to be invested in more sound methods of mental health that they need, mainly counseling and outdoor activities, not sports or games, such as camping, rather than on chemicals. The government has a way of cancelling the programs that actually work like outdoor based ones such as Outward Bound which showed great success. I can;t really think of much the government has done which has actually been effective at anything and in fact most of societies problems are due to the bad programs and influences of governments programs and mistakes on society, such as how welfare programs caused the breakdown of the family, along with the corruption of Hollywood
The big question is how to keep them out of the hands of the youth. Video game ratings and requring photo ID at sale has been tried before. The problem is there parents can still break down and buy it for them. Really they shouldnt be using violent video games at all, it should be no part of growing up. Increasingly with online distribution the photo ID becomes less doable. Even if you require them to snap a picture of their photo ID, its hard to determine if this is the person buying the video game.
of TV and cinema violence. Or how other countries have video games but far fewer gun deaths.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
that allow violence, murder, maiming, torture, etc, nf TV and in cinema, but not nudity or sex. IOW, it's not OK to show a couple making love but it is OK to show a person killing another person.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
As an Old Right conservative, I naturally oppose government regulation of video games of any kind.
However, we are a culture of sorts, and cultural changes influence what businesses are willing to offer. In that context only, it might be useful to discuss this issue.
To my mind, the angle of approach should be the combination of gun violence and realistic looking scenarios. All video games are violent and war-like, but those that look most like movies or memories could have a conditioning effect, which our Army has capitalized by offering its own 3D first person shooter.
The effect of such games cannot be viewed outside the context of single-parent families, SSRI use, general lack of faith in society, and the failure of our civilization to have any kind of meaningful social order.
So, while every instinct I have has me wondering WTF Trump is thinking in this case, he might be kickstarting a very valid dialogue.
If realistic video games + gun violence + social disorder + medication + single parent homes = a fertile ground for school shooting, then we have a checklist to address, and one of the points can be how our culture rewards super-violent and realistic-looking video games.
Alternative Right.
Ban Violent Media? Yeah start with NRA-TV
USMC used doom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
For gun violence? Or is that too obvious?
I don't believe it's a problem. I am saying, someone who is not a gamer could reasonably assume there was a link because that is what games journalism has been saying for years, by complaining about violent or sexist games.
They are only now reversing that stance since Trump agrees with what they have been saying. Too late, they already planted the seed and it is bearing fruit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He wants his subject matter back...
Voices From the Hellmouth
The Price of Being Different
Eric, Dylan, and Mary of Doom
Columbine Student on VG Violence
Seriously, no one on Slashdot already posting these? Yikes.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
It sure seems like the government wants to relive the 90s with discussions about limits on cryptography and violent video games. What is next, the vulgar lyrics in rap?
I guess this generation needs to relearn these lessons.
Time to offend someone
I have known people that said a video game would provide them a sense of release, and they would do that stuff for real otherwise.
I would advise the President or anybody else to talk to some mental health professionals about it first.
some societies find it acceptable to raise males to believe that killing people is a way to deal with their problems.
I can think of at least two examples.
Kids whine that the government should take people's guns away. The government takes away games with guns in from kids.
Just like the -1. Continue censoring things you don't like you commie fags.
If he heard it on Fox News (and he did), then it must be true.
Trump is already ugly. Outside, but most importantly, inside.
Research shows the driving games do not increase crazy driving on the streets. But a new Fast and Furious movie ? Increased insanity. The obvious difference is that the people with a game controller in their hand can work out their daydreams/media-sourced-brain-worms. I believe this directly compares to the studies showing gun games decrease the violence. < silly-ness ensues > So I think when there is another school shooting then the news media must release a gun game mod for the school in question and everyone who watched that news show must play the game so they can be the hero who came in and stopped the bad guys and they will have resolved the horror in their heads. < /silly-ness >
OK, we could not run such a program, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
the Japanese don't make or play FPSes much. The story goes that FPSes are "Holographic Murder Simulators" and the hyper realistic violence is the problem. Stuff like Nier Automata or Dark Souls, while violent, lacks the realism needed to train today's mass shooter. Or so the arguments go.
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Anyone who isn't a lazy fuck buys a gun kit, 3d prints or fabricates a lower recieved and then (assuming they aren't in a state that serializes/requires id for them), buys ammunition at another store which they will use with their unserialized firearms.
