April 23, 2007 -
Last week Dr. Phil and controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson were the loudest voices pushing the idea that the 23-year-old lunatic who committed the Virginia Tech shooting spree was influenced by violent video games. The circle of video game critics may now be expanding, however.
Yesterday on Meet the Press, host Tim Russert (left) spoke with a pair of Bush Administration cabinet members about the VTU massacre. Russert's guests included Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Neither ruled out official inquiries into whether video games played a role in Cho Seung Hui's rampage. From the transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: Secretary Spellings, has any study been done about video games? There’ve been reports that Mr. Cho spent an inordinate amount of time looking at violent video games.
SEC’Y. SPELLINGS: Well, I think we do have some evidence that when children, mostly the research is around young children, are exposed to violence—violence on television or video games and the like—that that certainly does net out in, in more violent behavior. And I think, again, those are the sorts of things that we’ll engage in as we talk with educators and law enforcement professionals, parents and policy makers about these issues.
MR. RUSSERT: Will there be a written report for the president and for the American people?
SEC’Y. SPELLINGS: Yes. We will be presenting, fairly shortly after this, after we get around the country, some, some recommendations or thoughts about what we might do...
MR. RUSSERT: Secretary Leavitt, any thought of looking into video games and the impact they may have on young children?
SEC’Y. LEAVITT: I, I think we’ll have to look at a wide range because, while what we’re focusing on right now is what’s happened at, at Blacksburg, we do need to think about this pattern of unexplainable violence that occurs, and ask ourselves what can we learn from each of these. It will undoubtedly cause us to reweigh many of the judgments we’ve made in the past, and recalibrate on some, and others recognize that we just need to do what we’ve already decided better...
Comments
Does anyone have a feeling that he's either going to go on a shooting rampage himself or be locked up indefinately in about ten years?
Last I checked, they were very real problems which didn't even require nauseating studies back and forth in an attempt to sway evidence one way or the other.
Get your priorities straight, please, politicians. Even if Cho had been playing violent video games (and everything I've read or heard so far with actual evidence behind it points to that being falsification), I think the guy had far more significant problems which are more threatening to society than video games. The longer you continue to scapegoat, the more time these ACTUAL problems have to become worse.
It puts me in mind of the movie "The Ring":
Play a violent game and you'll go on a killing spree in 5 years time...
Books made him do it.
Didn't you read the reports? It has all... statistical.. data.. and graphs. Crap, actually you shouldn't read it. Might make you go crazy and kill a bunch of people.
I wish I could agree with you...the mere mention worries me. If the Bush administration, or whoever gets elected next, listens to all the wrong people after this disaster (which has happened before, we all know), we could be heading very quickly for Germany's current state of affairs. (Does mentioning modern-day Germany count as a Godwin? I apologize if it does...)
One word to mr. Russert, when he says :
"There’ve been reports that Mr. Cho spent an inordinate amount of time looking at violent video games."
Which reports, dude ? Which reports ?
Agreed.
Actually, the real issue isn't gun control. The real issue is mentally unstable people being written off as somebody else's problem until they do something harmful to themselves or others.
Jack Thompson must be delighted.
Then you ought to differentiate between 'Christians' and 'the far-right Conservative Christian fundamentalists', as others have already pointed-out. There's as wide berth between the two as there is being German and being a Nazi.
The game that would closest resemble this crime came from the mind of dear old Jack himself, actually. I say we accuse the kid of having learned everything he knows from playing "I'm OK"
He DID in high-school, according to some former friends of his. But there's still debate as to whether he did in the last 4 years, as his college room-mates say he only worked on english essays. Jack Thompson calls them idiots and liars, but that's a different story.
The police seized a lot of things from his dorm room, including a computer, but no consoles. Whether Counterstrike was on his PC is still unknown.
From the Washington Post. Cho was apparently a fan of CS during high-school. But that was 4 years ago. His roommates say he hasn't played since.
I was thinking the same thing, where did he get this idea that the kid played video games?
I know I'm a gamer looking for any evidence that video games had nothing to do with VT, but really now, there isn't a scrap of evidence to be found, except from the mouths of lunatics.
@BmK
I agree. Political thinking isn't like a spectrum, but a circle, anyone who is too far left or too far right are in essence the same kind of person.
The problem is, while we often demanded it, this isn't really what we wanted. We really wanted them to ignore all media equally, not pay attention to all of them.
