*Walks to laptop* Sorry, what did you say, I was on a murder spree.

Games /=/ killers.

Sorry, but why did he have a gun to begin with.

This is just typical German anti-violence ranting. Like somebody else said, more overcompensation for the Nazis. It's a common sentiment, but I'll said it again:

"Anyone who would be coerced into killing another living human being in real life by the actions that went on in Make-Believe Land was seriously messed up long before he/she started playing video games. If it wasn't video games, it would have been a violent movie, comic, or maybe nothing at all."

I do get a bit tired of all this demented ranting from the politically misinformed.

Watch out Australia, Germany is trying to catch up with you on the race to ban "murder simulations"!

I think we should ban everything risky or even potentially risky. We can start by taking that official's BMW away as I'm pretty sure it's statistically more likely to kill someone than someone who MIGHT HAVE BEEN BUT PROBABLY WASN'T induced to kill someone by playing a violent video game.

We'll have to ban the Bible too, that's also pretty violent...

*Face palm* I KNEW they would blame gaming, not like movies are 10 times for violent or anything.

Besides in case no-one noticed, the kid who did it was shuned by everyone and was a loner (i can kinda relate, to be honest) and he was rejected by girls (who he killed) and teachers, 9/10 of the victims were girls, i think there was a sadist+sexual+revenge, the combination resulted in the killings.

Stop blaming games, if im playing a game on killing people, im not outside actually killing people, understand what i mean people?

the father of the shooter was gun obsessed. He built the kid an inside shooting range.
The family had twenty or so guns in the house. The father had gone hunting with junior too.

It was probably the videogames. Thats probably where he learnt about guns. (irony)

The boy was described as clinically depressed and they are worried about video games, not mentally unstable people obtaining firearms?

No wonder people hate the police.

I think him and every other "ban violent video games" advocate are ignoring a far more sinister culprit. Pants.

Think I'm kidding? Consider this: how many violent crimes have been committed while the criminal was wearing pants? Many, many more times as many criminals wear pants than play violent video games. Therefore, I propose the banning of pants in all forms (shorts and skirts included) rather than video games.

*sighs* bound to happen. Because every massacre in history was caused by violent videogames. Yeah slightly ironic there Germany...

MaxTheReaper:
...

"Are you sure it wasn't using a controller or mouse to kill virtual people that caused this?"
"Yeah, pretty sure, seeing as how a mouse and keyboard setup is about as far removed from real guns as your wife is from sexual attraction to you."
"That was cold."

and priceless.

very true, too. chances are if someone has an obsession with murder, there's more to it than a game. did they ever blame RISK for turning hitler into a power-hungry dictator?

though there was that dipshit who said he stabbed a cabdriver "because of GTA 4", and he wanted to see if he could get away with it in real life. "i didn't know he'd attack me back!" jeez, the games aren't the problem: the morons with no sense of reality are the problem.

I cant believe that "officials" are so short-sighted and uninformed. They all yell für "game bans" these days but dont think any further. Do they want to build a wall around germany and train the drug dogs on "killer-games"? Censor the internet? Search 12 million households for forbidden games? What happens to a 30 old that posesses "forbidden games"?
They cant answer a single of these questions and still they say bs. like that!

Why can people not see that they have it the wrong way round...
One doesn't become violent and mentally unstable from playing violent video games, one plays violent video games because they are violent and mentally unstable (not to say that all violent VG players are unstable, just that unstable people will probably play violent games)

Aww balls. Now we have our own Jack Thompson. Great. Why do they think they can use empirical studies on this? If i follow this lunatics example, i now call for a ban on shoes. Why? Because in every violent rampage that has occurred, the killer wore shoes!

ideitbawx:

though there was that dipshit who said he stabbed a cabdriver "because of GTA 4", and he wanted to see if he could get away with it in real life. "i didn't know he'd attack me back!" jeez, the games aren't the problem: the morons with no sense of reality are the problem.

Please tell me you re not serious.

EDIT: fixed broken quote. Sorry.

Yeah, lets just blame witches, protestants, jews, books, french, british, jews again, americans, rock´n´rool, violent movies, heavy metal, cartoons, video games, pokemon trading cards, alcopops, mobile phones and now video games again for all problems.

History doesnt repeat itself....

nathan-dts:

SeniorDingDong:
Yeah, lets blame witches, protestants, jews, books, british, jews, americans, rock´n´rool, violent movies, heavy metal, video games, alcopops, mobile phones, video games for all problems to get sure that history wont repeat itself....

You missed out TV.

