When it comes to school shootings many people ask who or what is to blame. Common answers include bullies or bullying, mental illnesses, the parents, the shooter, lack of gun control and/or video games. Now when video games are listed as a cause of school shootings some responses I’ve heard are, “well, explain all the school shootings before the 1970’s”, and “we need to regulate video games as they are causing violent behavior and making children dumber”. Additional comments are “the parents are to blame, because they didn’t give enough attention to their child”, or “if we put god and prayer back into schools, and use god and prayer to replace video games. we would not have to worry about school shootings”. I could go on listing other statements, but I think my point has been made. So, the question is how do video games affect the crime rate?
After the case of the ‘Virginia Tech
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These games might be rated M for mature, yet the latest Die Hard movie, entertaining though it might be, is only rated PG-13 despite an awful lot of carnage, including a lengthy scene where Bruce Willis beats a woman half to death and then drops an SUV on her. If misogynistic violence is OK for the silver screen, why not the Xbox? (Giltin 2007)” So why is it that we can have all this violence on television and movies? Why is it that kids can listen to songs about gangsters, prisoners and prostitutes, yet no one bats an eye? Why is it that we let kids watch sports like WWE, UFC, MMA, and boxing, but we don’t think about the influences then? But if someone kills or beats up another in a video game all hell breaks loose! so, why do some people think differently when it comes to video game