In yet another instance of videogames being seen as more responsible for crime than criminals are, this year's 60% rise in American police officer shootings has been conveniently pinned on harmless plastic discs by a member of the law enforcement community. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman would like to believe that gang crime is caused by 'cop killing sims' and not, you know, idiots who think gangs are a good idea.
Of course, streets gangs have been around since the 1900s. The notorious Crips gang was founded in 1968, long before Grand Theft Auto had even been imagined. Street gangs have been killing things for decades upon decades, so anybody who claims that crime is any worse now thanks to videogames is, quite frankly, talking out of their arse. In the case of Grossman, he's clearly not very good at his job, either.
"Every time [officers] take down a gang house, there’s always one thing that will always be there,” claims Grossman. “It’s a video game. The video games are their newspaper, their television, their all-consuming narrative. And their video games are all cop-killer, criminal simulators.” You know what else you typically find in a gang house? Guns. Some people (not myself) would claim that guns are to clearly to blame. Would Grossman like to see guns banned, to the point where his men cannot legally carry them? Somehow I don't think he'd be so quick to blame incidental objects in that case.
We like to pretend that crime is a million times worse today than it was in the long long ago, but it truly isn't. Just because today's psychopaths are more publicized, it doesn't mean they haven't always been around. You ban the stress relief of videogames and I'm willing to hypothesize that crime will go up, not down. Of course, you don't have to be a cop to be smart enough to guess that.
Contest:
7:05 AM on 10.02.2007
| 
thanks george bush.
thanks so much.
Also: Z.
I really have nothing to contribute. This shouldn't even be publicized.
Also: Z.
I really have nothing to contribute. This shouldn't even be publicized.
By the way da Bears suck even w/Greise...
It's coming down to GreenBay & Patriots...
Also: Z.
I really have nothing to contribute. This shouldn't even be publicized."[/i]
And this, my friend, is the exact reason why morons like this can SAY such disgusting things about videogames and get away with it. Every time something like this happens, people stick their fingers in their ears or cry boredom. Apathy toward this debate from our side is just as bad as the crusaders on the other side.
I will continue to publish stuff like this.
I partly agree with you. I had an argument about this exact same thing not too long ago, where ignoring the problem only makes it worse. I suppose I am just so sick of hearing about it, that's all. It's like every other day there's another 'oh god video games kill people' post on some major blog somewhere.
I'm kind of sorry if that's how I seem, I don't want to come off that way.
Maybe this post opened the eyes of a few more people, and I suppose it would be smart to continue to talk about it openly like this.
in b4 tl;dr
“This is not an attack on all video games. Video games are an interactive medium. They demand and develop trial-and-error and systematic problem-resolving skills, and they teach planning, mapping, and deferment of gratification. Watch children as they play video games and interact with other children in their neighborhood. To parents raised on a steady diet of movies and sitcoms, watching a child play Mario Brothers for hours on end may not be particularly gratifying, but that is just the point. As they play they solve problems and overcome instructions that are intentionally inadequate and vague. They exchange playing strategies, memorize routes, and make maps. They work long and hard to attain the gratification of finally winning a game. And there are no commercials : no enticements for sugar, no solicitation of violent toys and no messages of social failure if they do not wear the right shoes or clothes.
We might prefer to see children reading or getting exercise and interacting with the real world by playing outside, but video games are definitely preferable to most television. But video games can also be superb at teaching violence - violence packaged in the same format that has more quadrupled the firing rate of modern soldiers.
When I speak of violence enabling I am not talking about video games in which the player defeats creatures by bopping them on the head. Nor am I talking about games where you maneuver swordsmen and archers to defeat monsters. On the borderline in violence enabling are games where you use a joystick to maneuver a gunsight around the screen to kill gangsters who pop up and fire at you. The kind of games that are very definitely enabling violence are the ones in which you actually hold a weapon in your hand and fire it at human-shaped targets on the screen. These kinds of games can be played on home video, but you usually see them in video arcades.”
Now, apparently he has strayed somewhat from that viewpoint in this day and age, but the fact remains that he isn't quite the ridiculous, moronic douchebag that the above article leads us to believe he is.
I agree with you, as long as people, after getting fired up by posts like this, go out and engage in mature, constructive dialogue with people who are anti-videogaming.
However, the tendency is for people who are already very pro-videogaming to whine and bitch amongst themselves, and then not do anything afterwards. There is naught as impotent as angry young men on the internet.
Whatever, really. It's all jive, there's nothing some fat, gun-toting cop can change.
What about air? Air would be in every gang house too. OMG! AIR IS KILLING COPS! What about pollution? Walls? A roof? Maybe carpet is the real killer here...
BREAKING NEWS: Battling continued today on planet Venom and more casualties piled the conflict exacerbated. Lt. Slippy of Team Fox was shot down in battle today by the infamous Star Wolf. Capt. Fox is taking the loss especially hard since Lt. Slippy's last words were "Fox, get this guy off of me!!!". The groups senior pilot had this to say: "DO A BARREL ROLL"
Lylatt System News
Ban bullets worldwide and it's problem solved people.
Also, speeding in cars doesn't kill. It's the sudden stopping that usually does the damage.
What?
On the contrary, ignoring these pathetic close-minded people is ten times more effective than bitching about what they're saying and giving them attention they don't deserve.
I think you must be thinking, passiveness when others try to make decisions for you is no better than those making the decisions; such as the ban on smoking in public - Who are these people to tell you what you can and cannot do? I don't know, I was too busy being apathetic about something important that I could do something about and was probably ranting about what some insignificant person said that was completely irrelevant to issues that effect basic freedoms, i.e. Not doing shit.
Advertising what every moronic idiot says about video games (or anything ignorant in general) is just helping their voice be heard when they shouldn't be. They should be shunned away and ignored, not debated, room for debate gives room for growth. And helping them is being no different than them.
But then again....denial is funnier, right?
Who would have thunk it, the Crips aren't Tetris fanatics.
"Drop a block, kill a cop."