Games: The Excuse for Murder
In recent years, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of school related shootings in the United States and around the world, but investigators have yielded few answers to determine why this is. Many parents and behavior experts have pointed to escalating violent and sexual content in videogames as the cause, but they have never presented absolute conclusive findings to support this theory. I on the other hand dont see electronic games as the problem, but more of a solution to curb teen aggression. The idea of blaming a game for making a child perform in an outrageous manner is preposterous and just an easy way to explain away one of lifes scary realities. I hope to enlighten you as to why I hold this controversial view by presenting to you a wide scope of counter arguments to those that oppose my views.
There is no doubt that videogames can be used as simulators to teach others how to perform a certain task. Airline pilots use computer programs to learn how to fly and soldiers use virtual reality to become effective killers. The question that must be asked is whether or not these simulations compel a person to inflict harm on another human? The answer would have to be an absolute no. The gap between shooting a polygonal character and a breathing human being is enormous. Just because I know how to go about killing another person doesnt mean I will do it. A person would have to have a reason to commit an act of violence, such as killing, to do it. If raw knowledge were enough to persuade an individual to do something, then the world would be a vastly different place. Does a military general declare war on another nation because he knows how to? Does a motorist run over pedestrians even though they know that the law of physics says that a car would kill the pedestrian? Of course the answer to both these questions is no. Normal people only take the unspeakable and last resort action when they are forced to; only unstable people lash out with no reason.
Mental stability and plain old stupidity are the problems society faces when people create havoc. A game only allows them to develop an effective form of aggression, but the underlining idea of violence was theirs to begin with. If a person intends to inflict harm on others, then censoring games is not the way to go about stopping this. Once a person has made the conscious decision to commit an act of violence, they start to look at models of violence to imitate. That is where videogames and action movies step in. These forms of media never caused them to act the way they did, they simply inspired them. If we were to start censoring, then we would have to destroy all forms of free thought and expression to make sure nobody takes the idea of another and applies it to a real life scenario. Also, just because we stomp out the games, doesnt mean a person can look somewhere else for inspiration. What is to stop anyone from studying the crimes of Charles J. Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald? In our eagerness to stomp out real violence in society, we have also gone after anything that remotely resembles it.
Just recently, two teens took shotguns to a Tennessee highway and shot at passing cars. What did these morons tell police? They said they were inspired by Grand Theft Auto III to do it. The key word in this is inspired. Never did they say that the game forced them or told them to do this awful act. Ive played GTA3 several times, and I have never gone to, or felt compelled to go to, a highway and shot at passing cars, just as Im sure that the millions of other gamers that have played GTA3 have never done. These teens clearly have a problem on a mental level, yet the victims place blame on Rockstar Studios and Take-Two and have filed lawsuits.
Attacking images and icons of an idea, in this case violence, is nothing new. When the US government started to feel threatened by the ideas of Communism, they pointed to Hollywood films and Rock and Roll as ways the Communists were spreading the "Red Message" to Americas youth. When crops failed or a person committed sin in small villages during Medieval Times, village folk would burn those that remotely resembled a witch. During the 1970s and 1980s, before the age of advanced computer graphics, people blamed movies like Rambo, The Terminator, and Total Recall as the cause of aggression in children. The simple fact is, that every generation of parents has looked to an easy target to place their own blame on for the violent actions of their children. They simply cant own up to their own poor parenting or failure to identify the troubled feelings that youngsters have. People just dont wake up one day and decide that they are going to kill every living thing in sight. Something has to drive them to this point, and they will show red-letter behavior to inform others around them that something is wrong. Because parents are in a state of denial that their little angel would ever do something like this, they naturally expect some invisible force is to blame for this out-of-character behavior. It isnt surprising that videogames are quickly identified as the culprit, because most teenage males play videogames, which just so happens to be the demographic most prone to acting out violently.
I remember when the Columbine Massacre happened; everyone was confused and wondered what could have driven these two boys to do such a horrific act. As soon as word broke that the two teens were wearing drench coats, the media jumped on the Andy and Larry Wachowskis summer hit, The Matrix as the definitive reason for the killing spree. The Sci-Fi action film was released on March 31, 1999, which was followed by the Littleton, Colorado shootings on April 20, 1999. The media didnt even need to wait for an official investigation before assigning blame to the movie. However, several days later when it came to light that both Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris played the popular videogame Doom, everything changed. This was the turning point where videogames would become the new scapegoat for murder, not movies.
