CNN Reporter links World Of Warcraft to UC Santa Barbara Shooting

SegmentNext - "A news report linking the recent UC Santa Barbara shooting to the popular MMO World of Warcraft seems to have taken the gaming world by storm."

[aliengmr]

I think the "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality of cops, is also a plague on our society.

IMO the police hardly have the moral high ground when it comes to what contributes to violence in our society.

But this is CNN, hardly an outlet to take seriously. They didn't even know what they were talking about.

[chaos-lockheart]

Hitler never played video games. Jeffrey Dahmer,John Wayne Gacy, and Dean Corll they never played video games, but they were all serial killers.

[3-4-5]

How many other people who played World of Warcraft DID NOT do this ?

exactly.

[AD705]

Oh look media blaming video games again on something it had nothing to do with in the first place.

[WeAreLegion]

Stop acknowledging them. If anyone legitimately believes there's a connection, inform them otherwise.

[snookiegamer]

Mainstream Media Journalism DIED long, long ago....

I'd recommend these channels for anyone looking for anywhere near the truth or the REAL version of events.

TYT = The Young Turks, RT, Prison Planet, Drudge Report and Info Wars!

#alternativemediaFTW

[mkis007]

It's Ron Burgundy's fault.

[Pintheshadows]

I can only laugh at this. Desperation. Did he kill people with high level magic?

No. He shot people with guns he owned legally.

[MysticStrummer]

He summoned a pet.

[Evil Rant Monkey]

Well, he should've hearthed out of there while he had the chance.

At least he can just run back to his corpse from the nearest graveyard.

[MonChiChi]

Same crap different toilet.

[Shnooze]

This is one of the dumbest things I've seen all year.

[tigertron]

I'd rather blame the guy who shot those people, the NRA and politicians who advocate for guns.

America needs better gun control.

[snookiegamer]

"America was born on Guns 'n Whiskey" - Alex Jones

Guns are not cool, but you know what's worse? Government Tyranny!

I agree America needs better Gun Control, but ask anyone living in a high crime area. They would tell you it's better to have a Gun and never need to use it, than to need a Gun to defend your family/property and not be able to find one.

I'm totally happy we finally got rid of that shill Piers Morgan. The guy was a hypocrite telling Americans what they should do. Even UK don't like him, that's saying something.

2nd Amendment >Right to bear arms to prevent Government Tyranny.

[Pintheshadows]

I am from the UK so I don't want to judge at all. I actually don't think there is an issue with people owning a single gun (yeah, just one, why do you/would you need more?) at all. In the US it is going to be needed for self defence as you said.

The issue seems to lie in who these guns are sold to. No psych evaluation, lacklustre background checks, selling to disillusioned kids. If you don't sell guns to unstable, volatile individuals and you won't have this problem.

And before anyone says 'how would we know?!!!', it is easy to pick out these people. Hell, a minimum age on buying a gun would be a start. As someone who has gone through their teens and early to mid twenties, when your blood is up, you don't think straight.

Adding a gun to that equation is a recipe for disaster.

PS: If guns were legal in the UK Piers Morgan would have been shot more times in the face than there are people on the Earth.

[LeCreuset]

I come from high crime areas and never needed a gun. Guns are a major part of the problem in high crime areas.

Let's be real for a minute. Where are the vast majority of criminals getting their guns from? Do you think the streets are being flooded with guns from some secret criminal gun factory? No. The guns flooding the streets, legal and illegal, are coming from the same channel. The money is going back to the same people. Today's "illegal" gun is yesterday's legally sold gun. The gun industry counts on that black market demand and satisfies it. They help create "high crime" then turn around and sell you a gun based off of the fear they were instrumental in creating.

[tigertron]

I don't like Piers Morgan, but if you look at how many people in the UK die from guns then you'd see that guns should be banned in the US, or at least have stronger regulations in place to stop so many people owning them.

The whole "I need to defend my family" stuff is old fashioned. I know the right to own fire arms is deep rooted in your culture, but you have the police, this isn't and shouldn't be the Wild West any more.

Your right to own fire arms was created in a time when lawlessness was rife - but we're in the 21st century now. Sure, we still have violence without guns, but with guns banned or more tightly regulated then it will be harder for criminals to obtain them and also reduce the risk of psycho kids getting a hold of them and running a mock. Until you guys realise that, you'll keep seeing these massacres over and over.

[Bigpappy]

This is just the way of life in the U.S. We have a society where a large group of us seem to fear each other, and the only way they feel safe is they have a gun. so the gun makers are free to proliferate the street, in and out of the U.S. with guns to make huge profits. As a result anyone can get guns and mow down as many as he can until someone else with a gun get of a good shot or, what is more common, he runs out of bullets.

