Study Claims No Link Between Violent Games & School Shootings

Regeneration · Posted by Regeneration on January 26th, 2009, 05:01 PM

A researcher at Texas A&M International University has concluded that there is "no significant relationship" between school shootings and playing violent video games. Writing for the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, Prof. Christopher Ferguson criticizes the methodology used in earlier research linking games to violence and aggression.

He also points out that no evidence of violent game play was found in recent high-profile incidents such as the Virginia Tech massacre, the Utah Trolley Stop mall shooting and the February, 2008 shooting on the campus of Northern Illinois University. Ferguson examines the notion of "moral panic" as it relates to the supposed relationship between violent video games and school shootings:

"Moral panics may emerge from ‘culture wars’ occurring in a society... politicians, news media and social scientists, arguably [have] motives for promoting hysterical beliefs about media violence, and video games specifically. Actual causes of violent crime, such as family environment, genetics, poverty, and inequality, are oftentimes difficult, controversial, and intractable problems. By contrast, video games present something of a ‘straw man’ by which politicians can create an appearance of taking action against crime.

As for the news media, it has long been recognised that negative news... ‘sell’ better than do positive news... As for social scientists, it has been observed that a small group of researchers have been most vocal in promoting the anti-game message... oftentimes ignoring research from other researchers, or failing to disclose problems with their own research."

You can read the entire article at GamePolitics.

05:29 PM

It is easier for people to blame other things rather than to take responsibility. If your child went to school and killed everyone, it is not because of video games, it is because he had bad parents. What about films and violent stuff like WWF? Why does nobody complain about that? More people watch TV then playing video games. TV has greater influence then video games.

But you know what, the parents are not the one to blame, the governments are. Sometimes there is a need to use force in-order to educate children, which is a very common thing in nature. Most of countries today have laws against using force on your children (I'm not talking about serious beating). So if your kid is not behaving well, you cannot even punish him.

I do not have any kids, but I do have a big dog and it is impossible for me to control him without using force. When people see me yelling him or slapping him, all these liberal pricks tell me shit like: “you’re abusing him; I’m going to call the cops on you”. The point is… I do not like to use force against him, but I do not have many choices since it is the only way to prevent him from attacking others and causing problems… sometimes, he can be one mean Mofo.

This is the way of nature! Dominate or be dominated. All this mess is a reaction caused by laws from all these brainless liberal scumbags living among us. All these undisciplined kids killing others is result of liberal laws that prevent parents from having any authority or dominance inside their own house.