One of the other things to take into account is that you shouldn’t even need specialized training to know that when you hear someone actively shooting fucking elementary school kids, maybe you shouldn’t stand around waiting for fucking backup.
Video Games may glorify violence as you say, but there is no correlation between playing violent video games and violent behavior. You may not like the glorification of violence in media, but it isn’t impacting people’s behaviors.
What HAS been shown to increase aggression and likelihood of violence is being in possession of a gun. Just the presence of a gun makes someone more likely to use violence.
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Fuck. Take a hint, cops, and act more like firefighters. They run into burning fucking buildings regularly and save people. Hell, if you tell them your cat is still in there they’re probably risking their lives to go get it.
Let’s start calling the fire department instead of the police at school shootings. Give them some guns when they get there and let them handle it. I’d trust untrained firefighters with guns to save my child over our “highly trained” cowardly police.
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I dont think video game violence desensitizes people at all. We’ve heard this argument since the 1990s. Have you gone back to look at what video games looked like in the 90s? People had square heads and barely looked human.
Violent video games no more desensitize people for violence or train them then Mario kart gets people to become road rage morons.
The fact you can show children a movie with hundreds of violent deaths but not a boob plays a role here for sure.
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We have too many damn doors in our schools. Get the doors out. Have one entry point with a tripwire that so you can seal it at a moment’s notice. The shooter will be trapped in there like a rat in a cheese cellar. The cops can safely surround the school and starve him out.
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Kids under 13 don’t want to see nudity in their stuff either though.
Around that age I just read One Flew over the cuckoos nest and that was a lot.
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You’re getting a lot more reaction for basically saying the same thing I did. It’s not that video games or any form of pop culture directly lead to violence but we collectively have built a culture where violence is normalized and these things are a part of that.
And yes ban all guns if we can.
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I won’t be surprised by whatever happens.
They are the weak spot. Would not be surprised to see an act of vigilante justice.
American pop culture is no more violent than Canada, UK or any random Nordic country.
The things I notice when I cross the border is the insane rhetoric over abortion (you just don’t see those billboards in Canada, every few miles in USA) and the ease of getting a gun.
This articulates the idea perfectly.
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I agree with the second part.
So, let me just say it directly: the easy access to guns is a huge problem and if the US banned guns we’d go a long way towards solving the problem.
Maybe people in those other countries want to shoot people also but just can’t. So yes, we should get rid of the guns.
I also think there is space to discuss what change might be needed so people don’t want to do violence and where these reactions come from.
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It’s kinda tough to scientifically evaluate the effect of violent video games on mass shootings, no?
Obviously low gun rate countries that play video games as much as Americans have fewer shootings, but the other control that doesn’t exist would be a country with as many guns as American but doesn’t play these video games.
In a country that does have the number of guns that the US does, isn’t it possible that violent video games have a non-neglible effect? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s what @cassette was getting at.
I think kids today are way better adjusted with violence than at any time in history. Bullying is really not cool anymore, and watch any 80s up until like mid 00s movie for how kids bullied/hazed each other. LGBTQ kids are way more accepted now than they used to be.
I genuinely think kids are less violent than they used to be, with the exception that youtube/4chan/social media does radicalize a small amount way easier than any time in history. Algorithms are 100000x more dangerous than call of duty.
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I’m not sure this is accurate. Anecdotally, circa 2000ish, I was playing a playstation game called “Driver”, a driving game similar to “Grand Theft Auto”, and realized I was late for an appointment. I jumped up, ran to my car, and headed to my appointment. I was at least 3-4 minutes into my drive down the freeway before I realized that I was driving as fast and recklessly as I had been while playing the game. Scared myself badly enough that I still remember it clearly 20+ years later.
The only time as a kid I got really mad when playing a video game was when I missed a short putt playing Mario Golf. Have kept it together playing real golf missing way easier shots my adult life.
I did a similar thing after go-karting, though I didnt so much as drive recklessly as I still had that feeling that I should be speeding and weaving in my head.