Sigh. They keep on trying to blame video games for problems they haven't caused and most likely haven't even exacerbated. This is just another example of sensationalist journalism without much substance or depth. Luckily we know to ignore it, but the general public as a whole wont, which only serves to drag our names through the muck. Sad really.

so its his fucking stupid fathers fault, not farcry 2...

nilcypher:

Apparently Kretschmer was a spoiled, gun obsessed youth, with a secret predilection for bondage pornography and had withdrawn from a lot of his former friends. His father, a wealthy businessman who also had a passion for firearms and owned 15 guns himself, had taught his son to shoot at the age of eight and just three weeks before the killings had allowed his son to take the pistol to the gun range to "practice his aim."

Yup its totally Farcry 2 and Counter-Strike fault...

I dunno, I've played Far Cry 2, and that game made me pretty mad. Mabye it did make him do it.

oliveira8:

nilcypher:

Apparently Kretschmer was a spoiled, gun obsessed youth, with a secret predilection for bondage pornography and had withdrawn from a lot of his former friends. His father, a wealthy businessman who also had a passion for firearms and owned 15 guns himself, had taught his son to shoot at the age of eight and just three weeks before the killings had allowed his son to take the pistol to the gun range to "practice his aim."

Yup its totally Farcry 2 and Counter-Strike fault...

Indeed, who'd have thought half a lifetime's worth of exposure to firearms, firing training and social detachment could be caused by a five month old game...

The same message is hammered on radios.

These people are cowards and ignoramuses. They refuse to understand that what leads one person to such despair has shit to do with video games.

Of course, if we lived in a world with much less glorified real violence, perhaps our entertainment would reflect this other reality.

Hell, I have killed millions of people. Not only people. All sorts of creatures, sentient or not. Was there passion in that? Oh yes, there was. I LOVED it. I did not feel an ounce of remorse. Corpses of all shapes and colours, writhing or exploding in geysers of bitmap fluids. Countless houses and buildings left burning in my wake.

But it was not real. Real pain and suffering makes me cry. Not games.

This Lieutenant-Colonel Dave Grossguy is an idiot.

I think it is funny that all the other things he does like BDSM porn and social with drawl along with his constant relationship wit firearms since he was young, has less to do with this guy going ape shit then him playing video games according the the article.

This is just what the media and conservative investigators love to use as a scapegoat. It can't be that the dude was picked on and was bat shit crazy to begin with it has to be the video games.

I just laugh at these stories now. And they always end with the shooter killing himself... Just wondering as I haven't played Far Cry 2 myself but after killing a bunch of people does the protagonist then turn the gun on himself as well... If he does then I totally blame the game.

Gun-nuts have a stronger lobby than gamers. Politicians want to win elections and apparently the majority of voters still don't know shit about games. So the perfect scapegoat.

At least some media (e.g. http://www.zeit.de/online/2009/12/killerspiele-verbot-winnenden-waffen - warning, it's german ;)) don't jump on the train to join the burning of witches, but they are few.

Gosh, if only parents took responsibility for their children....

It's ridiculous. Gaming is an easy scapegoat because, man, doing something with your children other then sitting them in front of the television is too much like work. Parents are lazy these days and just blame the problems they have on others.

While the games are not turning people into killers, I do think games help in the strategic aspect of gunplay. Gang bangers hold the guns sideways and seem to be more interested in spraying bullets innacurratly. However, gamers can understand things about ammo conservation, pacing... flight sims teach people to fly so it follows that combat sims can impart the main concepts about combat. Thats what the lt-col was saying, I think, in how he was able to explain how this kid was able to mow people down with a baretta.

if aliens ever attack and I find myself with a shotgun and a submachinegun in a top secret government lab full of long corridors and fancy equipment, i'm totally going gordon on they assez.

L.B. Jeffries:
Ted Kaczynski obsessively read Catcher in the Rye before mailing bombs out to innocent people. Does reading Salinger turn people into neo-luddite maniacs?

