Stop linking violence to video games

Vyralize: Can we just leave it at that, please? No? Alright. Let’s dig into this most recent controversy involving gaming with the tragic shooting that an 8 year old committed towards his 87 year old grandmother.

[mcroddi]

It's funny how quickly games get blamed every time something happens.

[nosferatuzodd]

its called a scape goat don't blame the real problem in society just blame video games its easier and every drone who watch it will believe

[Mikeyy]

This article is spot on. Its the parents bad parenting and nothing more.

Its not a video games fault
Its not the guns fault

The kid is a psycho and got that way because he was raised that way.

[deep_fried_bum_cake]

It's not always the parents. My brother is a cruel, violent piece of s**t and it's nothing to do with how my parents raised him, he's just not right in the head. That can be an issue as well.

[Bigpappy]

The only person at fault is the person causing the violence.

[Withdreday]

There are ways to control it though. In my grandfathers day, they'd ship you off to boarding school if you got too violent or aggressive in school or something.

In many ways, parenting has gone soft.

[deep_fried_bum_cake]

Withdreday

My brother was put into a residential school where they are supposed to help people like him but he just came out worse than he was before.

Parenting hasn't gone soft, social workers (99% of whom know nothing about children, mostly because they don't have any of their own) get too involved and put blame on parents. In their eyes it's never the children's fault.

My niece when she was four started saying that people around her were hitting her, not realising the consequences (which she sure as hell does now) and the response of the social work was that four year olds didn't know how to lie.

[Withdreday]

@deep_fried_bum_cake

But you know why it didn't help, right? Not enough discipline and too much coddling. That's where most of the violence in people come from, thinking they can get away with almost anything with minimal consequences. The parent is ultimately responsible for that mind set spiraling out of control. They can't get a 100% free pass because just because some people are born messed up. That's something they have to work to detect though. Keep in mind also that what a child are exposed to can be a major influence as well. In this case for instance, the kid had super easy access to a firearm and he was playing a game that's for gamers 17+. You can't tell me that isn't lazy parenting.

The type of naturally violent person you're talking about it extremely rare anyway, so that's not a good graph to measure all children by. The environment affects things as much as anything else in these cases, and if the parent is creating a atmosphere for such behavior to fester, then yes, they are indeed partly liable.

Why you might ask? Because if they can't get a hold of them at a young age, then who will? (you probably guessed it, No one).

That's why good parenting is so important.

[just-joe]

First it was comics, then heavy metal music, now it's games. There's always gonna be a scape goat to excuse bad parenting or not giving someone the proper attention to what your kid does.

[skydragoonity]

I started my gaming life in the early 90's. My 1st console was a nintendo family com,my 1st game was wild gun man. Since then till now i have played so many violent video games yet i haven't killed anyone. Am i abnormal?

[Withdreday]

The video game industry doesn't have lobbyist like the gun industry does which is why they're so quick to say gaming is the real problem every single time.

[young7yang]

As a life time gamer since the 80s and a father. I will simply say that it is important to be aware of what games you allow your children to play. Games are the new comic book and tv shows. Its not the same as the past where only a limited few of us got to play games. Today's games are far more violent than games of the past. I am not for blaming games. but "parents" must be aware of what they allow their kids to play. A child 0-12 unfortunately is easily influenced. You can say all you want but that is simply a fact. So I personally feel that while games are not the one to blame they can play a contributing factor in many who are still to young to grasp the gravity of what they see as fun or funny. Games like Grand Theft Auto and even my personal favorite Ryu Ga Gotoku series are not for kids for a number of different reasons. Yet kids play them frequently.

[bohangirl84]

Parents have had and will always have the responsibility to guide their children. Video games are just one of the scapegoats that lazy parents have used to avoid confronting the overall issue of their neglect of their children.