According to NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre,
“Guns don’t kill people. Video games, the media and Obama’s budget kill people. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people, through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm,Grand Theft Auto,Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse.'"
This is not true, video games do not cause violence.
Video games are on the same level as movies or art. Politicians and film critics have never taken the time to understand why they are art. I’m the first to say that Wayne Lapierre has no right to blame violent video games as the source of our problems.Some people look at “Grand theft Auto” and say that it is "disgusting and promotes crime in America!!" Yet when film critics watch films like “Pulp Fiction” or “The Godfather” they praise them. "The Godfather is arguably the great American work of popular art and the summa of all great moviemaking before it!"
As an active video game and movie enthusiast, I find this very puzzling.... some of you might say that "video games and movies are different!", let’s take a look at what a video game is.
"A video game is a game or story played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen."
And what is a movie?
"A story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images and shown in a theater or on television".
I ask you this, manipulating vs. watching images on a screen, what is the difference? In a video game you can choose the outcome. In a movie you are forced to accept the outcome. A video game is interactive and a movie is not. This does not make video games more violent.
People cause violence. We should not blame video games anymore than we blame other art forms. People need to take the time to understand the time and effort spent creating video games and appreciate them.
Videogames are a scapegoat for American violence.
I'm pretty sure I heard that they were funding research into the link between videogames and violence. What a waste of money. I heard someone say they thought that money would be better spent on researching the mental illnesses and various other factors that make a person do things like the Sandy Hook Shooting , I happen to agree. Although it wouldn't be hard to think of better ways to spend that money.