Another overlooked feature is that most new firing hammers have a serial imprint stamped/milled/laser etched on them, so each shell casing has at minimum the firing pin serial of the weapon that fired it, as well as individual or production block number the round casing was from. While this doesn't help for mass-murder/suicide by gun, there are already a lot more tracking mechanisms in place than the average gun afficionado or anti-gun proponent realize. If you remove guns however, there are still knives, machetes, explosives and poisons to worry about, many of which would actually be easier to produce and far more dangerous than firearms if american sociopaths were not so lazy and stupid. Furthermore: If anyone was genuinely serious about mass murder, they would be jockeying for semi-automatic clip fed shotguns, since very few mass shootings happen in places where long range firing accuracy is important, and a shotgun could clear a room a lot faster than an ar15 or a hardgun as many of these idiots have chosen to use.
According to the Representative, Second Amendment good, First bad...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You cannot have a soldier freeze up in combat because of the sheer level of violence evolving around him.
We can have it, and we do have it. Nobody can predict how they will react in a real firefight. No amount of prep and training can ensure that you'll be able to function at all, or to what extent your normal behaviour will be degraded. True desensitisation only really happens after you've survived enough firefights to have real experience ... and even then, there have been plenty of combat veterans who lose it in later engagements.
Training does help, but it's not a panacea.
Thats why they train and train and train. So that muscle memory and detachment allow the combatant to remain engaged during the conflict.
That muscle memory and detachment is exactly what you don't get from video games. It doesn't do us a lot of good to have a squad of soldiers repeatedly making the WASD motion in the middle of a battle.
You also don't get the stress, which is a crucial part of basic infantry training as well as realistic field training exercises. Anyone can point and shoot a gun in a video game; being able to move, communicate, respond to commands, and actively seek out people who are trying to kill you in an insanely hectic and stressful environment ... that's a whole different world. You're not going to get that from video games until we perfect the Holodeck.
My two boys played Minecraft extensively in their youth and no violent FPS allowed until teen years, and even then they were mainly interested in "FPS" like Infamous and the Batman Arkham series. They had access to CoD/Wolfenstein/others on my own "grownup" consoles in my work/play area and could have played them, they just weren't interested by then.
Some friends they had in grade school grew up in houses where parents allowed Call of Duty for ages as early as ten.
Now that all of them are in high school, I see clear distinctions in their behavior. My kids are level-headed and doing well academically and absolutely non-violent, while most of those l33t g4mer c0d kids are either bullies or outcast losers.
There is no question in my mind playing violent video games over time desensitizes young kids to human compassion. I have seen plenty of examples of it. Not a scientific study, just life observation as a dad.
Won't someone think of the children!
I'm not that AC but you seem hysterical, have you had a physician look at that?
I can't get my son to stop stomping turtles and kicking their carcasses into the mushroom patch.
A couple years ago they did this and have already said there's no correlation. Why is this even news?
Funny how Japan spends almost twice as much per capita on games as the US doesn't seem to have any problem with mass shootings at all, isn't it? Once again, Republicans are deflecting from the most obvious contributing factor to gun violence: availability of guns!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Surely Jack Thompson ought to be there as a ringer ... for the video games industry.
You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!
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And while we're at it, we can also finally ban comic books and that gosh darned rock and roll music.
and then everyone else walked into the room to meet Trump.
Did Trump hear about the kid who tried to use an IED at a school in Utah?
#BanBombs #BanIEDs
First , parents can control what games their kids play at home. If there is real evidence from studied that specific games or action or even a genre is associated with increased violent crimes by kids, put a label on it.
Second , SWATTING and other "pranks" are more about being a dick than playing any games , and they could be a dick about any game , not just violent ones, or even about games played in person. And it wouldn't be so deadly if it weren't for police making mistakes at the scene so... Let's train those folks better and let's put a very strong punishment against making a false report even the first time ... It's already a crime let's make a big deal out of it
Third, both school shooting and SWATTING have something else going on besides gun control and violent games or movies or television ... It's lack of a working moral compass in these kids , and failure of professionals who should have been able to identify the at risk would be criminals and intervene but somehow just ignore clues and even very specific tips from friends and neighbors... So before we talk about taking away my guns or awesome games , let's talk about more funding for better training for these school counselors and FBI tip hotline operators , and let's put a mandatory follow up time frame for the FBI which doesn't need to cost more money if they collaborate with local police on certain kinds of tips
Trump is not the guy we want sponsoring any kind of reasonable conversation about this or anything else , he's simply not qualified and will probably end up dividing and polarizing different sides of this thing even more ... He is a disgrace to the office and role of President
You seriously don't think they have gun control in Israel?
