Active shooter video game drawing backlash

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M-Quigley
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Active shooter video game drawing backlash

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https://www.whio.com/news/national/vide ... 2lPszPnLI/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A video game that gives the player the choice to be an elite SWAT team member or take the role of an active shooter during a mass casualty event is drawing national and international backlash.

“Active Shooter,” developed by Revived Games and offered through the Steam video game platform, is a point-of-view simulation game that allows the player to lead a team to extract civilians and neutralize the shooter, or play as the mass shooter, according to its description.
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Mr. Glock
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by Mr. Glock »

The Newtown shooter had a 22 page Excel spreadsheet of “points” he’d get doing different things in his attack, that mirrored video game scoring, IIRC.

In any case, common themes in school shootings/active killer events are, generally speaking, a weapon or weapons (mostly guns), extremely high violent video game participation rates, psychotropic drug prescriptions and high rates of what used
to be called broken homes (or, if not a broken home lacking a father, then idiot parents).
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TSiWRX
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by TSiWRX »

Mr. Glock wrote:...extremely high violent video game participation rates....
I think it's hard finding any teens/young-adults now who either are not or have not participated in "highly violent content" video gaming.
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Mr. Glock
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by Mr. Glock »

TSiWRX wrote:
Mr. Glock wrote:...extremely high violent video game participation rates....
I think it's hard finding any teens/young-adults now who either are not or have not participated in "highly violent content" video gaming.
I was referring to “time in game”, not exposure to said game. Constantly binging over long periods of time might be a better way to put it?
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by TSiWRX »

^ I get what you mean - but that's the thing, even "time in." There are a lot of folks who engage in violent FPS games. I know many, from teens to middle-age adults, for whom this is actually their primary hobby/leisure activity. [ Full disclosure: I haven't engaged in any serious time (and by this, I include any time I even pop in a quarter on an arcade game) on FPS or fighting games since probably 2002, and my daughter as well as my two like-aged nephews, while all very active electronically, have never expressed any interest in FPS games or even fighting games. I've really got no dogs in this fight. ]

The gaming industry is huge, and it's not because they're not making any money....and the reason why they keep re-upping these titles isn't because they're not doing well.

That we've been studying video-gaming and its relationship to real-life violence for the past two decades and are still failing to be able to find conclusive causation is, I think, itself tremendously telling. I think we're losing the forest for the trees, that perhaps it isn't just violent video games, but violent media in general, and that perhaps it's the generational gap that's causing us to focus much more on gaming as that flag.

After all, what kinds of books have many of these violent actors read?

I've asked this before, and I'll ask it again: If violent video games and media are instigating these problems, why do we not see the same trend towards violence (obviously not "gun violence," as firearms are much more tightly restricted) in the children and young adults of, especially, Asian countries? Swords and knives are featured - and let's not forget that various vehicles and the mayhem that they can cause is greatly glorified in particularly the earliest versions of the Grand Theft Auto series...and all of these are just as easily accessed by our teens as they are those of other cultures around the world.

Anyone here watch Japanese Animation - aka "Anime?" How messed-up is the violence and sexual deviance depicted?

Is Japan like that in real-life, though?

Some of Adam Lanza's favorite video games included Super Mario Bros and Dance Dance Revolution (https://www.zmescience.com/research/tec ... sion-0534/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

In terms of video simulation, certainly, that does cause desensitization and has also proven to be helpful in many different types of training (as noted in the previous thread from which I've taken my questions/commentary above - it's not just infantry or LE, but also even more complex tasks such as piloting aircraft, driving a race-car, or even surgery), but killing has a much more visceral component as well: who among us would suggest that video-based training is all that is necessary for success versus a violent criminal encounter in place of activities such as live-fire training, force-on-force, and integrated combatives sparring (all of which the military and other martial institutes also enact)? Logically, we cannot argue for both, can we? :wink:

Does watching porn turn us all into rapists or sexual deviants?

Are all butchers that one step closer to being murderers?

Does being obsessed with guns and knives also mean that the individual is just a time-bomb waiting to blow?

To me, blaming video games is just like the generations before us blaming the "decline of society" on something like music or TV, and is also little different from the antis blaming "guns and gun violence" for what is simply violence.

There is an actual underlying problem that these contributing factors - factors which a normal, well-adjusted person simply will not find issues with - are all feeding into, and I think we need to look more holistically at the problem, rather than blaming what is easy (and has been proven to be not causative).

Did rock music turn us into sadists?

Or maybe it's hard-core rap that's the problem.

Or maybe it's metal?

Or maybe it's Juggalo?

Maybe it's dancehall/"badmanism?"

