Games Creating Pre-teen Killers? Politician Spins it That Way - Wrongly
Games Creating Pre-teen Killers? Politician Spins it That Way - Wrongly
May 11, 2007
Are violent video games causing children to become psycopathic killers by age nine?Louisiana State Rep. Roy Burrell (D) might have you believe so. Burrell, who sponsored Louisiana's Jack Thompson-authored video game bill in 2006, wrote in an op-ed for yesterday's Shreveport Times:
One expert, Pat Brown, a national top criminal profiler and parent, said that these video games are causing our children to become psychopathic killers by 9 years old.
After GamePolitics reported on Burrell's piece, sharp-eyed GP readers noticed that comments to the op-ed on the newspaper's website included this one, apparently from Pat Brown herself:
Dear Rep. Burrell,
While I agree with your concerns and approve heartily of working to legislate control over violent video games, I need to correct the quote you attributed to me that these video games create psychopaths by age nine. Violent video games alone cannot create a psychopath.
What I have stated often in television interviews is that a psychopath is already a psychopath by age nine. It is a combination of personality and childrearing (by the family and community) that help create that psychopath.
VIOLENT video games can be a part of this picture as they lend to the loss of empathy that is a hallmark of psychopathy and young children viewing repetitive violence and participating in "killing" via video games are living in an unhealthy psychological environment. Furthermore, teenagers who are already psychopathic and then spend a great deal of time with violent video games are being inspired to act out their psychopathy in a similarly violent manner.
Violent video games do not make well-adjusted older teens or adults into mass murderers (although there still could be more positive pasttimes and inputs for these game playng individuals)...
GP checked with Pat Brown last night and the criminal profiler confirmed that she wrote the comment to Burrell's op-ed on the Shreveport Times site.
Yes, Dennis, this is indeed what I wrote in response to the serious misquote made by Rep. Burrell. My guess is he did not quote me from a transcript but simply remembered some rather distorted version of what I said on television. Unfortunately, he did not have anyone from his office call me for a direct quote which would have been nice. So, what I wrote below is an attempt to clarify my stance and rectify his unfortunate misquote.
GP: It is troubling to see such a damning characterization of video games placed into the public square by a politician so obviously in damage control mode. As GP has previously noted, Rep. Burrell's video game law was a fiacso - costly for the taxpayers and embarrassing for the Louisiana state government.
Today's revelation that Burrell either misunderstood or simply twisted Pat Brown's position on violent video games is disturbing but, unfortunately, not surprising.
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Posted 11/23/09 at 10:08am
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: http://tinyurl.com/ye6x9nv
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: http://tinyurl.com/ye6x9nv
Posted 11/23/09 at 10:08am
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: The very definition of "Lucky Shot":
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: The very definition of "Lucky Shot":
Posted 11/23/09 at 07:56am
DarkSaber: http://tinyurl.com/yl2vfw6 Here's the link, good for conspiracy theories.
DarkSaber: http://tinyurl.com/yl2vfw6 Here's the link, good for conspiracy theories.
Posted 11/23/09 at 07:42am
JDKJ: Leaders never follow. Followers never lead.
JDKJ: Leaders never follow. Followers never lead.
Posted 11/23/09 at 06:48am
DarkSaber: Anyone been following this Hadley Climatic Research Centre server hack story?
DarkSaber: Anyone been following this Hadley Climatic Research Centre server hack story?
Posted 11/22/09 at 11:48pm
ZippyDSMlee: AE:they feeding you well? I am enjoying win7 and heading to bed...uhg I need to get up early and start back to cleaning/painting blahg >< need tog et stuff done befor thanksgiving....
ZippyDSMlee: AE:they feeding you well? I am enjoying win7 and heading to bed...uhg I need to get up early and start back to cleaning/painting blahg >< need tog et stuff done befor thanksgiving....
Posted 11/22/09 at 11:41pm
Andrew Eisen: Just got home from an eight hour recording session at Capitol Records. A lot of fun but damn exhausting.
Andrew Eisen: Just got home from an eight hour recording session at Capitol Records. A lot of fun but damn exhausting.
Posted 11/22/09 at 08:44pm
BearDogg-X: 10 N. O. Who Dat?
BearDogg-X: 10 N. O. Who Dat?