I personally don't own or want to have a gun in my home. If for some reason some one wants to come to my home and murder my family, I would do my best to prevent it (there are plenty of ways to defend against a gun when you are prepared). But the chances of that happening is much less likely than someone getting shot by accident, and I would feel at fault.

The only answer to this is less guns, but that is not the answer many are willing to accept. They think they need all of the guns for when Obama sends in their brothers and cousins to kill them LOL.

[LeCreuset]

With idiots like that sheriff in charge, is it any wonder something like this happened on his watch? Before anyone says I'm being too harsh, the kid's parents reported him to the sheriff's department before this happened.

“The police interrogated me outside for a few minutes, asking me if I had suicidal thoughts. I tactfully told them that it was all a misunderstanding, and they finally left. If they had demanded to search my room... That would have ended everything. For a few horrible seconds I thought it was all over. When they left, the biggest wave of relief swept over me.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014...

It would have been great to have an actual reporter there to explain how irrelevant WOW is to all of this, then ask the sheriff if he has as strong an opposition to gun access as he does video game access, followed up by a question asking the sheriff how many in his jurisdiction have been killed by video game accessories compared to guns.

[ShaunCameron]

Yeah. And end up like Mexico, Jamaica, and Venezuela? Those countries have gun control and have even higher crime than America. All gun control does is make innocent citizens easy targets for criminals who never cared about law to begin with let alone a gun one.

[skydragoonity]

Here we go again

[mrpsychoticstalker]

Same they said about Marilyn Manson. When those kids from Columbine killed all those students.

The media is the one responsible for all of it.

[snookiegamer]

This is exactly why I choose to watch alternative media/news e.g. TYT, RT or Info Wars because this is blatant scare mongery and extremely poor reporting.

Elliot Rodger was a self confessed 'Loner' who had zero friends on FB and is the type of character to latch on to Video Games to enhance the 'Warped Sense of Reality' world he lived in. I mean, c'mon, the guy had a mental health illness for christs sake!

Boycott CNN, NBC, Fox News etc...They're all agenda driven shills. They don't report, they repeat!!

Journalism is dead!!!

[IcicleTrepan]

info wars is a complete joke. 1776 will commence again! lols..

[rextraordinaire]

For real? -_-

[1Victor]

At least in the next 20+ years we should see a more matured news casting where they will know that video games are the new comics ,TV, movies,radio, books and cave paintings of their time a medium blamed for human nature and humans psicological abnormalities.

[Aleithian]

Well at least no one watches CNN anymore.

[creeping judas]

Fact 100% of mass murderers wore shoes while commiting their acts of violence. Fact, mass murderers owned more than one paid of shoes. I blame shoes for all the violence

[RoseSapphire]

He seems to have been obsessed with breathing oxygen and in his writings I quote, "It's like I couldn't live without it. I needed it all the time."

OMG. AIR KILLS PEOPLE.

[DVAcme]

Yes, cause every trip I take to Azeroth just drills into my head that women are to be objectified as recipients of my lust and that those who don't deserve to be murdered in cold blood.

*sigh* Do these people even listen to themselves talk? There's shitloads of evidence that this guy was bugfuck crazy and it had nothing to do with video games. In his "manifesto", he talks about his family like he were of aristocratic blood, talking about how they were prestigious and rich before the Great Depression and that his grandfather was a photojournalist during WW2 but "failed to reacquire the family's lost fortune." He was an entitled little shit who thought he was superior and snapped when his reality did not fit his self-image.

He called himself "the perfect man" and bragged about his money and supposed perfection while being frustrated that he was not getting laid. He described the perfect woman and just described the stereotypical blonde bimbo with no mention of her intelligence of personality. He didn't want a girl, he wanted a blow-up doll. The guy was a creep and a mysoginyst on a ridiculous level. If anything, the pick-up culture and Alpha Male stereotype are what should be blamed for this guy. He devoured the fallacy that men are entitled to sex and women are objects to be lusted afters instead of human beings, and it made him the sick kind of human being that buys into that crap.

You see the guy's videos on youTube and instantly tell the guy's fucked in the head. The guy would film people and talk about how much he hated them and wanted to take revenge against the world because he was alone and had no girl. No videogame ever had that effect on people, that was deep-seated psychosis. The guy lived in an amazing apartment with a beautiful view, could take a walk on a friggin' golf course whenever he wanted, drove a brand-new BMW to school every day, had more money without lifting a finger to work than we'd ever have, and he still said his life was shit. Blaming videogames for that crap is just pure irresponsible and blatantly wrong journalism.

[dredgewalker]

He drove a BMW and still didn't get laid?!?!

[DVAcme]

Check out the guy's videos on YouTube. The reason girls didn't go near him is because you can tell a mile away the guy's fucked in the head. Hannibal Lecter would be creeped out by this guy.

[dredgewalker]

Hannibal Lectre has charisma, this guy just gave me spasms. I just watched the videos....he really does have problems. It just goes to show that money can't buy you happiness especially if you're crazy.