I find it ironic that every time a shooting takes place, everyone looks to the cause of this violent outburst, but rarely ask where the person got the weapon or who was watching him or her. Once word is released that the criminal had played videogames or watched sadistic movies, families of victims quickly sue the game and filmmakers. What about the people entrusted with the care of the defendant, dont they share any of the responsibility? Where were they when Junior was upstairs plotting his assault, training for the attack, and gathering weapons? Did they ever think to ask where they got the semiautomatic and pipe bombs and what they needed them for? The parents of young killers, in my opinion, are just as much to blame for little Susies death as their kid that pulled the trigger. As a parent, they should be fully involved in their childs life and know what they are doing. Mothers and fathers are called parents for a reason; they are there to parent their kid. If they fail to live up to their commitment set by society to raise decent future adults, then they should be punished.
Another group that should own up to responsibility are gun makers and gun wholesalers. When a teenager walks in to a store asking for a weapon that is obviously powerful enough to fend off a small tactical force, then they should know that something is wrong here. When a background search uncovers that they have bought 18 handguns in the past month, you should have enough sense to not sell them a gun. Gun makers need to work hard to keep guns out of the hands of children and stop making super powerful ones. What conceivable reason would an individual need a high -powered assault rifle? Many gun ranges dont have age limits, which allow kids access to the real thing. Guns need to be made smaller and weaker for general public consumption, to prevent mass rampages from proceeding. A person with a tiny eight round pistol can only do a limited amount of damage to property and human life, but a person with a huge automatic rifle with laser sight can do unimaginable harm to those around them.
Videogames give children and adults a way out of real life. It is this "Dream World," a fantasy, that lets people do everything they want to do in real life but cant. It allows the average fellow to experience what crime is like. People spend so much of their lives doing the right and honest thing that they would love to get the chance to be evil without any consequences. When I feel angry, I dont lash out at real human beings, but instead I boot up my PC and start taking out my rage on those that feel nothing in a game. Some say that these games are just packaged emotions, but I say they are good exits for built up aggression that keep violence from showing itself in public.
Finally, I would like to address those "studies" that prove that videogames cause violence in children. Im going to focus on one study conducted by the University of Missouri and Columbia Iowa State University between July 31, 2000 and August 30, 2001. The studys goal was to determine the effects of violent and nonviolent videogames on subjects aggression levels (22 men and 21 women). Personally, I found this whole study to be a joke when I realized that they used Mortal Kombat for the violent sample and PGA Tournament Golf for the nonviolent sample. Does anyone else see something wrong with this? For starters, Mortal Kombat is a fighting game, so obviously its going to invoke more aggression in people. Second, golf is a relaxing game with little action or interaction. To me, a better choice for the nonviolent game would have been a game like Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the violent game should have been something like Resident Evil. Better yet, they could have kept Mortal Kombat and replace PGA with Super Smash Bros, which would keep both games within the realm of fighting.
The study is flawed, and so are the results. Even if the conclusion is correct, it still doesnt prove that the game has or ever will cause a person to commit a criminal act. Difficult schoolwork can make me more aggressive, so does that mean I can blame the schools for any illegal killings I do in the future? Certainly not, so why can victims and perpetrators blame game companies for violent acts against society?
It is for these reasons I stand in opposition to the experts and parents. Violence has been around since the dawn of time, but videogames have only been here for barely three decades. How can a society claim that a medium that has just recently reached a point in its life span to make a profound impact on a person as the cause of violence in children? I simply say its an illusion made up by the minds of adults that seem to have a hard time remembering their own childhood and the behavior they expressed. Also, it is natural to feel that something so widely used by people would have to have some sort of negative effect on a person. It appears that the negative effect in the case of videogames would have to be violence in youngsters and school shootings.
I stand by a firm belief when it comes to children taking drastic action against those around them, and I hope others will share this view as I do after reading this essay. That view is that of, People dont kill or rage out of fun or boredom, but rather in self-defense or paranoia. Nobody can make anyone commit a criminal act, unless held hostage at gunpoint, so how can a game make a kid behave violently? It cant, thats how. The ultimate choice to do a nasty deed is that of the people themselves. Not the game maker nor the game, but the child must make that mental decision to follow through, and it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure they make the right choice for them. Remember, Games dont kill people; people kill people.