Germany; land of schnitzel, steins, and beautiful blond haired, blue eyed women who sound like they're giving orders when they tell you they love you. It's also now the setting of a scene familiar to those of us in the US, a homocidal rampage within the halls of a school.
On Monday, in the western German town of Emsdetten, an 18 year old man stormed into the Scholl secondary school and opened fire. He wounded 27 people before he finally killing himself.
Some would attribute such actions to his being disturbed and needing vast psychological and emotional counseling, but the German authorities (who, like, TOTALLY heart America), have decided that violent video games are what led to the youth's total meltdown and subsequent attack.
Hit the jump for some choice cuts from the article while I go cross Germany off my list of possible countries to move to when the US is nuked by North Korea.
[UPDATE: It's also been brought to my attention that you can find more information in this article. It seems to be more in depth than the one I originally linked to, and it has more information on the debate that is raging on in Deutschland.]
Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said it was time to consider banning games that simulate wanton killing.
"We need effective guidelines to protect children from exposure to different types of media, but we don't need (simulated) killer games that can lead to brutalisation," Bosbach was quoted on the Netzeitung news Web site as saying.
Mr. Bosbach does not, however, advocate a country full of people who can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, as that might eat into the lies he tells people in order to be re-elected. For instance, Mr. Bobasch denied the existence of Werewolf Hitler! Is that the sort of man you want heading Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats?
The opposition Greens warned against banning violent computer and war games.
Volker Beck, a leading Greens member of parliament, said it would be better to focus the debate on the proper use of computers and not jump to conclusions before it was clear what motivated [the killer] Bastian B.
Actually, I don't have anything snarky to say about this quote. It's right on the money. If we have any German readers who I didn't totally offend with my Werewolf Hitler (and the upcoming Zombie Hitler) tirade, I hope you vote for the Green party. They seem to know what the hell they're talking about (and I hear the Christian Democrats drink the blood of gypsies!).
Contest:
2:53 AM on 11.22.2006
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Our politician like to blame the how they call them "killer Games" for shit like this.
In the Radio they clearly said that he was a looser at his school and treated like shit.
And they also claimed he played Games to escape from the real World, because in Videogames he was the almighty. I wonder what they were thinkin when they said that.
They have no idea what was going on in his mind.
Video Games don´t make you kill people. Imo he just wanted revenge for being treated like shit.
Therefore.
Hopscotch caused WW II.
Logic is fun!
Since Hitler played hopscotch.
And hopscotch caused WW II.
And WW II caused CoD III.
And CoD III sucked.
Therefore, hopscotch caused CoD III to suck.
Damn you, hopscotch!
When will your reign of terror end?!
Imo blame that one on hopscotch too.
they try to distract from real problems in our society by making populist statements that they want to banish "killer"games.
plus their always seem to protest against counterstrike, a game that is GOD KNOWS how many years old. of course he played cs, anybody did
its sooo easy blaming videogames for actions like that
you dont have to tackle real problems in society
Geez...
Nope guys, some conservative politicians do, of course.
Guess it's not much different than public discussion in your glory-we-already-own-the-ps3-country.
arent those fat old guys funny: let us say we forbid video games and then the world will be great again o_O
Doesn't Germany have some mash-up rules anyway where violent games aren't censored (it goes against their constitution) and therefore can't be sold over the counter and are then sold 'under the counter'? The problem with this is that games such as Dead rising won't run because they need to be rated before they can get past the 360's v-chip.
When will your reign of terror end?!"
That seriously made me LOL. I wonder if blaming violence on videogames will ever stop. The new Zelda made me believe I was a wolf with a weird imp thing riding on my back :(
i remember how a german friend was surprised some years ago that he could get DOOM and quake over here in the shops, it was banned in germany.