++ to the rebuttals of Zerodash. Christians aren't a problem, any more than Muslims, Jews or atheists are. Fanatical, misguided people are the problem. This is pretty much what the gaming community faces. We get stereotyped by the reprehensible acts of some people on the lunatic fringe, much as Zerodash has just done with Christians.
I second that. The fanatical, militant atheist types are just as annoying, arrogant, intolerant and bigoted as the religious zealots. Also not all christians are fundamentalist, right-wing moralists trying to jam their beliefs down everyones throats. Actually there is just as much anti-theistic bullshit being jammed down our throats by the fanatcial militant atheist types. In essence both sides of the extreme are morons and assholes.
Aside from that idiocy, I doubt we have much to worry about.
we saw the "unbiased research" on the subject of video games from the CDC: those horrid "go out and play" propaganda flyers.
i'm really happy the ECA and VGVN exist so we can start pushing the idiocy out of office.
down with the luddites.
Leavitt's was more so. "A wide range" to me does not single out games and if it did, it probably wouldn't recieve much priority beyond what is already being done right now with stuff like CAMRA and Brownback's bill (which will likely get more steam behind it if nothing else). The politicians are slowly getting the message that going after games is a bad idea. That and this administration has never been very vocal in criticising popular entertainment anyway - at least not in terms of violence. The Democrats do that usually.
Unfortunately the real stuff that needs improving, the mental health care system in this country, is what's really going to continue to be neglected. :(
bullying meh? helping kids cope with any mental disablites they have piff
nay the real cause of it all is the media it has been so since books where made!
Dont you love poligoating?
Again, that is very improbably. Due to First Amendment rights.
I dunno. I think there are bigger things for them to worry about than video games. This is probably more just a mentioning and then that'll be it.
@Chuma
Better than saying "I don't recall" or the likes for nearly every question
"Yes. We will be presenting, fairly shortly after this, after we get around the country, some, some recommendations or thoughts about what we might do…"
Translation: "We plan to issue a press release."
There is no doubt in my mind, that unless something changes now, we will be living in a country where games are regulated for content.
"It will undoubtedly cause us to reweigh many of the judgments we’ve made in the past, and recalibrate on some, and others recognize that we just need to do what we’ve already decided better…"
I've heard of avoiding the question before but this is almost like answering a different question entirely. Personally I would take this to mean "We don't want to dismiss you out of hand as that might backfire but really this isn't of any interest to us"
Studies show that 98% of all serial killers eat bread at least once a week. Thats a really jarring statistic!
Funny that a woman with no formal experience in education and who has given blind support to the disasterous No Child Left Behind is talking about child development like she owns the term.
These two are clearly just carrying on the proud Bush tradition of sticking your nose in matters you know nothing about.
False. States with very strict gun control laws have higher-than-average rates of violent crimes involving guns, and states with looser gun control laws have lower-than-average rates of violent crimes, with and without guns. And no gun control law, short of a total ban, will prevent someone who has been a law-abiding citizen who just snaps and goes off the deep end.
The facts are simple: Criminals won't obey the gun laws, and will get them through illegal channels. The only people who are significantly affected by gun control laws are law-abiding citizens. Disarm them, and they become victims on the hoof.
Read the following report:
http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm
Note that between 1987 (when Florida enacted a bill that loosened the concealed carry laws) and 1996, nationwide handgun homicide rates rose by 24%, while Florida's handgun homicide rate DROPPED BY 41%!
Thugs and lowlife criminal scum would rather have an unarmed populace - that way, they know that they can mug/rob/rape you safely. If they don't know whether you're carrying, they're less likely to try in the first place.
• Chain from top left closet shelf
• Folding knife & combination padlock
• Compaq computer from desktop
• Assorted documents, notepads, writings from desktop
• Combination lock
• Dremel tool and case
• Nine books, two notebooks, envelopes, from top shelf
• Assorted books & pads from lower shelf
• Compact discs from desktops
• Items from desktop & drawers: winchester multi tool, 3 notebooks, mail, checks, credit card
• Items from 2nd door: Kodak digital camera, Citibank statement
• Two cases of compact discs from dresser top
• Drive: Seagate: 80 Gb
• Six sheets of green computer paper
• Mirror with blue plastic housing
• Dremel tool box with receipt
• Dell Latitude service tag
Hrrmm. I see no games or consoles in that list so how can games be blamed when the guy didnt play games?
Oh that right you cant logically but i guess politians arn't logical at all.