[Pozzle]

Not only was he sexist, but racist as hell. In his manifesto he mentions that he cried when he saw a white woman dating a black guy (he then refers to black men as "scum") and that he was "filled with rage" when he saw an Asian man flirting with a white woman. He was so bitter and delusional that he genuinely believed women should fall at his feet because of his "superior" genes, but when they ignored him, he called them all sluts and bitches who deserve to die (gee, I wonder why women avoided him *rolls eyes*)

Blaming video games for this shooting spree is, like you said, horribly irresponsible. There are some very serious issues with this case that should be discussed openly (e.g. mental health issues, racism, sexism, his easy access to guns, his belief that being "nice" to women entitled him to sex, police not properly investigating his mother's plea for help, etc). The media should not be sweeping this under the rug as just another "lol it must be video games!" story.

[IcicleTrepan]

You're buying into the media slant on things. He hated everyone, not just women. He hated the men that had the women and he hated the women for not choosing him over them. He KILLED 7 men, and 2 women. He was a misanthrope brought on by his mental problems which included Aspergers

[Pozzle]

@IcicleTrepan: I'm not buying into any media slant. The guy's bizarre youtube videos and manifesto speak for themselves. Yes, he hated everyone but the brunt of his hatred was aimed at women for rejecting him, and his hatred of men (especially non-white men) was an extension of that because he couldn't stand seeing them dating the women he wanted. That's why his initial goal was to shoot up a sorority; they represented the type of women he had been rejected by and thus despised. The guy obviously had mental problems, as well as serious issues with women and sex...and that definitely shouldn't be ignored (let alone blamed on video games...I'm looking at you, CNN!)

It's also worth mentioning that Aspergers is a development disorder, not a mental problem. And while it's possible that it contributed to his sense of isolation, being on the autism spectrum certainly doesn't create that level of hatred, rage, or desire for murder. There was obviously something much worse at play inside his mind.

[Slade23]

Amen, I've couldn't have said it better myself. I was about to post like 2 or 3 paragraph when I found this, but DVA explains everything.

But again CNN has nothing better to do but put blame on video games. That guy with the glasses probably hates video games since I haven't even heard the words "video games" or "World of Warcraft" in any of the shooter's manifesto. The ******* police officer even stumble words talking about it. <_<

[dredgewalker]

I wonder what video games did Cain play when he decided to kill Abel?

[DVAcme]

You say that joking, but some idiot would actually think of some bugfuck theory for it to be the case. Then they'd blame the Crusades on Assassin's Creed and the Holocaust on Wolfenstein.

[dredgewalker]

Im just tired of the media blaming videogames as the source of violence when humans have been killing each other for thousands of years.......I say Hitler played Wolfenstein :)

[MasterofMagnetism]

This loser was sick in the head and couldn't handle rejection so he took it out on innocent people. But yeah, let's just blame it on video games.

[DVAcme]

http://www.forbes.com/sites... <--- Probably the best article I've seen so far on the whole thing.

[jegheist2014]

what america needs to make any authority figure work as volunteer including senators and congress i bet u millions of dollars lot of them would shut up quit.

or pay them minum wage i mean minum wage of what 1940s wasn ot minum wage as of today survive on that mofos then they have new appreciation for us working class people who go without all time respect us cuz when money system collapses that c note wont mean crap ..

as in your gonna have to grow heck up rich pplz learn to wipe your own ass cuz u cant pay anyone to do it for you anymore lol

they cant make living anymore by blaming things instead of real cause behind it stupid cnn stupid cop i dont listen to dick jewlery cuz jewlery cant talk

[amazinglover]

This just in bottle water also found at his place of residence could this harmless drink be turning us into killers more at 11. I hate sensationalist media all it does is mask the true issues and create false arguments.

[iceman06]

I think that what I hate worse than sensationalist media is speculative media. You know, the clinical psychologists that eventually get interviewed on the subject, though they have never studied the case files, and rant for an hour about HUGE generalizations that might or mostly might not be involved in the actual case. It's really just silly and very misleading for anybody who is too lazy or disinterested to look beyond the scope of what is being spoken about. (which is usually MOST of the people watching!) Ultimately, it's also dangerous because those generalizations lead to misinformed stereotyping of entire groups of people. (gamers, youth in general, inner city populations, rural populations, etc.) These then are propagated by those lazy, disinterested masses to eventually become an accepted "truth". While, as you stated, masking the true issues and creating false arguments.

[Eyesoftheraven]

World of Warcraft, too. Very serious matters at hand here but this is so laughable. At least when they blame games like Grand Theft Auto they have the weight of realism and authenticity on their side. But Warcraft? Hahaha, shows just how much research they do before yapping what's on their silly minds. If anything about WoW lead him to what he did it was the subscription fees.