# Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to ban violent computer shooter games? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210 "2012-12-16T19:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/1 "2012-12-16T19:49:53Z")
I guess we need to discuss the elephant in the debate room. 🙂 Violent shooter games have been a glaring problem ever since Columbine. It seems like nearly every mass shooter since has also been a heavy gamer and especially shooter games. I saw reports yesterday that the elementary school shooter was strongly into games. You can imagine this socially awkward freak in his room alone hour after hour, day after day shooting everything in sight. I was never much of a gamer. For awhile in the early 90’s I played Doom. Usually after work I’d start it up to release stress from work. I always used the cheat codes to get extra weapons and go into “God mode”. Walking through walls and shooting anything that moved. I usually got bored after an hour and watched tv. I got tired of it after a couple years and stopped playing. Did it turn me into a psychopath? Of course not. But, I was a reasonably well adjusted person to begin with. The vast majority of gamers know the difference in games and the real world. But what about the disturbed people out there? What damage are these games doing to their already warped perception of reality? First person shooter games are basically simulators for the real thing. You learn to stay calm under attack, aim carefully and kill your targets. Often with a satisfying splat or other sound effect. I have no idea what the current games are today. But, I have seen ads for various warfare games. I’d guess the first person shooter game is still popular? Do we need to eliminate them or find a way to control their sale to unstable people? What can be done to keep society safe? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/2 "2012-12-16T19:52:39Z")
What kid doesn’t play these games? Better to put ankle bracelets on every unmarried male between the ages of 18 and 28. Fit them with GPS and have the bracelets emit a paralyzing electrical shock if the person gets within 10 feet of a school. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/3 "2012-12-16T20:15:03Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Do we need to eliminate them or find a way to control their sale to unstable people? What can be done to keep society safe? “Violent video games cause violent actions” is mostly debunked at this point. Unstable people are unstable. To be honest, it would be massively easier to find a way to control the sale of firearms to unstable people (and that’s nearly impossible as it is) and just as ineffective. We’ve got a couple decades of study now, and, at worst, we see a [mild correlation](http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-09-07/news/33682444_1_games-and-aggression-video-games-college-students) with aggression. And in some cases, particularly in cooperative games, violent games are actually correlated with a decrease in aggression. The fact that this meme is still around is people looking for a simple answer to a complex issue. The narrative fits their worldview better than the idea that maybe there is no simple answer to a complex web of social and cultural factors that lead to these maniac shootings. If it was 60 years ago, we’d be discussing whether comic books led to violence, anti-social behavior and homosexuality. In another 20-30 years, the idea that video games are a causative factor will be just as laughable. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/4 "2012-12-16T20:16:22Z")
Gosh, another sarcastic thread about the Connecticut massacre. I will become concerned about violent video games when someone uses a video game to kill people. Can you beat someone to death with a Blu-Ray disc? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/5 "2012-12-16T20:18:27Z")
Found a list of popular First Person Shooter Games on a retail site. The descriptions pretty much say it all. Extreme violence with an emphasis on mass murder. Yes, I now the majority of people know the difference in avatars and reality. But what about a social awkward, autistic teen, with no friends and no hobbies except these games? What is this teaching the disturbed kids that we know are out there in society? > **[New Games, Newest Games - GameSpot](https://www.gamespot.com/new-games/?game_filter%5Bgenres%5D%5B0%5D=5008-20&game_filter%5Bplatform%5D=19)** > > GameSpot is the world's largest source for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PS Vita, Wii PC, 3DS, PSP, DS, video game news, reviews, previews, trailers, walkthroughs, and more. The games put the concept of mass murder into these disturbed peoples minds. The school shooter may have simply shot his mom because he was angry. What gave him the idea to wander down the hallways shooting 6 year old kids? > [@RickJay](#): > > Gosh, another sarcastic thread about the Connecticut massacre. > > I will become concerned about violent video games when someone uses a video game to kill people. Can you beat someone to death with a Blu-Ray disc? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/6 "2012-12-16T20:59:08Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The games put the concept of mass murder into these disturbed peoples minds. Cite? No, really. No studies have shown this at all over the last 30 years. You could as easily say that reporting on mass murders, warfare, and other violence on the evening news is just as culpable, yet there’s no call to ban news reporting. “It just stands to reason” is bad reasoning. People literally said the same thing about comic books 60 years ago. They were wrong then, and it looks like they’re wrong now. And, as I noted before, even ignoring the fact that there’s no real correlation there, trying to keep video games out of the hands kids is literally more difficult than keeping guns out of their hands (which is nigh impossible in the US). ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/7 "2012-12-16T21:01:50Z")
Two of the more popular video game franchises have been the Mario Brothers games and the Pac Man games. How many kids have gone running down the hallway jumping on people or trying to eat them? Tens of millions of copies of violent first person shooter games have been sold, and there have been billions of hours of play time. If there was any measurable responsibility, the world would be a bullet-riddled, blood-soaked wasteland. If you say “Yeah, well, some people don’t have guns”, I would point out that every 1st-person shooter includes the knife or crowbar as option 1. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/8 "2012-12-16T21:11:06Z")
