So the arizona shooter was a gamer

[DarkShadow]

I don't see how they could even slightly blame his rampage on videogames........This guy was upset with the politics,and which game do you see wanting anything to do with that!. All they doing is just tryna blame something of course.......people just can't see that this guy is a fucking physco!!

I mean just look at him!!

 

[Linnaete]

Of course, we won't seriously take this link between the gunman and video games, but it's a link that's always commonly made anyway. You have people debating what effects violent games can have. Can they: 1) cause anyone to be suddenly violent? 2) evoke feelings of violence from already violent types of individuals or 3) actually do the opposite of number 2? The media love to go for the second one, even though there's never really a clear conclusion. I honestly do think that as Laughner is mentally unstable anyway - isn't he on the verge of full schizophrenia or something? - then games are hardly going to have much of an effect on him if he was already like this.

As for possible political motives, well - not really sure. You have the left asserting he's been immersed into the aggressive words of those on the right, while the right see him as being a liberal. He has both the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf as his favourite books allegedly, so neither side of the political spectrum should jump into any conclusions and make this into a political storm when it may not have been. It's just assumed there's politics attached to this because he tried to kill someone who happened to be a Congresswoman.

 

[SangueLuna]

Well, everyone is being blamed. The conservatives (Palin for example) is being blamed by liberals (of course lol)... And then video games are getting attacked. Can't people blame the actual person for once!! Also, I blame people not realizing he was insane (aka his family). I hate to say this but people had to know that he had problems but refused to believe it. It is amazing how society puts blame on everyone else but the person in action. Yes, he was weak minded and foolish to believe in whatever he did, however he was also mentally ill and needed help. He knew what he was doing was wrong to society but refused to honor that morality or simply disregarded it because he was too angry.

Even in prison he is mental. Most of these guys end up killing themselves, he was still alive. It goes to show you he was more insane then the norm.

In the end, he committed the crime, he does the time. He has issues, get him help... He can't be helped, lock him up. End of story.

Also, I am not a conservative. I am just sick of both sides blaming each other for stupid shit.

 

[Madaraki]

I think this is a little freaky as well, this is a map that Sarah Palin had up for a while online until this happened:

Putting gun crosshairs on these people? O_O Note that Giffords, the woman who was targeted, is one of the people on here. I've heard it suggested that the gunman was perhaps a fan of this and maybe took it too literally--who knows, it does seem kind of tacky for a political figure to do this but that's a debate for another thread (From what I can tell it's been taken down from the site at this point, naturally.)

There's no evidence to suggest that there was any sort of communication between Palin and the criminal, or that he had seen this, but if he "rambled about unusual political views" like I've also heard, then if I were going to try to place the blame on some sort of media influence, wouldn't something like this be a lot more suspect than his history of playing games, smoking pot, and wearing dark clothes etc?

Ah, here we go.

First off; I don't think we should necessarily blame Palin or other conservatives for what happened. None of them pulled the trigger.

HOWEVER, between that map, and the commentary during the last election cycle such as "don't retreat, reload!", "We'll aim for these races", and talking about the "the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington"...she clearly used the gun/firearm metaphor more than necessary.

So while I don't think she was outright responsible (that blame would be the shooter's), she clearly needs to tone it down. This is hardly the first time an act of violence has followed on the heels of over-the-top rhetoric.

 

[Rydrum2112]

I think what many people are saying is that "violent" video games didn't make him violent. More likely he probably had violent tendancies and was drawn to "violent" video games.

To be precise, even if there is a correlation between playing violent video games and acting violently- correlation is not causation.

By the way what the hell is "violent" video game? Hell Madden can be violent.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

He was crazy. A friend linked me to his Youtube account, his views of the world are...skewed, to say the least. His obsession with currency and grammar are bizarre but not limited to just him, many of those who obsess over the government/secret service seem to take obsession with currency as well, an interesting thought.

As for games, no of course they don't. Various studies have been inconclusive, generally showing that everyone of every type games and it has minimal and certainly not long lasting effect (the most extreme aggressive effects are, unsurprisingly, demonstrated in young teenagers playing games with very high difficulty, wherein it is their failure, not the game, which causes their 'violence').

Of course, you could argue from the opposite end, maybe people who are psychotically disturbed gravitate towards gaming as an outlet. After all, in an RPG especially one can essentially create a whole new persona and in many games the act of doing certain things, for example killing people, standing up to establishment etc isn't necessarily horrifically punished. People who are disturbed may play such games because they find acceptance there...