April 18, 2007
Conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh downplayed the video game violence angle while discussing the Virginia Tech tragedy with his radio audience yesterday.The discussion began when a caller to Limbaugh's program said:
I'll bet my last dollar in my pocket, that this shooter will be found to have been a compulsive video gamer, and when people are living that kind of lifestyle - and college students do this a lot.
Limbaugh, however, nixed that idea at some length in his response and subsequent comments:
Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There's more to this than that... it may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers...
People have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?
If you start blaming the video games, you may as well demand video game control because it's the same thing when you start trying to blame guns for this. You have here a sick individual, an evil individual who committed a random act. But if you want to start blaming the video games, this guy was this or that, weeeeell, then you've gotta maybe talk about banning them because that's the same tack that's taken with guns.
Full transcript here.
Comments
it isn't the games that break people. to paraphrase Seanbaby: this guy wasn't out making videos about how rainbows make kittens happy before he got his hands on a copy of Doom.
"What would you do when a CRIMINAL (you know, those guys who break the LAW) points a banned gun at you and threatens your life?"
Those examples are just scare-mongering. If a guns pointed at your head like that nothing is going to save you, not even your own armory of every single type of gun in existence. If guns were banned, the chances of said 200lb man having a gun would be greatly reduced. Of course in the end it's the same thing if its a gun at your head or a knife at your throat, you're already caught.
Legalised guns just makes it easier for them to point guns at your head.
"What if a security guard was allowed a gun on VT’s campus? Why, he just might have been able to save 32 people’s lives, give or take a few depending on reaction time."
What if Cho couldnt get hold of a gun because they werent legal? Maybe he would have taken a knife instead. If he had used a knife, I doubt that 32 people would have died.
Guns don't kill people. They just make it much much easier.
Well, maybe I said it badly, so I reformulate : there is no proof that video games played any role at all. First because what we know about the killer goes far beyond an eventual exposure to violent media. Second because no game is targeted yet. The "Washington Post" had a paragraph in one article that referred to "Counter-Strike", but this paragraph has been removed with no explanation (I learnt it there : http://news.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=15112 )
Whoa.
Actually, considering that this is a gaming site, "Use the Astral Amulet at the point where you originally crossed over" would be a little more appropriate.
Whose Rush Limbaugh?
What do those three names have in common besides the fact that they’re overpaid talking heads? Well, two of them have placed the blame for the Virginia Tech massacre squarely on videogames while one of them dismissed the idea and it may not be th...
Rush Limbaugh is a conservative radio talk show host.
There's no reason to make that argument, because it's statistically unlikely that a college student never plays video games.
...wait. Wait, wait a minute here.
Dr. Phil was bashing videogames before we even found out the identity of the shooter, and now Rush Frikkin' LIMBAUGH is cautioning a common sense approach to the subject?
When, exactly, did I fall into this alternate universe, and how do I get back?
Easy, neither videogames nor guns MADE this guy kill all those people.
Unlikely videogames he USED guns though to accomplish the deed. I very much doubt that him entering the building armed with a a few videogames would have caused so many casualties.
How ironic it is for Limbaugh to be the sanest voice on his show.
However, I think there is one argument he didn't use : there is no proof at all that the killer played video games (not even "violent" ones). There is no proof that violent media played any role at all. And what we already know about his personality (his writings, his lonesome temper, his anger...) goes far, far beyond media violence.
That's pretty much his concern. At least that's what it sounds like.
He knows, at least on some level, that where there is one goomba blaming one thing and demanding regulation and/or restrictions, that something else can be blamed by another person and demand regulation and/or restrictions. As much as he probably wants to blame video games and have them regulated, he obviously knows that guns could be treated in the same manner. And that's something he probably doesn't want to happen.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
In fact according to the BBC - "Neighbour Abdul Shash described Cho as "very quiet, always by himself", and said he spent a lot of time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him.".
It seems obvious what must be done - ban basketball.
The more facts that I see coming out about the shooter, the more I'm convinced this guy was seriously messed up in the head. THAT'S why he snapped. Maybe video games helped provide a disconnect (which would be no different than the movie "Taxi Driver" providing inspiration for John Hinckley), but this guy had issues to begin with. Also...we don't know that he was a gamer yet. That's one thing that hasn't come out in all of this.
If you outlaw guns, than only outlaws will have them.