Posted 11/22/09 at 09:45am
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I think doc phill is still sout about the break up with his wife he dose not fill holes as much as make them bigger these day
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I think doc phill is still sout about the break up with his wife he dose not fill holes as much as make them bigger these day
Posted 11/22/09 at 12:06am
JDKJ: You should get Phil McCraken to help you spackle those banisters.
JDKJ: You should get Phil McCraken to help you spackle those banisters.
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:57pm
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ZippyDSMlee: Oh in the pirate hunter article I need my song ieda heckled DS,JD,Beemon sic im !!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:56pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:no I am tried from prepping the banisters for painting , worked on them from 12 to 4 and 6 to 8...after I got back from the store...got up early got ready...blah...been up all day..I need a nap...
ZippyDSMlee: JD:no I am tried from prepping the banisters for painting , worked on them from 12 to 4 and 6 to 8...after I got back from the store...got up early got ready...blah...been up all day..I need a nap...
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:42pm
JDKJ: No. You gonna stay up late tonight soldering?
JDKJ: No. You gonna stay up late tonight soldering?
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:41pm
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:Don't you mean Mctite?
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:Don't you mean Mctite?
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:33pm
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JDKJ: @Zip: Neil, Bob, and Lik McTaint. The McTaint brothers. LOL!!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:44pm
Flamespeak: I still think military personell, killing other military personell, on a military complex should be handled by military courts.
Flamespeak: I still think military personell, killing other military personell, on a military complex should be handled by military courts.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I could see this a mixture of the two charges rather than just one or the other.
Flamespeak: I could see this a mixture of the two charges rather than just one or the other.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I think this was mainly a person who snapped, but evidence is showing he definitely had strong inlinations to islamic-extremism.
Flamespeak: I think this was mainly a person who snapped, but evidence is showing he definitely had strong inlinations to islamic-extremism.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:41pm
Flamespeak: People are trying to claim that Hasan's actions were not terrorism. I don't jump on the 'terror train' like others, however
Flamespeak: People are trying to claim that Hasan's actions were not terrorism. I don't jump on the 'terror train' like others, however
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:38pm
mentor07825: Britain certainly does deserve it! And the French! God damn it, it was a hand ball!!!
mentor07825: Britain certainly does deserve it! And the French! God damn it, it was a hand ball!!!
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Comments
http://www.patbrownprofiling.com/bio.html
This guy is getting abuse and castigation from the Judge and the media when in fact they should be looking for the people who told him that it was alright to go ahead with this and that it would work, based on false information. Jack always seems to weasel out of whatever mess he has created. Burrell should ask him to contribute to the $100,000 bill as he wrote the thing and I seem to remember him telling everyone that it was a "bullet-proof" bill. (It may have been another failed bill).
Still, at least it seems to have caught up with Jack. Unfortunately he is being chastised for being a bad lawyer, instead of for being a liar and exploiter of tragedy.
Oi. She was going well till then.
So you are saying that since he did not write the bill, he should not be blamed for not fact checking it? I don't think that is right. If someone writes a bill of course they are going to endorse it but as a public representative they should run it by some other lawyers before proceeding.
Additionally, the judge criticized the whole of the LA government. He criticized every representative, senator and the governor for not fact checking it before voting it through. This judge is trying to get across to these people that vote pandering is not the way to run a government. They need to be upholding the constitution and not seeking extra votes for the next election.
They could have saved the people $100,000 if only they had run it by some lawyers. How hard is that?
As for JT and "bullet-proof", doesn't he say that about everything he does?
He considers everything that goes even slightly in his favor a major victory, and any and all losses are never, EVEY his fault.
There is nothing wrong with that statement. I don't think that she is condemning video gaming as a whole there. What she probably meant was there is more constructive hobbies kids can have besides playing video games in their spare time.
I am an indie game developer and would love for everyone to play my games. But I think that they should not use every waking moment, that is not consumed by school or work, playing games.
Of course Burrell was wrong to go ahead with this bill without bothering to check the facts, and he does deserve this criticism. However, I believe he doesn't deserve ALL of the criticism. None of it has been levelled at the person who actually wrote the bill, and who was ultimately responsible for it's failure. While Burrell thought he was doing a good thing, Jack was only doing this for publicity and to try and further his obsessive vendetta against Take Two. None of that gets reported though, and Burrell is left shouldering all of the blame that should be directed at everyone involved.
