I believe the cases of kids shooting classmates at school may be situations where the shooters simply don't see the people they are killing as people. You're quite right about the difference between simulated and real fighting, however, desensitization to live violence may not be the issue here. Using a gun (as opposed to some kind of melee weapon which involves real physical contact) allows someone to divorce himself from the feeling of actually injuring another person.
Rather than getting kicks out of really hurting people, it's more a matter of not seeing other people as living beings with thoughts and feelings just like yours.
I don't believe this is the fault videogames. Their availablilty neither improves nor worsens the situation. But it is definitely influenced by the mocking, hazing and worse that some of these kids receive at the hands of their peers. Under that kind of influence it's not hard to see such people as objects.
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I believe the cases of kids shooting classmates at school may be situations where the shooters simply don't see the people they are killing as people. You're quite right about the difference between simulated and real fighting, however, desensitization to live violence may not be the issue here. Using a gun (as opposed to some kind of melee weapon which involves real physical contact) allows someone to divorce himself from the feeling of actually injuring another person. Rather than getting kicks out of really hurting people, it's more a matter of not seeing other people as living beings with thoughts and feelings just like yours.
I don't believe this is the fault videogames. Their availablilty neither improves nor worsens the situation. But it is definitely influenced by the mocking, hazing and worse that some of these kids receive at the hands of their peers. Under that kind of influence it's not hard to see such people as objects.