I could have gone on a whole rant about how I grew up with decidedly non-violent video games (disregarding brother and his love of Mortal Kombat then, and GTA and SOCOM today), yet turned out violent because of something completely different. (Gee, guess what that something completely different was? That’s right, divorce, death, various struggles of a split household, suck ass teachers, sadistic ‘peers’…I could prattle on about how I’m a different statistic of a girl turning anger outward instead of inward, but all of that would take forever, so I’ll just say this.)

Pretty much all parents (mostly hopeless newbies) suck; they spoil their little shits rotten and employ all sorts of suck ass tactics. Yet, they will always put the blame on something simple to make themselves look like the victims. Their children, since most of them were raised to be cowards who refuse to take credit where credit is due if it’s negative, will follow suit or incite this rhetoric of crucifying video games and all who make them.

With video games in general, I’ve always thought that it’s not some mysterious brain-washing power that’s enticing our ‘poor widdle babies’ to do evil, it was just their own weak minds. That may or may not have been a pretty dark thought for a ten year old at the time =P

There are signs that a person is not mentally stable or whatever. And while some signs aren’t going to be noticed by all parents, if your child is acting oddly, as a parent, you’re supposed to notice, and you’re supposed to do something about it, but too many parents are too lazy and/or use things like video games and television to raise their kids to notice.

Honestly, if parents can’t be bothered to raise their kids (I understand that there are a lot of families where both parents work, etc, but they can still have an active part in raising their children, or at the very least, restricting what they watch and play), they shouldn’t have them.

and, i definitely agree with you on all of your points. it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their kids the difference of right and wrong, and not let the media at large (tv, the cpu, video games, etc) babysit their kids. i also understand that in itself can be difficult, as many of today’s parents need to both (if there are two) work full time to support a growing family, but they still at least need to keep up with what their kids are watching and doing.

and the seller/ rental staff don’t even care about it.

So do “parents”

He claims street violence is caused by video games yet that violence dates back to the 1950’s and has been on a steady increase from that time.
Today the street gangs are seen as cool and imitated in the United Kingdom by Chavs.
The vast majority of the gangs have not had access to video games violent or otherwise due to the high cost, turn over and “planned obsolescence”.

In short he’s franticly trying to destroy what other people enjoy just because he is a jerk

I’m actually also interested in the amount of press being given to this boy’s stories. As if they somehow predict his actions. Well - they’re saying he was mentally ill and I can certainly believe that but really, to an extent, the stuff he wrote for english classes is not unusual. I’ve been in creative writing groups where the hero gets gutted alive, where kids take revenge on molesters, heck my own story was about a bunch of kids who stole a giant cargo ship and buggered off like chocolate addicted pirates! Not to mention the heart attack the “omg his story was so violent” crowd will have if they ever venture out into Fanfic or Fictionpress sites.

Same again - they’re saying it was a sign of his mental illness well maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. Where are the REAL signs? His withdrawn nature and lack of communication. Oh but don’t pay too much attention to that - LOOK AT HIS HORRIBLE STORY! … and while they’re distracted less people will be asking “he never spoke? why didn’t someone DO something?”

Ahhh okay I’m being cynical, you can’t spot everyone who is having problems like that. It’s just sad he had such easy access to firearms.

I hope that there aren’t reprisal attacks against asian students though, I would like to think we as people on earth are getting past all that… need I remind them the number 2 record is held by a white guy? (was the same thing, person with known mental illness - was allowed to collect firearms he had a bag of them when he went shooting).

Before video games kids played ‘pretend shootin’ with toy guns. How soon we forget that it’s parents who need to teach kids that these things aren’t toys and the responsibilities of protecting others.

oh and i would like to point out that yes - some kids are just shits - regardless of the how much they’re told/taught/trained. In this case it’s not okay to just give up - you gotta get that kid HELP! I remember a lil boy who was utterly horrible, really vicious and gleeful about it, but his parents really were trying hard to stop it, punishing and all that. I heard them saying “well, what can we do?” and I thought “well - if you give up, this kid is lost. How will he hold down a job?” I wonder though how easy it is for parents to get that kinda help? Is it really as simple as that?

OMG wall of text. I am just a noob though dont’ take too much of what I ramble on about seriously. ^____^;