The 17-year-old German kid and his shooting rampage have kicked off an anti-videogames government movement in Europe. This school shooting that killed 16 has some tying the incident to videogames. For no good reason. Or worse, blaming horror films. It couldn't have just been a messed up kid, right?
Translated articles linked to by GamePolitics give these highlights:
From Heise, about Germany:
The President of the German Foundation for Crime, Hans-Dieter Schwind, calls... for a total ban on violent computer games, and a further tightening of the arms law.
Also from Heise:
The Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann has... expressed demand for a ban on so-called killer games renewed...
And French outlet Romandie News:
...European Parliament calls for common strategy is developed at EU level providing for "severe sanctions" for retailers who sell adult games to minors, or owners of Internet cafes that allow children to play games unsuitable for their age group...
My opinion on this may be unpopular, but I'd rather see tighter control on guns than on games, movies, and retailers.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
3:30 PM on 03.12.2009
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The only EU bit I see here is calling for tougher sanctions against already illegal activities.
Oh, and they already have fairly tight gun controls over there (the guns he had access to were supposed to be locked away from him. They evidently weren't). Sometimes you just can't stop maniacs until it's too late, unfortunately.
I live in canada where there are very strict laws on owning guns, and as a result our gun related deaths are a fraction of say our southern neighbor .
yearly gun-related deaths in Canada 1,200
Yearly gun-related deaths in America 30,000
And don't forget hunting. I get called yearly to clear deer ranches because the deer have over-populated and there is not enough food for them to all survive on. Therefore, if not taken care of, many would starve to death.
Stupid capitalist idiots.
USA: 10 (3,72 homocide, 7.35 suicide, 0.59 unintentional)
Canada: 4,78 (0,76 h, 3,72 s, 0.22 u)
Germany: 1,75 (0,22 h, 1,17 s, 0.04 u)
Also, see: "War on Drugs".
japan: 0.07 (0.02 h, 0.04 s, 0.01 u)
"The (japanese) weapons law begins by stating "No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords", and very few exceptions are allowed."
OR
2. You are a gamer - what will you do next monday? Slaughter your classmates.
Another murder in a country with tight gun control and tight game control should show these idiots which way it goes! Apparently it didn't.
Just to pick out one thing that I think I can comment on without getting overly involved, Dale, why is your first response "tighter gun laws" when most of the crimes that disturb you are done in flagrant violation of the existing laws? If the current laws are being broken or just plain ignored, how is tightening them going to help? How is it helpful to have laws that are stricter ON PAPER, if they're going to be continually ignored regardless of their content?
I realize that a lot of the discomfort towards firearms on the part of many people is due to a wish to see less incidences of senseless violence like this shooting, which obviously I understand. That said, "gun laws" is like a huge Pandora's Box of clusterfuck that's apparently misunderstood by everyone. What the majority of these laws do is create an increase in paperwork for licensed hunters, gun restorers, amatuer marksman, collectors, etc., and everyone who has incentive to follow the laws in the first place. In other words, the people who jump through the most hoops as a result of tightened gun laws are the few people whom you might actually feel comfortable with holding guns. Idiot kids who shoot up their schools tend not to fill out much paperwork.
This is a pet peeve of mine since I seem to be one of the few people on the planet earth who is a moderate on this issue-- I want a few, well-enforced gun laws that actually work as opposed to a bunch of ideological ones that help us sleep better at night but don't accomplish anything. Plus, my Dad is an antique gun collector who is so nonviolent he has issues killing spiders, but 99% of the gun legislation out there appears to be designed to make his life difficult as a law-abiding citizen, and has nothing to do with crime whatsoever. It's frustrating.
Note the per 100,000.
I think maybe the guns are more likely to be at blame rather than the games. I say this because English culture is very similar to American culture yet the homicide rate is less than half that of America.
Actually, maybe we can learn something from this: Perhaps the problem is not too many guns, but not enough chocolate.
"I live in canada where there are very strict laws on owning guns, and as a result our gun related deaths are a fraction of say our southern neighbor .
yearly gun-related deaths in Canada 1,200
Yearly gun-related deaths in America 30,000"
Well "stanfy86"..I live in Canada too, and youre full of shit. Here the population is a f'ing FRACTION of what it is in the USA. So your numbers are meaningless.
Pop of USA: OVER 300 MILLION
Pop of Canuckland: around 33 Million (or thereabouts).
Now here is a nice hot cup of STFU. And have a side of GTFO while youre at it.
*sigh*
Even if it WERE true the chances of it happening would be LESS than one in a million!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/12/greene.shootings/index.html
Stricter gun laws may help. Less violent games may help. A better family life may help. There's no one cause for these things. The scary fact is that if someone is determined to do something like this, they'll find some way. Either with their dad's gun or a homemade bomb or a big stick.
The kid played CS!! FUCKING CS! Occasionally!! I'm not violent but old people need to die! (of natural causes obviously)
Thank god the EU response was the most sensible one.
PS. Long live the Kingdom of Portugal!
The only guys who get driven into such acts have a weak mental stability, just like the last guy.
The guy was pestered, likes to take his anger out on videogames, and the worst part: his parents have GUNS!
The thing people should get rid of are the things that obviously kill, and that's the gun's sole purpose of creation. drugs being second (don't do it kids).
I'm, and for that case all of us are, living proof that violent videogames don't kill, there is just much more needed for a rampage then suggestive button imput commands (read a few lines up).
What are they going to ban next? Violent books? to be honest they had a much bigger effect on me. I once read a detailed gory novel and nearly lost my lunch (the text-to-image translation capacitation of my mind is pretty vivid).
final thoughts: we can seperate ficton from fact and leave it for what it is, those other people are just mentally unstable (through a series of bad events) and give games a bad image.
I hope I can still buy Madworld after all this.
Well, Germany with strickt gun (and game) control is no 3, while Switzerland with tons of guns isn't even on the list.
Also what about South America or Africa? Is it just some selection of countries or they didn't rate high enough?
If I was forced to point on any feature increasing homicide rates without serious research I'd say culture and most prominently value of life and most widespread view of death.
If anyone in gang controled part of the city sees death everywhere and knows that only fast way of getting on a better level is through killing and risking own neck - there will be much more deaths.
On the other hand if taking a life is taboo and it's just not the way things are done... even criminals will kill less and more would be killers will pause in the crutial moment.
BTW Only solution to such crimes would be survailance society (which would be even worse). It just takes a looser with enough balls to kill and enough self-loathing to accept his own immininent death (and evil enough to do this). If gun control is so tough he won't get a gun, he'll go with knife and still kill 5-10 ppl with any luck. Only if it was possible to see his preparations in time, it would be possible to stop him on time.
It doesn't mean there aren't valid reasons to be wary of guns, but that's not one of them. Me no like misinformation.
All hail the pharmaceutical industry and its lobby
All hail the pharmaceutical industry and its lobby