I guess it would be time to write this particular article with the name of the website and all. However, I wish it would have been with a more sarcastic and humorous nature, but with these recent events I think a more serious tone is needed. If you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks you wouldn’t notice the uproar of people claiming this latest tragedy is yet again caused by violent video games. It is pretty much a cliché to do this on a gaming website, but after hearing it in the media, and on the radio while working, it can be very frustrating. Video games are a very big part of my life, and have brought nothing but entertainment and joy for me, but here we are again with the same old excuse from people. Well, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t the video game’s fault, at all.
The Spoon Made The Man Fat
It is always easy to point the finger at something that can’t fight back or has little direct affect on your life at all. These people that are against video games don’t like them, and they sure don’t care about the feelings of those who play them. They see something that is childish, because they know nothing about them, and could care less to know why someone else would enjoy them.
In the year 2010 there were over 32,000 deaths related to car accidents. By this logic, it is clear that cars are the problem with all these deaths, and we should make sure that no one ever drives again. The same can be said for religion as well. Religious wars throughout human history could easily rank up to the billions of deaths, so why do we have churches, temples and other buildings of faith all over the world?
Google’s driveless car, the one that drove hundreds and thousands of miles having only a few crashes, and all were done by human error.
What if I told you there have been school shootings since the 1700’s? In 1764, four boys walked into a school room killing their schoolmaster and almost a dozen children. There were many in the 1800’s and the early 1900’s. In fact, the biggest number count shooting happened in 1927 at the Bath Consolidated school in Michigan. But I can tell you one thing we wouldn’t find back then: a video game.
The Media Immortalizes Them
Can anyone name the victims of the Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook shootings without doing a Google search? No, but I’m sure the majority of people will always remember the shooter’s name. The media turns these people into living legends creating a horrible legacy out of them, and puts that hope into future people as well. These people don’t want to be remembered as the scared boy or the nerdy kid that always got picked on, they want to be remembered from the fear they bestow upon the horrific day they plan.
The media never truly blame the shooters anymore, but look into what they used to entertain themselves. For the Virginia Tech shooter they were looking up and down for video games finding none, but they did find out that he liked to watch wrestling shows, so that become the debate for the day. The Sandy Hook shooter liked to play Mass Effect, so they went on with that, and Bioware’s (the creator of the game) Facebook page was bombarded with angry and threatening comments. This was later debunked, due to bad reporting, because it was his brother who liked the game.
I’m sure not a single person on here knows anything at all about Mass Effect
Can We Blame The Person
You will never see a case where the shooter is a normal Joe. They never just snapped one day and decided to shoot people because of something they listened to, read, or played on a video game. These people show years and years of mental illness that stems back to their early childhood. They are always shown as outcasts, and some of them were abused through bad parenting, whether it was mental or physical. Let’s not forget the signs that are always talked about weeks or months before from friends or classmates. They write or talk about violent things. But everyone just brushes it off like nothing was really going to happen.
Even when a person or a parent actually tries to find help in some way, when there is nothing else to do, they are denied it. The now famous blog by Liza Long about her son and the trials it has been for her with her violent son is proof. As a single parent, she has tried everything she can to control him, and when she couldn’t take it anymore and realized that she couldn’t do it alone, she tried to find help. Instead, she was told by her son’s social worker that no one will pay attention unless he commits a crime. We have seen what happens when these people commit crimes. People lose family members, and they usually commit suicide, so when does the help come in?
We Put Ourselves In A Never Ending Circle
It seems we are doomed to repeat ourselves. Maybe it is in our nature to do this, but there is never one true reason on why it happens. We need to stop pointing fingers at video games, guns, or anything else but ourselves. We need to take action on creating better programs for these people and helping those who are seeking it because that is the only way to stop this. If these people want to hurt someone they are going to do it, no matter what. You can take away the games, you can take away the guns, you can take away anything you want around them, but you aren’t going to take away the problem.
