How the Video-Game Industry Already Lost Out in the Gun-Control Debate

I grew up with the Atari 2600 as my game console. I played the shit out of Pitfall... and never once did I just snap and start swinging from vines over alligator pits. I played the shit out of Frogger... and never once did I just snap and start running around on the freeway or try to cross a stream jumping from log to log. I also used to play Army outside. Of course we just used a stick for a gun. Probably the same stick that was a sword the day before. To this day I have never killed anyone with a real gun or sword. We used to build sand castles in the sand box, and then take turns strategically placing/detonating fire crackers on the other kid's castle to see who could take it. I have never bombed anyone.<p>I'm not a big gamer these days but it seems like a huge cop-out to try to blame the games for the ills of others. Many, many people play the same games, own the same firearms, have the same history of being abused, are on the same psychoactive drugs, have done any number of things that a few random sickos have done... and yet they have NEVER committed such atrocities. Some times there is no better answer other than: Some people are just fucked in the head.

Blaming video games for people shooting other people is like blaming punching bags for people hitting other people. Why don't we outlaw these assault/battery simulators?<p>If anything it reduces the the urge for someone to do it by redirecting the urge into a simulation, kind of like a punching bag.<p>Now it seems video games are the punching bags for the gun violence debate instead when most studies show they have the opposite effect.

How do we know video games aren't partly to blame? To me it seems unlikely they are to blame, but I have no proof. I don't play or create games so I don't have any <i>direct</i> stake in this discussion.<p>Most arguments I hear from gamers use plausible, and even persuasive, <i>theories</i> on why games wouldn't contribute to mass shootings, but I don't recall hearing any empirical evidence backing them up. And the older I get, the more I find that plausible theories and reality don't match up often enough to be fully convinced.

<i>Firearms, not entertainment, lead to mass shootings, and yet gamers have irrevocably become implicated in the conversation over violence in America.</i><p>Ha.

Heavy 1st Amendment issues here. Also, interesting court decisions upholding the 1st in the context of video games.<p>This is clearly political, rather than based on any sound research or data. But if there was hard data, historically the legislatures haven't cared: It looks good to their constituents.<p>Looks like I'm going to have to give money to the games lobbies now, too.