Are Video Games Really To Blame?
The recent tragedy of Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting has certainly raised awareness across the nation as to our country’s problem of gun violence and people are looking for one thing: where to point their fingers. At first the issue was gun control, which would be an obvious initial go-to with the circumstances of the crime. Yet lately, officials have once again attributed this terrible act to violent video games.
As a gamer, I am exasperated by this. For years, politics have placed blame for violence and have essentially labeled video games as training methods for killers. Yet, can we really hold video games and its developers responsible for violence and gun crimes? This is not to say that video games haven’t gotten more violent over the years. Any gamer can easily and wholeheartedly admit seeing an increasingly different dynamic in violence in video games; even myself. I’ve been gaming since the age of three, and I jumped into the culture with Street Fighter Alpha. Immediately I transitioned to throwing monsters into grinders in Wild 9 and blowing my friends to pieces with rocket launchers in Red Faction 2. Yet, even with all of this, I have never had the desire to discharge a firearm at an actual human being, much less any living organism. '
But maybe that’s only me. I’ll admit that because of the “carnage” I’ve witnessed and committed in video games that I became scared of being hit by bullets. It looked painful! But what if video games really are to blame? There would obviously be a drastic difference in Adam Lanza, myself, and other gamers who have yet to go on a rampant shooting spree, right? Yes, I think there is and if I had to guess what it was, I’d have to say my fear of guns paired with my upbringing. Even though I have killed (and enjoyed doing so) a wide variety of video game organisms, I was always reminded that what happened in video games were not real and should not be imitated. And it was not by the games themselves. My dearly beloved uncle who kickstarted my love of video games, never let me own anything gun-shaped nor was I allowed to aim at anything as if I were about to shoot at it, even if it was a TV remote or a cell phone.
It’s disheartening to say that many parents do not take any type of measure to reinforce the fact that video games are a fantasy world, just like movies, books and television (all of which have also been getting increasingly violent). Even so children are always the ones being judged for playing them. I cannot even begin to count how many times I have overheard conversations along the lines of, “My kid wants this new game and it’s ridiculously gory. I was astounded when I googled it yesterday.” Yet never have I heard, “I just bought my kid this new game which looked crazy violent. I think it’s about time I talked to him about the difference between reality and virtual reality.”
To put it simply: the source of violence in our society is people. Therefore the resolution should be people as well. It starts with education in the home. Home training is a factor that many overlook when it comes to analyzing why the way things are in our society. Even with increased gun control, parental involvement plays a critical role in teaching our kids that violence is not the way to solve their problems.
-Randy