Timothy McVeigh's favorite flavor of ice cream was Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Chip. He had two pints before he was executed. Does eating it make me want to blow up Federal buildings?

Jeffrey Dahmer's favorite horror film is Hellraiser III. Does watching it make me want to murder and eat people?

Last time I checked, no. Neither did playing Far Cry 2 make me want to go on a shooting spree.

you should email a newspaper or something saying this...

If anything, I think that this helps prove that as a society we can't accepted that we failed a person in life and we look for a excuse that removes are guilt. If you look at this guy he seems to be a troubled fiend long before the shooting. I played Far Cry 2 and I did not go shoot up a school, but I also go have a gun crazed father and a bad childhood.

Sorry but I laughed at this, apparently becoming a West Point psychology professor requires no actual understanding of psychology anymore. This was obviously not the games' fault, who the hell teaches their kid to shoot at the age of eight anyway, his father might have a lot of money but he obviously got it for being a brain donor... One more question, I've played through Far Cry 2 and I don't really get the part of the protagonist wearing black camouflage gear, I'm pretty sure it was brown/green-ish to meld into the environment, but who knows, maybe that's why I got discovered so quickly.

Well shit who'd of thought it a teenager that played violent video games! I bet he's the only person in the who of Germany that played Far Cry 2.

FFS when will it become obvious that if violent games caused people to turn into nutters who shoot up schools then there would be no children left as they would have all gone postal and killed each other.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that it's hilarious how you can still blame video games, although it's commonly known he's been a mental case and he's been a lot into guns and all that shit :/
Besides, as far as I'm concerned, he didn't pick the gun because it was the one from Far Cry 2, but because it was the only one that he could get his hands on. Am I right?

Yeah. I've heard it on the radio two days after the massarce.

"The police has found out that the boy had violent computer games".

HOLY CRAP NO IDEA! I never would've guessed that a boy with a PC would have violent games!

edit: For crying out loud, I have been ninja'd. I have to play some more violent games, like Geometry Wars.

I would love to see all these people that blame video games look at the millions of other gamers who just sit around and play games. Of course they don't just game, but the sheer amount of people that game on a regular basis (I mean violent video games) and never once seriously considered pointing a gun at a real person is enough to make even the most close-minded pr*ck reconsider their "argument". Boy can dream, though.

I also heard he visited 4chan. Good old internet and games... The cause of all evil.

This maniac had been a patient in a mental institution for some time. He was treated for depression. A fact his parents are denying for good reason: the german prosecution is preparing to charge the father with manslaughter in 16 cases. The used beretta wasn't locked away - an infringement of the german gun laws.

Father and son were members in a local gun club.

Another fact for the stupid media: he was an avid ping-pong player. Connection?

Excuse my bad english. I'm from germany.

li-ion:
Gun-nuts have a stronger lobby than gamers. Politicians want to win elections and apparently the majority of voters still don't know shit about games. So the perfect scapegoat.

To turn around and blame familiarity with firearms for similar reasons games are blamed is very iffy. I'm a practiced handler of firearms and haven't done anything of this type. The fact that they always turn the guns on themselves and shoot other people has as much break from firearms etiquette as from game procedure.

At least some media (e.g. http://www.zeit.de/online/2009/12/killerspiele-verbot-winnenden-waffen - warning, it's german ;)) don't jump on the train to join the burning of witches, but they are few.

"Getötet hat Tim K. mit einer Pistole - nicht mit der Maustaste" Ganz toll Artikel. Aber, ihr Statement, die Hexen gebrennt waren ist nicht so richtig. Am meistens waren Hexen 'crushed' und 'Heretics' gebrennt. (Apologies for any obvious errors, 'Hay gys I no Germns')

The point I'd like to make is that responsibility for your actions is entirely your own; games didn't brainwash the kid, but neither did anything else.

They call them 'Killergames'. Funny fact, when you turn a first person shooter to a third person shooter everything seems to be okay for them. So there is no problem in playing Gears of War 1/2 and Manhunt 1/2 ... oh wait, these games have been blacklisted, so no german can play it. Yeah, you can go to afghanistan and fight the taliban but you can NOT play Gears of War, that's way too brutal man, have no fear, the government is gonna take care of you.

