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Valve Slammed Over 'Horrendous' Steam School-Shooting Game (eurogamer.net)
Several readers have shared an EuroGamer report: Just a week after the Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas that saw 10 people fatally shot and 13 others were wounded, Valve has come under fire for a Steam school-shooting game that encourages you to "hunt and destroy" children. Active Shooter, which at the time of publication is live on Steam and due for release on 6th June, is described by its developer as "a dynamic S.W.A.T. simulator." The idea is you're sent in to deal with a shooter at a school, but you can also play as the actual shooter, gunning down school children.
Now, an anti-gun violence charity has called on Valve to pull the game from Steam. The developer of Active Shooter is called Revived Games, the publisher Acid. Revived Games' credits include White Power: Pure Voltage and Dab, Dance & Twerk. "Acid", who plans to add a survival mode in which you play as a civilian and have to "escape or perform a heroic action such as fight against the shooter itself," took to Active Shooter's Steam page to defend the game. "First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting," Acid said.
Now, an anti-gun violence charity has called on Valve to pull the game from Steam. The developer of Active Shooter is called Revived Games, the publisher Acid. Revived Games' credits include White Power: Pure Voltage and Dab, Dance & Twerk. "Acid", who plans to add a survival mode in which you play as a civilian and have to "escape or perform a heroic action such as fight against the shooter itself," took to Active Shooter's Steam page to defend the game. "First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting," Acid said.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/866890/Active_Shooter/
This sig is false.
It's not that they don't care (well, some don't, obs) but most of them realize that school shootings are statistical rarities. That ain't what's gonna kill yer kid.
What's gonna kill 'em? The car you drove her to school in. Dogs. Cancer. Suicide (big one, esp for teens). Homicides outside the school from people they know, mostly their own parents. Non-automobile accidents of all sorts. But not school shootings. Those aren't worth bothering with as far as actual risk goes (as opposed to fear... they're great for causing fear).
About 300 kids have been killed in school shootings in the last 35 years, or about 8 or 9 per year. 8 or 9 kids will die in automobile accidents today. The rate of school shootings has been slowly declining since the 1990s.
The game itself doesn't look very original or good. Especially the shown perspective of the shooter makes it look like an easy mode with no challenge as you're killing unarmed civilians and SWATs that are more harmless than your generic Stormtrooper (of course except when killing Luke's uncle and aunt). It comes with dated graphics and nothing that isn't already out there somewhere. I guess the attention the game getting now is better exposure to potential buyers than they could ever hoped for otherwise. You can expect people who wouldn't have considered buying such a shitty game spending some bucks on it, just act in spite of those who are offended by it.
You shouldn't care about school shootings either. There have been about 250 deaths in school shootings over 18 years (non-gang, non-suicide), or about 14 per year. Since there are approximately 51 million K-12 students in the U.S., a student's chances of being killed in a non-gang, non-suicide school shooting in any given year are about (51 million students) / (14 deaths/year) = 1 in 3.6 million.
You're more likely to be killed by a deer. About 120 Americans are killed by deer every year. (325.7 million Americans) / (120 deaths/year) = 1 in 2.7 million chance of being killed by a deer each year. Do you wring your hands over the possibility of being killed by a deer, and hold marches to demanding the deer population be controlled?
The U.S. causes of death statistics are readily available from the CDC website. For 2015, the leading causes of death for the 15-19 year old demographic were:
3,919 deaths - Accidents (mostly automobile accidents and drug overdoses)
2.061 deaths - Suicide
1,587 deaths - Homicide (mostly outside school, and gang related)
583 deaths - Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
306 deaths - Heart disease
195 deaths - Birth defects
72 deaths - Influenza (the flu)
63 deaths - Chronic lower respiratory diseases
61 deaths - Cerebrovascular diseases
52 deaths - Diabetes
41 deaths - Complications from pregnancy and childbirth
All of these represent a greater risk to students than the 14 deaths per year from school shootings.
We already have common sense speech controls, For example, libel, slander, obscenity, fighting words, and commercial speech have never been protected by the First Amendment, and we have various laws against all of those. There is not a single "natural right" that has not historically come with "common sense controls". Not one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"there is insufficient political support for that"
That would be the no willpower to actually do anything problem.
In actual fact, there's lots of will, including political support to do it. Polls in the US show a majority of voters favour increased gun control. Problem is, there's a very vocal minority making everyone believe there's no will.
Did you read your own link? The Dickey Amendment hasn't been repealed and is still law the CDC must follow.
That none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control:
This is the amendment you are talking about that "bans gun research". This is the exact wording. It doesn't ban "collecting statistics" or any kind of research. We know how many people die by guns each year because the CDC can collect those statistics. We have statistics on gun deaths in the US because the CDC can research gun violence! What the CDC can't do is advocate or promote gun control.That is still the law the CDC must follow. What you link to doesn't change that. The last omnibus spending bill did not repeal the Dickey Amendment.
Researching the causes of gun violence has never been banned for the CDC.
As someone living in Great Britain I seem to have missed these multiple murders.
Could you perhaps provide references, as well as better explain who 'they' are?