'Call of Duty' and Mass Murders: Are Video Games Too Violent?

[Meister]

Spree shootings aren't common, what's changed is how the media covers it. There have always been crazy people, and they have always done horrible things.

I think the biggest issue is parenting, as well as our approach to the mentally ill. I think doctors and parents today, are more willing to turn to drugs to help children instead of going with the more difficult route of actually working at behavioral therapy and hands on parenting.

I think the first student killing students in the US was back in the 1970's.

Why do you think that? What makes you believe that it never happened in...say, the 1800's?

I wasn't around back then, I can only speak about the last 60+ years. If you have something let me know.

 

[Meister]

I dont think it's a new phenomena, at all.

I just think it's more easily publicized, and weapons are more powerful.

It's not the media, it's not the "decline of the family unit." If those things were true, it wouldn't be so scarce of an issue. You have to keep things in perspective and not blow them out of proportion. There are 300 M give or take people in just this Country alone. This is not a widespread issue by any stretch of the imagination. But, violence in games and movies, the trend away from Religion and the divorce rates are pretty widespread. There's no necessary correlation.

A better assumption is that some kids are born with a defective brain, some kids are born into horrible home-life situations and can't handle it, and some kids become psychotic due to drugs.

I do agree with a lot of what you say. But couldn't a kid born with a defective brain respond to one or several of points you posted to the point of an outburst?
I do think that not having two parents does create a problem with well adjusted children....take that to a "problem child", it could become a real issue. If a child isn't exposed to children growing up and not bonding, but instead his time is consumed on the internet in a make believe world may not create an issue with normal children, but could have impact on a problem child. IMO, I think religion is important....but that is just me.
I do believe the drugs give to children for ADD and anti depressent drugs might play a huge problem. I saw that first hand with a relatively normal child of a friend of mine. He lashed out with anger and there were suicide issues......Dr. told him that it was a side effect of the drug he took.

I think that children driven over the edge are born defective to begin with. Otherwise, we'd see way more then we actually do. Divorce rates are 50%. Think about how many kids that effects, and then think of how small this mass-killing phenomena is as compared to that amount of kids.

Religion, in my opinion, is the worst type of brainwashing possibly ever. I say this as an agnostic. It's a control mechanism and with that comes the controlled, and the admittance that people need to be necessarily controlled. I reject it out of hand.

If you mean the morals taught within a Religion? Those morals exist outside of said Religion and were not invented by said Religion.

I'm not arguing that there is a screw loose to begin with. What I'm saying there is something in our society today that is pushing those who are screwed up over the edge that wasn't there 35+ years ago, GT. We have always had children who were lacking who never lashed out in this manner. Now, it's a different story.

With religion it is about the morals, if a child is brought up with religion it is taught to him.
If a child isn't brought up in religion, he has to find those morals elsewhere, if he finds them at all. just sayin....

 

[Meister]

Why do you think that? What makes you believe that it never happened in...say, the 1800's?

I wasn't around back then, I can only speak about the last 60+ years. If you have something let me know.

Read up on the topic, since it's the topic of the day.

Such as a study by Grant Duwe, a criminologist. He studied mass killings in the US through 2010, and his findings are that they peaked in 1929.

Were those school killings, or mass killings? I don't know...link me to the study if you could.

 

[AmyNation]

Spree shootings aren't common, what's changed is how the media covers it. There have always been crazy people, and they have always done horrible things.

I think the biggest issue is parenting, as well as our approach to the mentally ill. I think doctors and parents today, are more willing to turn to drugs to help children instead of going with the more difficult route of actually working at behavioral therapy and hands on parenting.

I think the first student killing students in the US was back in the 1970's.

"1700s
The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indian entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only two children survived."
History of School Shootings in the United States | K12 Academics

 

[Meister]

I think that children driven over the edge are born defective to begin with. Otherwise, we'd see way more then we actually do. Divorce rates are 50%. Think about how many kids that effects, and then think of how small this mass-killing phenomena is as compared to that amount of kids.

