DISCUSSION: VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE
FURTHER ANALYSIS

It's been over a year since the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado where two boys shot and killed 14 other students in a bloody shooting in the school cafeteria. Since that time there have been students in other schools in the nation who have committed similar violent crimes, most recently in San Diego, California. One thing at the forefront of the issue is that of why children and teenagers would go and do such horrible things. Parents across the nation in many ways have entertained the thought of it happening in their own son or daughter's school. The media has played upon the latent fear and macabre voyeurism of the American public by sensationalizing school shootings and further bolstering the tactic of choosing a scapegoat that exists outside the issue. In the past month or so it has been made public that a lawsuit was filed against the Video Game industry, including companies like Nintendo, Sega, Midway, Id Software, and many other publishers/developers (Including Nintendo of all things - little do they know) in an attempt to obtain monitary compensation for the deaths of those teenagers by the Columbine victim's families. From my perspective as a veteran gamer, having played games a majority of my entire life, I can't see how anyone can incriminate something so easily without even remotely looking the issue logically. It's a witch hunt, a McCarthyism revivial of sorts where people are blind to facts and common sense.

What amazes me is how much the truth of something like this is completely ignored. Those troubled teenagers didn't kill people or become violent because a video game made them do it, programming thier brain for murder. Nor because they listened to heavy metal music, or because they saw a movie with a guy shooting people with a gun. In many of the cases I've seen on the News, these kids that were involved in school shootings were outcasts, pariah's amongst their peers. You know the kind, that kid that seems quiet, reserved, intelligent, and perhaps has eccentric tastes; traits that make that person different and an outcast in some respects. In some cases other peers tease these type of people, and commit acts of hazing and public humiliation to them. They had psychological conditions influencing their behavior that propagated their violence. Responsibility for this lies partly in the hands of the kids and teenager's who harrassed and tormented those kids, and mostly in the lap of the parents that remained apathetic toward their children's mental health and well being. Video Games are just a part of being young. It's like saying all kids who eat pizza are potential killers.

I have seen first amendment rights continue to be violated by fearful and uninformed groups and individuals, and it worries me what path we're going down. In my area, schools have enacted a No Tolerance policy toward violence, even the possibility of violence. I know this is quicly becoming a national stance as well. I am aware of three incidents locally that prove my point that the line has to be drawn and adults and politicians need to face the truth, and end the witch hunts. In one instance a little girl had a pair of nail clippers in her bookbag and was expelled from the school when the teacher found it, and told the principal. A girl, an honor student, at a local High School was expelled and couldn't graduate on time, and lost her scholarship, because she was moving items from one house to another and a School Resource Officer saw a kitchen knife in her car on the ground by the seat. A boy drew pictures of guns and someone found them and he was arrested, and expelled from school, just for DRAWING Guns. If you even joke that you might shoot someone or blow up the school as a joke, you can be expelled and even arrested. When I heard of this I was steamed. Seriously, who has the right to dictate what I can think and how I can express myself in this day and age. We are not in a dictatorship state. This is a travesty caused by foolish adults detatched from thier children's lives. And it goes back to the video games because it's what they are all pointing the figure at, claiming it's the causal factor in all this rash of violence in our nation.

Suing the video game companies is a fool's errand. We live in a sue-happy nation riddled with lawyers salivating at the chance to manipulate people's emotions into money in their pockets, capitalizing on people's inherent seceptability to narrowmindedness and fear tainted with greed. All the money in the world isn't going to bring those kids back. It's almost sickening to see that there are people capitalizing on the death of those teenagers and it's the lawyers involved who stand to gain the greatest benefit from this situation. Just because ID software produced a game about 8 years ago called DOOM that has a fictitious guy with a fictitious Gun in it shooting fictitious demons doesn't mean it's a manual of murder designed to manipulate children's brains into committing acts of horrible violence. Using this premise as the damaging factor is a weak argument.