Or maybe it's more violent sports that's the problem? After all, participants in contact sports are often referred to as "gladiators," aren't they? Are we glorifying violence there, then? Are paintball and airsoft gaming problematic then, too? If so, how far do we extrapolate that?

The truth of the matter is that the older generation will always regard the recreational activities of the younger generation as a source of any perceived problem.

The reality is that the risk factors are just that, risk factors - we've got to stop trying to place the blame on a THING (like how some love to blame guns, right? :wink: ), and start looking at what the underlying issues really are.
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Mr. Glock
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

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Although underlying causes are certainly key here, I’m pointing out a consistent pattern in young active shooters. In fact, I’m pointing out several consistent elements that have been repeated over and over. That’s it.

The question then arises what to do about it.

If we accept the now common narrative that gun owners should do what they can to prevent school shootings (improperly stored guns have played a role), then video game supporters should do the same thing (over-engagement and extremely violent vidoe games). As should poor parents (lack of fathers, stupid parents) and the mental health industry (drugs).

Guns, of course, are easier to demonize. And then certain folks “are doing something” about the problem without addressing any of the more difficult common elements.
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by TSiWRX »

^ Towards that, I don't disagree - but it is where we draw the line that really concerns me.

We make fun of the #baneverything that's now Great Britain, on the heels of which comes this latest ban, which is something that most of us "gun folk" actually can appreciate:

https://www.spin.com/2018/05/youtube-dr ... ed-police/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news ... ce-w520825" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What's next?

Dancehall/"Badmanism?"

Rap?

Hip-Hop?

Juggalo? (they've already fought a battle, come to think of it: https://www.npr.org/2017/09/15/55072467 ... ington-d-c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

Metal?

Maybe R&B is too sexual, and that stirs some folks with sexual deviances to trouble?

Maybe it's Rock & Roll that started us all down this path, as our parents' parents berated them for?

OK, so I've bridged video-games to music, but can't we bridge-over to literature, too?

Maybe Fifty Shades of Grey's eroticism is morally objectionable? Or does The Color Purple prompt those susceptible to commit rape?

You're absolutely right - guns are easy to demonize.

But I think that other "things" - things like video games and music - are just as easy to portray in such a light.

I think that "doing something" should address "things," but that even more focus needs to be, like you said, placed on the more difficult common elements: the breakdown of social systems (not just family structure, but also how we now relate to each other as people) as well as mental health concerns (to importantly lessen the stigma associated with this label, to insure that psychoactive drugs are treated with more seriousness).

We already have ESRB Ratings on video-games and apps, just as we have TV, movie, and music ratings.

So is the ban stick the appropriate next step? And if so, where's that magical line between wiping music videos off YouTube versus wiping off firearms enthusiast Channels?
Allen - Shaker Heights, Ohio
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Bruenor
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

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Thought this was interesting as well, it has to all tie in together in some form. How are you that mentally screwed up at college age ? which means they are coming out of High School like this. I also wonder how they will function in the workplace where they won't get special accommodations. How many of these kids are on Drugs to 'treat' their mental illness ?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -the-rise/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, as many as 25 percent of students enrolled in elite colleges are now classified as depressed, anxious, attention-impaired, and other labels that, under federal law, entitle them to special learning accommodations. Some students are labeled with more than one disability.

A simple note from a doctor allows a student to be classified as “disabled” and requires a school to provide the accommodations that correspond to his or her “disability.” An accommodation can be additional time to take an exam, seating preference in classrooms, permission to bring an animal to school for comfort, or other methods considered to optimize learning.
Public schools, however, also saw an average hike of 71 percent in the number of students requiring special accommodations among 22 flagship state schools.
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by TSiWRX »

Bruenor wrote:I also wonder how they will function in the workplace where they won't get special accommodations.
Ah, but there's the rub....

It's illegal not to give them those special accommodations because of their disabilities. So they'll function, and make off better than the honest workers there.

And this is where issues of mental health really gets problematic -

On the one hand, we need people to come forth without the fear of stigma and discrimination so that they can be effectively treated.

But on the other, there are so many who are gaming the system that it is frustrating everyone who is legitimately involved.

It's like those folks using handicap parking tags/plates when they don't really have any medical need for it - only worse.

Now, that said, I also honestly think that these types of illnesses are on the rise in our younger population. We're putting more and more stress on them earlier and earlier for academic achievement, for social status, etc. And for those who are in school and facing the rising debt incurred by that very same education, that pressure can be greatly magnified, particularly given more recent economic failings worldwide.
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Mr. Glock
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

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STEAM dropped the active shooter game.
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Re: Active shooter video game drawing backlash

Post by TSiWRX »

^ And there's also talk of the maker being a gaming-world troll, too, IIRC.
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