Religion, in my opinion, is the worst type of brainwashing possibly ever. I say this as an agnostic. It's a control mechanism and with that comes the controlled, and the admittance that people need to be necessarily controlled. I reject it out of hand.

If you mean the morals taught within a Religion? Those morals exist outside of said Religion and were not invented by said Religion.

I'm not arguing that there is a screw loose to begin with. What I'm saying there is something in our society today that is pushing those who are screwed up over the edge that wasn't there 35+ years ago, GT. We have always had children who were lacking who never lashed out in this manner. Now, it's a different story.

With religion it is about the morals, if a child is brought up with religion it is taught to him.
If a child isn't brought up in religion, he has to find those morals elsewhere, if he finds them at all. just sayin....

To your "just sayin" paragraph - he doesnt have to go "find" them anywhere but his parents, and family. Not from a Religion, they exist outside of Religion.

To the previous paragraph - I am disagreeing with you that something is newly pushing people over the edge, that didn't exist previous to 35 years ago. It's not a different story, I'm disagreeing with you completely, and you've already admitted you didnt even study before reaching your conclusion so what's the point?

Here's what happened to you, seemingly: The speedining up and widening of "Media" has led your brain to believe that something that has always existed is new.

First....if there is just one parent in the family, and that parent is working to create a home, that does take away the time it takes to raise a child and posssibly the teaching of morality.....and one that is a problem might respond different than a normal child. If that child spends his time on the computer and not interacting with other children...I'm sure there is a withdrawal emotionally with other children.

Through your own admission, you stated the study you provided was about mass killings, and not student killing students. That's not what we are talking about. So don't tell me what I didn't study. You can't provide any evidence that this has been going on before say 1970. Your premise is a fail from the get go.
If you want this to get down to insulting and feeling froggy about it, leap on over, GT.
I was making this a discussion, not the typical us vs them crap

 

[Meister]

I'll hang my hat on what Amy provided.

 

[AmyNation]

I do think mass school shootings have become a more popular method of murder, and I think in part it may be because of the apparent infamy that goes along with it, as well as the fact that the rage that drives those people, in their minds, is connected to the school.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Bottom line parents have gotten lazy. Either on purpose (just don't care) or because of outside pressure (busy lives or through fear of authorities)

An example:

My oldest daughter was about 15 and on a cold morning was arguing with mu wife about not wanting to wear a coat because it wasn't cool. The argument escalated to my daughter calling her mom a *****. I instantly slapped he across the face a put her coat on myself.

2 hours later the police showed up at my door after being called by a school official. After a long discussion that got semi heated they told me if they were called again I would be going to jail.

And corporal punishment wasn't done in my house since they were SMALL children.

Many children know that they can push boundries because of this political correct bullshit.

 

[Some Guy]

Bottom line parents have gotten lazy.

Agreed. TV and videogames tag in as parents when the parents feel like they could use a break from parenting.

 

[Dick Tuck]

What do you people think is the cause, or causes for the young to be going postal over the last 30 years? What has changed in our society to bring this on? I have my ideas and there are a few things that may lead to the cause IMO, but I would like to hear your views.

1) Alienation. Many of our kids don't think of themselves as being part of the larger community.

2) Access to modern weapons. I'm sure there were many cases of school shootings with muzzle loaded rifles. Today, you can take out 30-40 people with a modern rifle.

3) I'm not sure how much more aware we are today with the 24/7 news cycle. I tried to avoid the early reports by the networks, but they wound up preempting other shows I like. Early reporting in situations like this generally suck. The get it first mentality of all news people seem to rely too heavily on people who don't know what they're talking about.

I'm sure there were similar incidents throughout history, with lower body counts, that weren't page one news outside of a specific locale.

 

[AmyNation]

They probably called the police because your child showed up to school with an obvious bruise on her face, and in tears.

If I cursed at my mother, I got a bar of soap in the mouth, but I never worried my father would hit me. Im a firm believer in spanking, age appropriate spanking. Slapping your teenager in anger however is totally over the line.