If we’re going to go with this kind of logic, we should also look in the other direction. If [pornography reduces rape](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html), violent video games should _decrease_ shootings. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/9 "2012-12-16T21:45:59Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Do we need to eliminate them or find a way to control their sale to unstable people? What can be done to keep society safe? The comon denominator in all of these tragedies is that people are unstable. Maybe we should deal with that. In China it’s very hard to get firearms, but similiar tragedies occur but they use knives instead. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/10 "2012-12-16T21:50:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The games put the concept of mass murder into these disturbed peoples minds. The school shooter may have simply shot his mom because he was angry. What gave him the idea to wander down the hallways shooting 6 year old kids? If a game existed that involved wandering down hallways shooting 6 year old kids, this point might actually make sense, although it would still be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/11 "2012-12-16T21:58:16Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Do we need to eliminate them or find a way to control their sale to unstable people? What can be done to keep society safe? 1. Society is already safe. Media fear-mongering aside, only a few hundred people die each year as a result of disturbed people going on shooting sprees. Compared to virtually any other risk you can think of, this is already negligible, and anything you could possibly do about video games would be totally pointless compared to spending the same resources on firearms regulation. 2. A blanket ban on these video games would be a violation of free speech. 3. Essentially every game can be legally purchased online. Even if they don’t have a credit card, any kid can walk into Target and buy a Visa gift card with cash that allows him to pay for stuff online. Of course, most games can still be easily pirated as well. Without a blanket ban, there is no way to keep these games out of the hands of kids. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/12 "2012-12-16T22:02:42Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > But what about the disturbed people out there? What damage are these games doing to their already warped perception of reality? Anyone who is influenced in this way was _already_ a deadly threat before they started playing. Without video games, a psychotic individual might be spurred to violence by [a song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_%28song%29#Charles_Manson) or practically anything else. Without video games, a sociopath trying to train himself to become a murderer is still a sociopath who wants to murder people. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/13 "2012-12-17T00:14:42Z")
This all skates around the basic issue: the glamorization of gun violence. De-glam guns, and we have a foundation to reduce gun-based violence. It’s not just video games - hardly a movie is made without guns used in a threatening or lethal manner, and in 90% of those, the gun wielder is the glamorous or laudable hero. I think it’s unrealistic and (properly) unconstitutional to try and ban such content; we can, however, give it and enforce R/NC-17/M ratings on it to reduce its impact on youth. There should be no gun violence in movies aimed at the under-15 or so set, period. No? Replace any gun violence you think is okay with an equivalent act of sexual assault or rape and repeat your consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/14 "2012-12-17T00:22:21Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > This all skates around the basic issue: the glamorization of gun violence. De-glam guns, and we have a foundation to reduce gun-based violence. It’s not just video games - hardly a movie is made without guns used in a threatening or lethal manner, and in 90% of those, the gun wielder is the glamorous or laudable hero. Meh. There were heroes with swords before that. The monomythical hero’s journey always features violence of some kind (though not always physical) and defeating “demons” (though, again, not necessarily flesh and blood ones). ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/15 "2012-12-17T00:25:14Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It seems like nearly every mass shooter since has also been a heavy gamer and especially shooter games. Nearly every mass shooter has also been heavily into drinking liquids, breathing oxygen, and eating foods. All are activities that are only slightly more popular amongst teenagers these days than playing video games. Should we ban all those things, too? I can’t believe this still needs to be said, but once again: correlation does NOT equal causation. You can’t just assume that the one is responsible for the other. You need evidence. And “I reckon this must be the way it is” doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/16 "2012-12-17T00:45:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Tens of millions of copies of violent first person shooter games have been sold, and there have been billions of hours of play time. If there was any measurable responsibility, the world would be a bullet-riddled, blood-soaked wasteland. If you say “Yeah, well, some people don’t have guns”, I would point out that every 1st-person shooter includes the knife or crowbar as option 1. Does anyone remember this old joke? _A recent study found that 97% of teenage boys admitted to masturbating at least once in the last week. In related news, 3% of teenage boys are liars._ Funny right? When it comes to video games, those numbers are stone cold fact (I believe it was a Pew study from 2010, IIRC). So yeah, the entire world should have blown up ten times over if violent video games actually caused a shooting spree response. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/17 "2012-12-17T00:49:34Z")
The OP would help his argument if he could produce evidence that people who go on shooting sprees are more likely to play violent video games than most people their age. Please produce it. ---
**Author:** ![andrewbub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@andrewbub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewbub)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/18 "2012-12-17T01:05:51Z")
according to this article [http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/us-is-the-worlds-biggest-video-game-market-with-165-million-players/](http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/us-is-the-worlds-biggest-video-game-market-with-165-million-players/) 165 million Americans play video games. Seeing how Call of Duty et al sell millions of copies every year, and there aren’t millions of people committing these crimes, this is a pointless argument that’s been brought up dozens of times throughout the years. Correlation is not causation. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/19 "2012-12-17T01:12:23Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The games put the concept of mass murder into these disturbed peoples minds. The school shooter may have simply shot his mom because he was angry. What gave him the idea to wander down the hallways shooting 6 year old kids? Clearly it was a video game that gave him the idea to wander down the hallways shooting 6 year old kids. “Wander down the hallways shooting 6 year old kids” was the number one xbox title last year. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210/20 "2012-12-17T01:31:33Z")
> [@Ibanez](#): > > … In China it’s very hard to get firearms, but similiar tragedies occur but they use knives instead. there are also mass killings occurring in schools in China? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-ban-violent-computer-shooter-games/644210.md?page=2)