Right. I was editing my text and added some other stuff like "cartoons" and "pokemon", but still forgot TV in generel ;)

My condolences to the families of the victims, but really people need to stop blaming video games for every violent rampage we see in the news today. Some people say that "ohhh, well the person played a violent game so that's why they went and killed people, the game inspired them to do that". O.K my thing is that if a game does inspire you to kill people, then you most likely have a very bad detachment from reality that should have been noticeable from a very young age, and if you really have that very bad detachment, then you should have either gotten some very serious professional help or have been locked up in a mental hospital.

Really, video games are just the now scapegoat for society to blame all of its problems. Remember back 40 years ago, people blamed Elvis/Rock n Roll for what they saw as a "moral collapse of society.

Honestly, if for some weird reason we did not have video games in today's society, then it would be something else that would be blamed for this tragedy.

What's really stupid is that people are ignoring the most obvious and blatant evidence in front of them. The kid's dad was a gun nut who kept a bigass arsenal of guns at his house and had an easily accessible shooting range. The kid was an outcast at his school and was unpopular. Really if this is not a recipe for disaster then I don't know what is.

I will admit though, if a person does have that detached sense of reality or displays sociopathic traits, then video games can be a catalyst for violent actions, but admit ably if someone does display these traits, then most likely they were ticking time bombs to begin with and at most the game might have accelerated that behavior. Also such behaviour should have been noticable at an early age, and the person should have recived peofessional help.

Sorry for the long post, I just get fired up when people blame video games.

I don't understand how people can buy/believe that games were really the cause, a quick scan of the details and the use of some logical thinking easily shows the kid had clinical emotional issues and a wide knowledge of guns.

Humans are the only animal on this planet capable of rational thought. Though if you were an outsider observing us, half the time you'd never have guessed.

To quote a comment from a PC gaming mag back when the first shooting happened, "99% of killers wear underpants! It's clear that we must ban underpants!"

Maybe it's time we draw comparisons. Almost all other countries have their ratings only as guides and not legally binding, almost all other countries don't effectively ban games as easily as Germany does... and we get the school shootings?

Now imagine we really ban anything with more violence than Spongebob and we still get killing sprees, what then? What do we ban then? Or do we just build camps to gas all the mentally unstable people?

Maybe we should ban news coverage as stupid as this.

For him, the fact that roughly a third of children and youths "regularly and addictively escape into a virtual world" sets off alarm bells.

Yes, they regularly leave this harmonious, violence-free world. Frankly, why anyone would want to leave this perfect, Eden like world escapes me.

It's not about them thinking if video games cause violence or not, it's more about them having to take action. The police can't leave a tragedy like this unawnsered, because after a while that would make a lot of people very, very angry.

Seeing as it's impossible to ban or check up on most of the stuff which probably caused this (bullying, checking each kids living enviroment or being flat out crazy) they're going with video games. Their hands are tied, but they need to lash out at something.

I just hope this doesn't get out of controle. I think it's time someone proved video games don't cause violence, rather then saying it's never proven it doesn't.

I remember it was mentioned that the most sinister thing of all was that in Far Cry 2, a Beretta Model 29 is used - The gun he used in the shooting.

Idiots.
They need to realise that little Timmy can NOT just reach into the screen, pull out a gun and go fuck up some people. That was just a coincidence at most.

I know for a fact that for every crime commited, be it a parking offense or mass-murder, the person who commited the crime had drank water at least once before the crime. Does that mean that Dihydrogen Monoxide should be banned?
Besides, Far Cry 2 is rated 18. He was 17. The parents don't get in trouble? Geez.

In the 1950s it was Rock music. Around the 1970s it was Communism. Now it's violent video games.
C'mon, people. Show some sense for once.

Why did the kid go bat shit insane? Simple:

1) Social outcasting common to alot of school cultures across the west and probably the east too.
2) Social outcasting leads to bullying.
3) Social outcasting and/or bullying leads to building resentment to society, specifically the jock/fratboy dick heads who seem to rule society these days.
4) Social outcast tries to use escapism to flee pressures and loniness of real life. It fails.
5) Social outcast WHO HAS ACCESS TO GUNS AND SHITLOADS OF AMMO goes out and decides to "even the score". Preferrably on the fratboy leadership, but anyone who let them control society is fair game too.

So, either a) limit access to weapons, b) crackdown on and try to eliminate social outcasting/cliche-ism, or c) improve the escapism available.

Of course, all the police and political leaders where the popular fratboy idiots in school, so wouldn't grasp this.

We have a German exchange student in several of my classes, and she knew a handful of students from that school she lives so close to it. Kind of crazy.