This whole rating system for games is a sham, just another excuse to make another agency to do something and pay some fuddyduddy idiots who claim a game is "too violent." I personally know of no one that buys a game based on the rating it has. Most of the parent's I've seen ask their kid what game he wants and they go buy it for them. Would I give an M rated game to my 10 year old. Probably, because most of those games are pretty tame compared to the things I've seen on programs like the News or even the Learning Channel. I would have already explained to my kids the difference between fiction and fantasy like on TV and real violence and instilled sound logical thinking.

It astonishes me how all of the sudden someone is making a fuss about the violence children are exposed to. Has anyone ever watched cartoons? Or have they forgotten the comedic mischeif and violence committed in these since long ago. Children have been reading books with violence in them for years. Even the Holy Bible contains incidents of murder, torture, animal sacrifice, war, death, slavery, adultery, decapitation, homosexuality, divine retribution, genocide, violent crucifixion, and apocalyptic destruction. Hmm...In my opinion I think they should put an M rating on the Bible. It's these same people that say video games are too violent for their children that say that God murdering the firstborn of an entire society of people is okay because they are "all evil," and homosexuals should be tortured for eternity. What kind of ass backwards thinking is this? Why are people so dumb?

Banning video games, removing blood from movies, and creating a witch hunting "No Tolerance" policies will not quell the violence in this Nation. When people are excessively unsatisfied, deeply frustrated, disgruntled, or otherwise psychologically perceive the environment around them as a threat or an object to be destroyed and lashed out upon there will be violence in some form or another. In many ways there are pressures that influence humans emotionally and there are times when carnality overrides rationality, especially if the tools to negotiate between what is morally right and wrong are not present. Solutions exist within the community and environment that surrounds the individual. There are warning signs in children and teenagers that there are matters weighing heavily on their mind. Parents need to take the initiative to get to know their children, their feelings about things, and schools need to get involved in not oppressing students, but rather making room for those people who are different, and providing an open forum for them to express their feelings. Sometimes just talking with someone willing to listen goes a long way in preventing violence. The community needs to keep known criminals off the streets and usher excessively delinquent and violent teenagers to dicipline oriented programs like Boot Camp.

One thing I've noticed is that much, not all mind you, of the violence stems from low income producing areas and urban regions where there is a festering wound of cyclical degredatation. This environment is a breeding ground for violent individuals who were never given the tools to make sound decisions. It's a shame that we spend more on jails than we do on improvement of communities of poor and low income families. Not everyone is intelligent enough to get a high paying job that sustains an entire family within that comfort zone that releases the pressure valve of financial burden. There are many families that struggle day after day just to live. Being bombarded daily with images of people living better lives can lead to emotional deterioration and a sense of desparation. This is a breeding ground for violence that starts within the family and spreads into the community, like a cancer feeding off of itself. There is a solution, but I can't say that it would be a popular one. As members of a community each able bodied person should perform their fair share of duty in service of that community at whatever job they do, whether it be a lowly dishwasher in a restaurant, to a small business owner, and an executive. That dishwasher works just as hard as that business owner, why should he have to suffer because his income is not enough to bring him into that comfort zone that will keep him from emotionally degrading. There should be some kind of crediting system where the working poor and low income families are provided with more incentives to better their lives. We all like TV, we all like computers, and there is no reason any family should be without a computer in a country as rich as America. Working poor should receive refunded government credits for items to better themselves like computers, repairs to their homes, new appliances, whatever makes us feel comfortable within reason short of extravagance. Children of poor families should get financial incentives for getting good grades and staying in school. In some cases there are tax credits given to families like this, but overall the income level is not enough to compensate for deficiencies that keep people from the comfort zone.

Another point I'm trying to express here is that once we start regulating the expression of free speech, erecting barriers around it, we lose that liberty of this nation that we hold soverign. You know it was the Nazi's that burned the books to keep the people ignorant and in line with a regime. It was McCarthy that sought to capture Communists and expose them when there were none. It was the Puritans that foolishly believed the ramblings of immature little girls and murdered innocent people in Salem Massechusetts. It was the Ku Klux Klan that spread hatred for African Americans throughout the south. Once the veil of ignorance descends over the scales of liberty and justice, the corruptability of our society intensifies. People degrade themselves when they are apathetic and complacent in rights being taken away.