NEVER argue with an idiot, they will beat you though experience. Trumps policies are based entirely on what he saw on Fox last.
We'll get the video game industry trying its best to prove that no kid, ever was even slightly influenced to commit a crime from a game all about committing violent crimes. The opposition will claim it's such a pressing issue, we need to ignore such inconveniences as freedom of the press or speech and squash the legality of creating any game with violence or shooting in it.
99% of sane, normal citizens will carry on as usual -- buying the next GTA sequel by the millions of copies, etc.
With ALL of this stuff, the fact remains that people who aren't deeply troubled in life don't feel a need to go on killing sprees. I can play violent shooter games all day long (and when I was a bit younger, I did that some weekends at LAN gaming parties), and all it made any of us do is enjoy the camaraderie and share some fresh baked cookies and cola.
As was cautioned by the founders of America, freedom and safety butt heads if you try to legislate both at once. So yeah, we could take away all of the guns, or even just the most powerful ones, and it might be a band-aid -- dropping the murder rate a bit. But all of those people with mental instability or serious depression or anger issues haven't gone away. They're as dysfunctional as ever. You just made it harder for them to kill using that one option. They don't need a gun to rape a stranger or to harass somebody anonymously until life is unbearable for their target, or to hack into financial systems and steal others' identities, or any number of things they might do to "get back at society".
I'd rather have a little less of the safety obtained by limiting my freedoms, and try harder to address the ROOT CAUSES behind these problems.
Polyandry and polygamy also predate the Bible. There isn't just one workable societal structure. If you don't like gay marriage, don't have one.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I played mortal kombat while growing up. To date I have not ripped someoneâ(TM)s head off spine attached or shot ice at someone.
Sorry pal but your argument is invalid. Bye bye
Trump is well known for doing things that are supported by science, logic, and experts. On the other hand, elections matter, I no longer have time for vydia, and Gamer Gaters gonna reap what they sow.
Exactly the same way. The Jews were vastly ounumbered and the Nazis had a trained army.
I can't honestly say I'm surprised. Designers should never have made the holster for Master Chief's "Cranny Axe" weapon look so much like Trump's face.
No doubt they meant it as a compliment, but still...
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I am a video gamer but I agree with amazing president trump on this. Video games are getting more and more violent and need to be rained in. The crazy left wants to ban our cool and fun guns, but it is obvious video games are real problem. When president trump says something he means it, so lets hope stupid video game industry that many people are saying are failing and in denial anyway, will smarten up and get with the agenda.
It doesn't do us a lot of good to have a squad of soldiers repeatedly making the WASD motion in the middle of a battle.
Plus, yelling "your a fagot" when you get shot doesn't help much, and neither does tebagging downed enemies.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
makes about as much sense
As I've said all along this a fishing trip, an opportunity for the Republicans to try and put the squeeze on the gaming industry, we know the the NRA and gun manufacturers make significant contributions to political funds, Trump and the lads will be looking for similar financial contributions from the gaming industry. Obviously there is no real intent to change anything, just a few politicians who don't feel they are benefiting personally from the success of the gaming industry. Perhaps offering them a cut of all loot box sales will be enough for the whole thing to blow over.
The companies can tell Trump that his idea to have a rating system is brilliant, and they'll get right on that. Then, a week later they can tell him that they've implemented it and even labeled every game out there already, then Trump can brag about his amazing fix to this problem and how no one else could have gotten it done.
Start sinking $ into the school system. Pull kids from class that you think may be troubled, sit down with them, treat them fairly and with respect, give them their dignity back... calm them down. Give them opportunities, show them world is good again, give them some hope. These kids minds are malleable... therefor shootings, therefor an even better chance they can given some hope.
[($)]
It's either the PERSON or its the STUFF
If you're gonna support the idea that the problem is the guns, then you are on the side of blaming inanimate objects for the evil that men do - and then things like video games and movies are on the block too.
If you're gonna claim that stuff like movies and video games are not to blame for the evil acts of a few nutcases, then you are on the side of blaming the INDIVIDUAL for his actions and then you need to get off of the "gun control" issue.
Personally, I blame the man, and NEVER an inanimate oject. I do not blame cars or alcohol for drunk driving deaths. I do not blame the length of a woman's skirt for her rape. I do not blame knives when murderes use them. I do not blame pressure cookers for the Boston bombings. I do not blame matches for arson. I don't blame fertilizer for the Oklahoma City bombing. I do not blame steroids for cheating at the Olympics. I do not blame computers for the NSA spying. White sheets and ropes were not responsible for KKK lynchings. Railroad cars were not responsible for the Holocaust.
