Murder

Oh, geez. Don't complain about incoherent writing. This is a forum, not a place for posting academic papers. I mean, you can if you want. Just don't make them too long.

Primates are no more wired for violence than housecats. Civilization, on the other hand, hardly mitigates violence. Civilization is just folks working together. Some are a little more civilized than others but not much.

Mr. KMAX is on to something. It is perception more than reality. In times past, not only were we not bombarded with violent images (and sex, too, but more on that later), the government (all governments) took pains to keep those images from their people. It was shocking when Life Magazine published photos of American corpses in the surf off some South Sea island. There's more to it than that, as usual, but that's the general idea. But the more you know about things like this, it always seems like the world's gone crazy. But if you just judge the world from what you see with your own eyes, it won't seem so bad. Even then, don't believe everything you see. After a while, you've pretty much seen anything worth seeing anyway. Some stuff is pretty bad but people manage.

Yes, I know, if they couldn't get guns, they'd use explosives. If they couldn't get explosives they'd use knives, etc., etc., etc. Well, you'll need a better argument than that.
 
Many young men spend thousands of hours playing violent
video games. The purpose of these games is to kill as many of the targets as possible. as fast as they can.
Then they watch violent movies and violent TV.
Many also listen to violent music telling them to kill the cops and.do other unspeakable things .
Paintball games let them sharpen their skills of make-believe murder.

Do you think---------No, it could not be and besides it makes millions of dollars for certain people and that is what counts in the usa!
Click to expand...

In the 1950s, young men spent thousands of hours playing "cops and robbers", "cowboys and indians", and other "shoot 'em up" games. The purpose of the games was to kill as many other participants as possible, as fast or secretively as possible.
Then they watched cartoons and newsreels depicting incredibly violent acts.
Then, they listened to the work of the devil: Violent, and corrupt language and content in that new "Rock and Roll" music.
And, then, many went off to Vietnam.


Do you think....
Do you think...... that it might just be possible to draw a ridiculously unsupported conclusion, in the aftermath of an event, by piecing together a bunch of unsupported "pseudo-facts", using hind-sight as your guide?


The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy comes to mind, here...
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/texsharp.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
http://www.skepdic.com/texas.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InHv7U_fp1g
http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/176-texas-sharpshooter-fallacy
 
Tom makes an excellent point, one I've made before: We are a society of the highest order of predators, cunning and intelligent far beyond any other animal on the planet. Some amount of violence is inevitable in such a society. Our ability for rational thought and a capacity for empathy is what allows us to function without having a much higher level of violent crime.
 
I've been playing video games and watching violent movies for years - I'd say I'm pretty well adjusted.

I was, however, not allowed to do either during my really formative years. Until early teens the most violent games I had played was Mario - used to have to wait for Toys R Us trips to play the good stuff on their demos.

Most of the open ended RPGs (those by Bethesda Softworks) I played had an interesting dynamic with crime and punishment. You could murder and pillage indiscriminately if you so chose - however if you killed or stole from an "important" character, you would have a bounty placed on you and the guards would chase and attack you. Hmmm, then again if you were strong enough, you could just wipe out the guards too...

Then they watched cartoons and newsreels depicting incredibly violent acts.
Click to expand...
Not to mention racism. Seriously, Bugs Bunny in blackface dressed like Aunt Jemima?:confused:
 
Did Atilla the Hun have music? Hmm...what did Jack the ripper listen to? What about John Wayne Gacy? Or Ted Bundy? I wonder...
 
I don't think that life is more violent now that it was in centuries past. Not in relative terms. The nature of the violence has no doubt changed, and social tolerance of it, also.

However, I think the biggest change is our awareness of the kind of crazy things other people do to one another, namely through the media. If something happens the world knows about it within hours, if not minutes.

The public become aware of the underbelly of the world they live in and they start looking for and assigning reasons.

More often than not the "reasons" are also offered by the same media that fed them the "problem"...
 
A portion of the population thinks the gun issue is actually not really about guns but about money.

All while decrying our murderous culture of violence.

The NRA exists just to help gun makers brain wash people into buying lots of crazy guns so they can make billions of dollars - right?

These people don't argue as much as talk to themselves.
 
I saw a short item on TV where young people were playing violent vid games. A kid who was 8 years old was asked why he liked them. His reply was, "Because I get to kill people." I do not need a psychologist or a bunch of studies to know they are harmful to the thinking and values of the youth.
It is what we can expect when there are no strong fathers in the family, and a lack of moral values which we as a nation have abandoned.

Jerry
 
I've played thousands of hours of violent video games and watched tons of violent TV over the years.

I also own more than 100 guns.

Do I think there's a correlation?