You are right. But Burrell is shouldering all the blame himself. No where in the op-ed does he point out that he did not author the bill. If he wants, he could easily say JT wrote it. But he is the one taking credit. So when you take credit for someone else's work, then you will get the blame.
And the judge did not single him out. He blamed the whole of the government. Burrell is taking offence because he proposed it.
@ E. Zachary Knight
And I take offense that he proposed it!
I suggest we leave that particular bit to the child psychologists. Heaven knows I wouldn't want MY kids (not that I have any yet) playing Gears of War at age five or six. Which is not to say that they should be insulated from violence, just that they probably shouldn't be enacting it in a realistic (as opposed to explicitly cartoony) setting. Bomberman is fine... although I somehow suspect Bomberman will be Jack Thompson's next target ;)
Unfortunatly the clinical evidence is against you on this. The military has observed marked increases in willingness to shoot to kill throught it's history whenever upgrades are made to targets to make them more lifelike. If a game depicts humans or even human looking things then it does, in fact, make you less likely to hesitate should you actually start shooting at someone i.e. less empathetic.
the point you should stress is not that video games have no effect but that video games do not cause violent events even in psycopathic persons.
It's good that Brown publicly called him on it.
@Rob
Keep in mind Brown is talking about desensitization *in the context* of an unhealthy psychological environment. If the child was raised properly, obviously this effect is minimalized. But if that's all the kid knows is violent media, they're going to end up being affected.
"The military has observed marked increases in willingness to shoot to kill throught it’s history whenever upgrades are made to targets to make them more lifelike."
Again, in the context of psychological conditioning. Their training methods have improved as well, not just the targets. It used to be you were supposed to think of the enemy as "demons". But then they found that soldiers were coming face to face with the enemy, and realizing that they were just fellow humans, and hesitated. Now it's "you're just defending yourself/your country/your faith/your family/etc", or "they've done you wrong, they deserve to be punished".
Technology helps too. The ranges involved now mean you're shooting at specs (and hitting them).
Oh man, the stupidity of it all is just laughable! Not even bothering to get an actual quote or statement and just going on what they "think I heard on TV a few weeks ago".
That's terrible!
Terrible funny! :D
Sing with me now!
"YOU SPIN FACTS RIGHT ROUND BABY!
RIGHT ROUND!
LIKE A RECORD BABY!
RIGHT ROUND!
ROUND ROUND!"
~Otaku-Man
I keep saying this but I will say it again.
As a young man playing video games I had never shot a gun. It was only when I joined the military and in basic training. The only reason why I had any accuracy was shooting the gun at the range. Even if there was no training to shoot the gun at the range to practice is well enough. Video games cant teach you this.
So, the question I have is did the students who killed others go to a shooting range with the guns they had. VT Tech shooter had a gun for a month prior if I was reading the news correctly. Double Dragon just released on XBOX Live it doesn't teach me how to kick and punch.
Googling "Pat Brown" before sending in the op-ed might have saved this guy some embarrassment.
It was confirmed that Cho spent time on a shooting range. He had for some time.
And I agree with you that now amount of gaming will "train" you to perform the acts in real life. Its hard enough to learn from a video.
"Unfortunatly the clinical evidence is against you on this. The military has observed marked increases in willingness to shoot to kill throught it’s history whenever upgrades are made to targets to make them more lifelike. If a game depicts humans or even human looking things then it does, in fact, make you less likely to hesitate should you actually start shooting at someone i.e. less empathetic."
Is this why the Civil War is still the bloodiest war in American History? A war that happened in the 1800's, with no video games.
Anyway, it was shown that upgrading the weapons actually helped soldiers fire more often, rather than what they practiced on. So it wasn't the theory that they couldn't bring themselves to shoot another person, it was the fact that they felt their weapons weren't of a high caliber, so their fear of being killed was the reason they couldn't bring themselves to shoot.
The theory you bring up about targets, etc. were made up by Dave Grossman, whose theories have been spanked left and right. I suggest you taking a look here for more info:
http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Marshall/Main.htm
http://coyote.blogs.tentonhammer.com/?p=267#comments
I agree 100% with this. I have no respect for any censormongering politicans who want to take away from our First Amendment rights. Whether it be under the guise of protection or of morality.