If we are going to keep avoiding looking at the cultural shifts in the US since the 1960s (when most "mass shootings" (4 or more) were murder-suicides within families as contrasted with todays huge shooting galleries of innocent strangers) and keep avoiding the fact that we shut down most of the asylums and unleashed the mentally ill and disabled-by-drug-abuse populations within the nation, and we are going to keep avoiding looking at the trigger pullers themselves, then all we are left with is the lunatic idea of blaming STUFF - and the only argument left is WHOSE PREFERRED STUFF gets blamed.
Plus, yelling "your a fagot" when you get shot doesn't help much, and neither does tebagging downed enemies.
On the other hand, teabagging the jackass who fell asleep on watch is a time honoured tradition. So maybe the military isn't THAT much different than gaming ...
Candy Crush is causing the obesity crisis in America.
The problem is not with tools / guns / cars / etc. The problem is with people, with people’s minds. It just looks cool to kill nowadays. In addition with the millennial’s attitude that they are the most important part of the world this is an explosive mixture. These games do condition our / people’s minds that killing is cool. Are not they? Really, we do not what people to kill people not because their weapon is weak, but because it is just wrong and uncool.
The arguments about the “scientific studies” is a bull. I am a scientist myself. I know the value of the studies. It really depends on the questions they pose and the answers they get as well as their interpretation and sample size. Let us say, there is one psycho per 1 million that will be triggered by this conditioning. It means there are 300 of those per USA. What was the sampling in the computer game study? 1 million? I doubt it. I am sure it was less than that. So, their chance to get any observations are just non-existent.
Another thing, thousands of years people had lived without “scientific studies”, they just used common sense and their observations, that was enough to build the world we live now in.
I just played Fallout 4, I liked the game, but the bloody mess they put in there is just unnecessary. I am a grown person, I know why it is there and I know that in real life it is not pretty. But younger minds are more pliable, they will clearly be influenced by this. In what way? Obviously, depending on the person, on their upbringing it will be different. Some of them just can become uglier enough.
It is concerning that some people do not want to realize this.
Lets face it, the problem here isn't guns, tv, games, music or movies. It's our failure to raise healthy children.
School shootings since the 1840's and upwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
His followers believe whatever he says, no matter what, so there is no down side to visits like this, only up side.
By meeting with the dirty child-killing California liberals, he places blame for school shootings squarely on them AND scores huge conspiracy points because of the biased liberal media coverage of him and the event.
Welcome to the new 'merica, brought to you by Facebook and Twitter.
All mentally ill people, others with violent past and present behavior, should be banned from purchasing guns.
Nothing will ever change. Mentally ill, violent people, and criminals will always get access to guns no matter what.
If we're going to ban virtual guns, we should ban them for real too.
I mean, if guns are bad in videogames, they are bad in real life too. Otherwise, why would their influence from videogame affect real life if people understood that it's fiction ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Like Norway?
Ken
Why didn't anyone lift a finger to prevent the Parkland shooter from legally buying a gun?
His school banned him - for cause - but the federal government paid the school to not arrest him.
His friends knew he was crazy.
His roommate knew he was crazy.
People called the FBI and warned them about him, using his full name.
The police visited him 30+ times.
He referred to himself as a 'school shooter'.
He posted on line he wanted to be a 'professional school shooter'.
And NONE of these things caused anyone to follow through and take a needed step to prevent him from legally buying a gun.
This story played out previously in a small church in Texas, in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado, Andy's a grocery store with Gabby Giffords.
We have laws that would have prevented these shooters from buying guns, but society seems reluctant to take that step that prevents the crazies from buying guns... background checks are great, but the community needs to make sure the crazies are in databases to block gun sales to them.
Ken
How many jet liners full f people were smashed into buildings using nothing more than box cutters on September 11, 2001? As I recall inonly one plane did the passengers 'swarm' their attackers and foil their plans.
Ken
Well AFAICT only a law can legally prevent you from buying a gun, and no law prevented it, so...
> As I recall inonly one plane did the passengers 'swarm' their attackers and foil their plans.
Because only the passengers on that plane knew that they were going to be used as a projectile to crash into a building, moron.
what video game do you play a seriel killer?
The one in which you kill multiple people?