About the same amount as the connection between murderous violence and Tibetan throat singing.
 
donoo said:
Many young men spend thousands of hours playing violent
video games. The purpose of these games is to kill as many of the targets as possible. as fast as they can.
Then they watch violent movies and violent TV.
Many also listen to violent music telling them to kill the cops and.do other unspeakable things .
Paintball games let them sharpen their skills of make-believe murder.

Do you think---------No, it could not be and besides it makes millions of dollars for certain people and that is what counts in the usa!
Click to expand...

Those are anti gunner's arguments to ban video games and metal music.
 
Jack Bauer24

Maybe we need to ban Batman movies.
I don't normally like to cast dispersions but those guys in that article sounded like idiots. And I agree that that kind of people hurt the sensible and law-abiding gun owners/ enthusiasts.
 
I would repeat that real scientific research has not shown that video or media portrayals are significant risks to children or adults who are not mentally impaired or disordered in some fashion.

One can easily make the same case that the current instantiations of religion are as dangerous inducers of violence given the right circumstances and people at risk. Good data for that also.

If you look at the rampage shooters or the violent religious fanatics, all have some significant risk factors in their lives.

However, folks look at the surface validity and not the actual processes. Guns and games have lethal ideation and practice aspects. Thus, they drive people nuts. Same for lots of religious rhetoric nowadays.

The media pick out the biggest nuts to interview. They don't interview Mike or Me or maybe you. They get some guy outside of Bass Pro with wild nutty hair and wearing a nut tee-shirt who wants to be the big cheese on the tube.
 
The problem is the individual's underlying moral structure, not exposure to violence.

I too have played countless thousands of hours of violent video games, going back to Atari and Coleco Vision days up to new, ultra-realistic XBox 360 first-person shooters.

Yet, I abhor real life violence. I believe in the sanctity of human life and I have never once, aside from "sibling rivalries", inflicted physical harm on another person.

Morality is the issue, not "exposure".
 
About the same amount as the connection between murderous violence and Tibetan throat singing.
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It might, if I had to listen to it all day. :)

Blaming video games, guns, music choice, or whatever is a political cop-out. The real causes of violence are myriad and hard to fix. Of course, any politician who admits that gets pegged as being wishy-washy. When the cameras are on and we need a soundbite for the evening news, it's easier to just say "ban the ____, and that'll make it stop!"
 
I've played thousands of hours of violent video games and watched tons of violent TV over the years.

I also own more than 100 guns.
Click to expand...

I'm nowhere close to that kind of collection - but TV and Games are a really good way of finding new "toys" to buy;)

Heck - the action movies of the 80's and 90's are one reason I bought a Beretta 92:p

Did Atilla the Hun have music? Hmm...what did Jack the ripper listen to? What about John Wayne Gacy? Or Ted Bundy? I wonder...
Click to expand...
Well, there was that Manson/Beatles thing - but then when LSD is involved I'm sure all sorts of things make sense at the time
 
Millions of people agree, "Happiness is a warm gun". I cleared doom level 2 with just the pistol. Ran right out and bought the first VP70Z I saw. Went out and got it warm. Big smile. Any questions?
 
Along with the violent games, music, and movies, how many young men (and women) in the last half century have been through a basic combat training/boot camp? I'm thinking its a pretty big number.

In those camps, they are specifically trained to kill the enemy. Trained by the US govt! Many go on from basic to advanced training, to improve their ability to kill!

Now, out of all those people, how many have turned into violent killers after being released from those training camps? Some actually have, but it is such a small percentage as to be statistically insignificant.

The media has made a lot of money with stories about the vet that snaps and runs amok, but really, how often does it happen in real life?

as to viewing viiolent entertainment/gun ownership, or being an NFL fan, what's the phrase.....correlation does not equal causation...or something like that...

Remember, virtually every violent criminal (and US lawmakers) ate bread within 30 days of doing the deed...therefore, we need to ban bread!...right?

looks like the same logic to me...;)
 
donoo said:
Many young men spend thousands of hours playing violent
video games. The purpose of these games is to kill as many of the targets as possible. as fast as they can.
Then they watch violent movies and violent TV.
Many also listen to violent music telling them to kill the cops and.do other unspeakable things .
Paintball games let them sharpen their skills of make-believe murder.

Do you think---------No, it could not be and besides it makes millions of dollars for certain people and that is what counts in the usa!
Click to expand...

I have been playing video games since their invention, thousands of hours playing violent bloody first person shooters. I have also been a gun owner for over 15 years, in all that time I have killed nothing but digital nazis/terrorists and paper zombies. I have never fire any gun I own at another person. Also played paintball for over a decade.


Hmmmmm..... shouldn't I have gone on a murderous rampage by now? :-P

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2
 
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