If he can shoot well it's obviously not because of the way he shot with a fucking controller in his hand, it's cause his dad taught him how to use a gun, stupid assholes, plus Bondage pornography isn't a reason that people murder people, they murder people out of insanity, confusion and depression, not because of a fetish that they've aquired.

Its always a shame when you hear about such a needless loss of life, but people always look for an easy answer, and the easy answer is video games, even though it is the wrong answer.

Maybe it's just me, but the thing that bugs me more than any other point is, the Baretta 92 isn't IN FarCry 2. And I don't remember any of the protagonists wearing black camo. Did they even get multiple sources on him playing the game?

just more anti-video game propaganda
*tisktisk*

That gamers know a bit more about combat is a given, what matters more is if they're significantly more likely to actually go into combat than non-gamers or if other factors are a more immediate concern (e.g. bullying). It's only natural that at least a few lessons from gaming would apply to the real world but I don't think anyone's claiming games are bad merely because they teach how to behave in a gunfight (e.g. not to blank out after killing one guy when there's five more aiming at you). I also don't think lowering the inhibition to pull the trigger when you're aiming at a human is important (especially the example "soldiers" often cited, for them it's a shoot or die situation, they don't have the option of simply deciding not to fight), deciding to aim at a human in first place is the bigger issue.

GyroCaptain:
To turn around and blame familiarity with firearms for similar reasons games are blamed is very iffy. I'm a practiced handler of firearms and haven't done anything of this type. The fact that they always turn the guns on themselves and shoot other people has as much break from firearms etiquette as from game procedure.

Let me turn it that way: I think 14 guns in a household are more dangerous than 14 FPS on a harddisk. Personally I don't see any reason why someone should have a gun next to his bed in a normal european city. I understand that in certain areas having a gun gives a feeling of security.

I also don't want to take away a rifle from someone who likes to hunt. But I don't see why someone needs more than a dozen weapons. I like painting, but that doesn't mean that I have 50kg of oil color in my basement. 13 of the weapons were locked up, good. But one pistol wasn't, together with hundreds of bullets. In western european cities there is no need for carrying a firearm around, neither for storing one in your bedroom. You might argue now that if he was nuts he might have found another way of killing people. You can kill someone with a knife as well, any sharp object, or a wooden chair. Of course, but firearms make it easier. I don't think Tim K. would have done that much harm with a kitchen knife and harsh language.

My father was with the police for 40 years. He never let a gun unlocked at home. When he had to store his pistol at home (because he was on standby for example) he locked it up with the clip in a seperate place. He always told me a gun at home is too dangerous and there is no need for it. That is what I call responsible gun owner. Someone who keeps a pistol with hundreds of bullets unlocked is not what I called a responsible gun owner. I lived next door to a prison for 3 years (cheap rent). Neither I nor one of my neighbours had a gun or felt that we need one. I lived in a red light district for 4 years (also cheap rent). No need for a gun either.

"Getötet hat Tim K. mit einer Pistole - nicht mit der Maustaste" Ganz toll Artikel. Aber, ihr Statement, die Hexen gebrennt waren ist nicht so richtig. Am meistens waren Hexen 'crushed' und 'Heretics' gebrennt. (Apologies for any obvious errors, 'Hay gys I no Germns')

Burning of witches was very common in west and central europe for some time. But true, heretics (Ketzer ;-)) have been considered more dangerous than witches and were hunted. But as far as I know they burned both.
But nice to see someone understanding german ;-)

The point I'd like to make is that responsibility for your actions is entirely your own; games didn't brainwash the kid, but neither did anything else.

Of course, that is one of the points of the article I linked to: blaming computer games (or firearms or toasted bacon or McDonalds or whatever) is the search for an easy solution. Only problem: it isn't one. But in times like these everyone wants to have an easy solution for everything, neglecting the fact that life is complex and when there is a simple solution, it's usually wrong.