Do Video Games Really Contribute to Violence?

First off, I am going to come right out and say that I personally believe that video games do not truly contribute to violent shootings or act of shootings in todays world. I have been playing video games since I was around 4 years old and it started out with games like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM. I am 19 years old and to this day I have never had any felonies, never been arrested, never had any run ins with the law and most importantly never had any sick twisted thoughts of ever killing someone unless it was ever in self-defense.

People today are always turning and blaming video games for these mass shootings and violence today and with little proof that video games had any purpose for them. If somebody goes crazy in a populated area with a gun then police find a PS2 at their home with a copy of Grand Theft Auto, that automatically says to them that his incident was influenced by a video game. I find this to be completely out of line and idiotic personally. Wouldn’t you think that if teens and kids today were influenced by violent video games that we would have a school shooting just about everyday?

I remember hearing about the two guys from columbine and heard people state that violent music and video games caused these kids to go on a rampage, but how can you prove that? I also read that somewhere online, somebody had classified DOOM as an military shooter designed to make soldiers kill more effectively which is completely false!

DOOM is set on a military base on Mars where you find yourself trying to push back a demonic invasion and has no way of teaching you how to effectively kill people. The game was barely 3-D and had no specifics on how to kill things other than point and hit the fire button.

I already know a lot of people out there have classified these games as “Killing Simulators”, and one of those guys would be the one and only Jack Thompson. This man believes that violent video games are the sole reason school shootings and massacres occur. He probably has never looked into facts like kids who do these acts may have never played video games before, or they have some sort of mental issues. That doesn’t matter though to him. He even classified DOOM as a killing simulator even though the game was like 2-D/3-D and you were fighting hell spawn.

One of the biggest things that really upsets me is when the news tries to come across stating that games had major purposes in these acts and music as well. Marilyn Manson was amongst the top blamed for the Columbine shootings as well. People are blindly looking at his music and just assuming a message that just isn’t there. People are taking artistic vision and ideas and turning them into straight forward views that they can turn negative at any time.

Another thing is when I hear how much parents are against violent video games and they need to be stopped when half of these parents don’t even check into what games or movies their kids are playing. Parent’s today need to start paying more attention to what their kids are doing before blaming other things for “influencing” their kids.

One of my favorite instances of hearing fake comments about how games contributed to murders was back a few years ago. I read this article where this kid in China murdered his parents in their sleep and ran off to a motel where police later found him. When asked why he did, he said he murdered his dad because he had embarrassed him at school that day and he murdered his mom because she was always sad about picking up the house and that her back hurt so he killed her because he didn’t want to see her sad.

At the kids house, they found a PS2 with several games including Grand Theft Auto III. The police and the news later concluded that GTA was the reason the kid killed his parents. In Grand Theft Auto III, you can’t stab people so I don’t see how this influenced this kid to murder his parents.

Another great GTA statement was just issued a few months ago by the NYC Mayor. This time criticizing GTA: IV for awarding players points for killing police officers. Again, another completely false statement just to add a negative image. You are not awarded points in GTA Games. When you kill cops, you just make more cops come after you, just like real life. You don’t get points for killing people period! People need to look into there facts before openly knocking something they know nothing about.

So bottom line, I think people need to have proof that video games cause mass shootings and violence. Has there ever been proof that a video game caused somebody to go on a rampage? If so, could somebody share it with me? Until then, I wish people would just look into other facts before jumping on video games. Here’s another thought, has anyone considered any of these violent movies with more blood and gore than any video game could ever have to be a prime suspect in violence related to real life? Maybe Mr. Thompson should look into some of these movies instead.