@Gamer81
Good points. Dave Grossman's arguements are extremely weak IMHO. The fact is even if video games are used to try and desensitize and train soldiers in the military, they are only one single part of many, many training exercises that the military uses to train soldiers with. Video games by themselves will not train a soldier how to kill or by themselves desensitize a soldier to real-life violence on the battlefield.
One more hole in JT blaming Virginia Tech on games: Seung-Hui Cho was 15 years old when Counter-Strike was released.
Except that Seung-Hui Cho wasn't a well-adjusted person at all. With that said though there is no proof that Seung-Hui Cho played Counter-Strike as a teen and even if he did there is no evidence that Counter-Strike or violent video games deleteriously effected him or caused him to do what he did 8 years later.
Now I'm just waiting for some politician might get the idea to make a law requiring people to register their M-Rated games or have a waiting period before you can purchase them.
I don't know that I'd agree with any kind of legislation like those, but lord knows there are some adults that I don't think should be allowed to play a lot of games... on the same note, there are some 6 year olds that are mentally developed enough to play the most violent games around and still understand the whole Reality Make Believe concept.
The military doesn't use video games or similar media to desensitize soldiers. All of their research shows that it simply is ineffective in that capacity. What it uses those forms of interactive media to teach its soldiers is better targeting methods (increase in accuracy, used with targets not human enemies) and better teamwork and gun control (working with other people and not shooting them or putting them in your line of sight, which can be done with done with human-looking enemies). It is, by my experience, nearly impossible to desensitze psychologically stable/normal individuals through scenarios they know not to be real, whether virtual or actual. Ordinary soldiers are not desensitized by the first time they enter combat, but simply taught to act in battle rather than freezing, at best. There's a reason the best snipers I know are admitted sociopaths.
For one thing, her "loss of empathy" over "viewing" repetitive violent acts hardly applies to video games alone. You can also view such acts in a movie, hear about them in music, or read about them in a book. If one can cause a loss of empathy, then they must all be capable of doing so. Again, we face a double standard from researchers.
Second, while it MAY be true that violent video games can contribute to a psychopath's violent behavior, that alone is not a good enough reason for this bill. Almost anything can set off a reaction in mentally unbalanced people. Let me put this into perspective: There have been cases of jilted lovers killing people. Should we make it illegal to have relationships at all? Several "postal killers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal#Edmond.2C_Oklahoma_in_1986) were pushed over the edge when they lost their jobs. Should we make it illegal for the post office to fire its employees?
The point I'm trying to get at is, it is unfair and unwise to ban something, especially a form of free speech, just because it might set a crazy person off. Because, if we think about it, anything can and will set a crazy person off. These people do not behave in a uniform manner, they do not react to certain stimuli (like video games) in a uniform manner. Instead, reactions range across the board. As Frank Zappa once said, some of these people are so unstable they could potentially be set off by somebody's tie.
People like Roy Burrel and Jack Thompson are trying to propose a simple solution to one of the most complex problems facing our society. Sorry guys, it's not going to work.
If anyone has a link or some other way of verifying this, it'd be cool - just saying, since I hear the above a lot but technically can't prove it.
not to mention real life scenarios ,saying that they use them to teach to kill is like saying "all" flight training is done on the flight simulator.
Way way back the army used DOOM as quick and simple tech to run basic survival of the unknown training since then the spin has been games make killers because the army uses it not understanding the truth in that statement, just using it to vilify gameing so they have a good scape goat to beat up when it comes vote time.
Power+greed= spin
Please your sorry butt back to work rebuilding New Orleans.
Thank you.
But the best widely visible evidence is in the fact that the military still chooses, at operational levels, to use real training where they could replace it with exponentially cheaper, now highly-realistic and immersive virtual exercises. It may be a primarily anectdotal assertion, but it is due to extensive experience and soldier feedback and study that it can be stated with confidence that mentally normal soldiers clearly differentiate between virtual and real killing. Intriguingly more so the more war-related and violent video games they play, and so much that some express a wish to think of real battle in video game terms because it helps them to get past a life-threatening, undiminished, unease with real killing.
In personal experience, the difference virtual simulations and video games make for soldiers most avidly violent gamers is in helping them to deal, afer the fact, with the dread of having killed even in self-defense.