Ben-DutkaFirst they called mass murderer Adam Lanza a "deranged gamer." Now they're amending things just a bit.
According to the official report released by Connecticut state attorney Stephen Sedensky, the young man responsible for killing 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 suffered from "significant mental health issues." No…really?
There is no conclusive evidence to support the idea that video games played any role in Lanza's evil acts. Sedensky did say the mental issues from which the shooter suffered affected "his ability to live a normal life and to interact with others." He also exhibited an obsession with firearms and mass murders, specifically the Columbine shootings. As for the games, Lanza was found to be in possession of titles like Call of Duty , Half-Life , Left 4 Dead , Grand Theft Auto: Vice City , Battlefield and Doom .
But he also enjoyed the music game Dance Dance Revolution , the fantasy RPG Phantasy Star Online , and Nintendo games like Paper Mario , Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin . In fact, the report says the "majority" of his play time was spent with non-violent games.
"He played video games often, both solo at home and online. They could be described as both violent and non-violent. One person described the shooter as spending the majority of his time playing non-violent video games all day, with his favorite at one point being Super Mario Brothers."
To me, it seems painfully obvious that games played absolutely no role in the committed acts. The dude's mother described him as having "no emotions or feelings," he hated all holidays (wouldn't let her put up a Christmas tree), and he couldn't even have certain foods touching other foods on his plate. His relationship with his father also went south in 2010, and he kept trash bags over the windows in his room.
Yeah, issues. Bet you'd find that most serial killers on record had watched plenty of movies, too. A lot of 'em read books. Should we start worrying about avid readers now…?
sadly im sure many of the anti-gaming lobbyists will see this and use it as an excuse to point out that all games are bad not just violent ones…
people see what they want i guess so theres no getting around it
I was irked by the recent report, after all of the things that matter they said "He liked video games" as if the cause could somehow be found in that statement. Crazy people like a lot of things.
video game preferences have about as much influence on an armed psychopath as what he had for dinner the night before. Absolutely ludicrous for people to think the 99.99 percent of us who play video games of all kinds and DON'T go on murderous rampages are somehow the exception to the rule, not the rule.
This is a tired argument. It's been going on for ages now. My psychology class in college goes through this discussion every time, and it always leads to mental problems, NOT video games being the cause. As if we didn't know, serial killers always had mental issues.
I can't believe video games are being discussed in this manner when there are other types of media and entertainment medium that have done it longer and more frequently. We are wasting our time, effort, and money if this argument keeps going on, which it will, sadly.
We're still on this? Give the guy the chair for murdering the innocent people and move on.
You'd have to electrocute his corpse.
Not all people who are involved in mass shootings are gamers. The only commonality is that they were mentally disturbed. We as gamers can't be content to sit back and let others define us; we need to speak up and emphasize that we're just ordinary individuals who happen to favor a particular form of entertainment.
well this is interesting isn't it
happy gaming =)
If video games make us violent, why aren't more of us violent? Shouldn't we all basically be living out fighter games and Call of Duty and punching, kicking, and shooting each other? Should not the good folks of nongamerdom be hiding in their homes ala a Zombie Apocalypse while we wage war outside their doors?
But hey. It's far easier to ban video games then treat mental illnesses. Query. What happens when video games are gone, cartoons too. Movies/TV Shows have zero violence, and this stuff still happens? What do we blame then? Brown shoes? he wore brown shoes! Of course he shot up the maternity ward. Brown shoes are evil, man!
Duhhh everybody knows Viva Pinata breeds the most vile, up-and-coming killers.
You have to be pretty mentally sick to even think about murdering someone, let alone actually murdering 26 people, mostly children.
Just because I play video games doesn't mean I have mental issues.
Last edited by bldudas1 on 11/26/2013 7:20:29 AM
I've been trying for years to develop mental illness by playing video games and it's just not working. 🙁
You're using the wrong console.
LOL
I hear Hitler liked to paint. Better ban that, so we don't run into any problems in the future.
Hitler was also a Disney fan. Uh oh. Better ban Disney.