Blue Dog rejects Obama's gun reforms...blames video games instead

[Report1212]

I guess they don't play violent video games in other countries, huh?

Following the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Matheson has refused to talk about gun reforms and recently dismissed many of Obama’s proposed measures.

But while he is against common sense reforms on gun policies, he instead introduced a bill about violent video games. The bill would decree that:

It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or rent, or attempt to sell or rent– (1) any video game containing a content rating of “Adults Only” (as determined by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board) to any person under the age of 18; or (2) any video game containing a content rating of “Mature” (as determined by such Board) to any person under the age of 17.
Not only is Matheson avoiding the main issues relating to gun violence, but his bill is unconstitutional. In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down a nearly-identical law in California.

Read more: http://boldprogressives.org/blue-dog-democrat-dismisses-gun-regulation-instead-launches-unconstitutional-attack-on-video-games/

[quinnox]

1. I have played tons of first person shooters in my

time, and never once have I felt it would be a fun thing to do to go out and shoot people for real, or confuse silly male fantasy shooting games from reality.

The "evil video games made them do it" is just another religious fundie excuse based on nothing.

[darkangel218]

2. Nevermind, i googled it.

[2pooped2pop]

3. I don't remember what post it may have been under

but I saw a post here on DU saying something to the effect of ; other countries who play even more video games than Americans (if that is possible) but have gun control laws, don't have the gun violence.

So if other countries play more violent videos, still have less gun violence because they do have gun laws, that would seem to kind of prove that it's not the games causing the problem.

Although I personally would have to say that the games do contribute to the desensitizing of violent acts, it's the quick access to the guns that cause the problem. If you are angry and have a gun, people might die. If you have to go home to get your gun, you have time to think it through and calm down.

[Report1212]

4. I think the games may be more a symptom than a cause

Sure Americans do like these games but is it because the games make them violent or because it appeals to something in American culture?

[Bjorn Against]

7. Tens of millions of Americans play these games

I have yet to see any evidence that gamers are more violent than non-gamers. People like to point to Adam Lanza and the Columbine shooters game collections and pretend it means something, but the Virginia Tech shooter was not a gamer nor were many of the other mass shooters either.

I would be interested in seeing a study on how many violent criminals were gamers and how many were not, I am willing to bet there are more killers who were not gamers than there are who were. Most the hardcore gamers I know are nerdy types who are the last people anyone would feel threatened by.

While I don't think seeing all the violence on the screen is a good thing, I don't believe it causes people to become violent themselves either. If it did we would be seeing violent nerds running rampant throughout society, but aside from a few exceptions most people would not consider the nerd community to be a particularly dangerous group and nerds play more games than probably any other demographic.

[leftyohiolib]

5. as a gamer i have no problem with this - kids on online gaming make the games less fun

adolecent vocal garbage that kids find so funny,on the team chat plus they tend to cheat (while i know there's a lot of cheating going on there i cant prove it's only the kids but that is my suspicion b/c there seems to be less of it at nite)

i should also state that although i have no problem with moving it to adult only, i believe this is a distraction and not part of the gun violence

[djean111]

6. I remember reading about how my generation and the next was going to be a bunch of callous killers

because we watched cartoon characters get killed horribly and then bounce back up. Every Saturday morning, for hours.
Turns out the most dangerous thing was going to the shoe store to buy Buster Browns and getting our feet x-rayed.
Plus we watched Sheriff Dillon shoot and kill someone every Saturday night. And that was just the opening sequence.
I think a small subset of people might be influenced by the violent games. But then, some people are influenced by TV shows and movies and books, etc. Do we get rid of Criminal Minds and CSI and Law and Order, too? Will Verizon's little spy cameras that they want to embed in cable or FIOS boxes signal the police if kids are watching Game of Thrones?

The violent games thing is just a band-aid slapped across a real problem, meant to misdirect. In my opinion.

[Report1212]

8. Ha, I never heard that about the cartoons

That's a good historical analogue.