Can't speak for the rest of the country, but down here in arizona, I can say what our problem is, and it isn't video games.

Its freaking Illegal immigration, 3 out of every nine police deaths involve illegals, and 6 out of 9 involve people with previous violent histories that were released from prision.

Freaking bs, grossman needs to have his mouth taped shut.

Whats the best way to sum up my thoughts on this?

http://eddddie.googlepages.com/facepalm.jpg

In Miami, where officers believe they are out-gunned by bad guys, Police Chief John Timoney has authorized police to begin carrying military-grade assault rifles.

And that was nothing but a publicity stunt. Miami cops have had AR-15s (or M4s..) for years. They even had a large number of them at the incident where they were supposedly "outgunned" by one guy. Chief Timoney is paid shill for the Joyce Foundation and the Brady Campaign, and is merely trying to fearmonger up support for their new ban.

I understand what the Lieutenant is trying to say and I respect that, but for me, it's still unfair for the side of video games. The bad guys like to play violent video games. But what's the news in there? It's not like they use that for their training. If one is good in GTA III that doesn't mean he's also good in real life. It's probably just their way of unleashing their anger like one of my friends who play Marvel v.s. Capcom to release his frustration when someone angers him.

Leave it to Grossman to play where's waldo with various gang related crime scenes...I swear that he stares at the footage and when he spots a game system he jumps up and says "I knew it!...Teh Gamez did it!"

He is right up there with Jack Thompson...unfortunately he also has military "credibility" that would make a normal person say "I guess if he was in the army than he must know".

I agree that cops should look at police behavior for the answers here...Alot of cops act like idiots and wonder why they get little respect from the populace.

he will be on the news soon I bet.

Mike

Maybe the fact that a large lot of teenagers and young adults play video games anyways...

Another thing, if i was a street racer already, i might be more inclined to play a street racing video game. Is it possible in the slightest that these guys already were druggies and such before they started playing games simliar to their lifestyle?

For your info, here is what Grossman said on video games 11 years ago in his first book "On Killing" :

"This is not an attack on all video games. Video games are an interactive medium. They demand and develop trial-and-error and systematic problem-resolving skills, and they teach planning, mapping, and deferment of gratification. Watch children as they play video games and interact with other children in their neighborhood. To parents raised on a steady diet of movies and sitcoms, watching a child play Mario Brothers for hours on end may not be particularly gratifying, but that is just the point. As they play they solve problems and overcome instructions that are intentionally inadequate and vague. They exchange playing strategies, memorize routes, and make maps. They work long and hard to attain the gratification of finally winning a game. And there are no commercials : no enticements for sugar, no solicitation of violent toys and no messages of social failure if they do not wear the right shoes or clothes.

We might prefer to see children reading or getting exercise and interacting with the real world by playing outside, but video games are definitely preferable to most television. But video games can also be superb at teaching violence - violence packaged in the same format that has more quadrupled the firing rate of modern soldiers.

When I speak of violence enabling I am not talking about video games in which the player defeats creatures by bopping them on the head. Nor am I talking about games where you maneuver swordsmen and archers to defeat monsters. On the borderline in violence enabling are games where you use a joystick to maneuver a gunsight around the screen to kill gangsters who pop up and fire at you. The kind of games that are very definitely enabling violence are the ones in which you actually hold a weapon in your hand and fire it at human-shaped targets on the screen. These kinds of games can be played on home video, but you usually see them in video arcades."

To be honest, at that time Grossman certainly didn't seem to know anything about First-Person Shooters and Mortal Kombat action figures. His only problem was Lightgun games. But Paducah and Jonesboro made him change his mind brutally. Since then, he almost never precised that "this was not an attack against all video games", and he certainly never declared again that video games "were definitely preferable to most television".

By the way, contrary to what Time says, Grossman never wrote a book entitled "On Violence". He wrote three books : "On Killing, "Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill" (with Gloria DeGaetano) and "On Combat" (with Loren Christensen). But it's not a big mistake.

I the last year, no high profile game where you kill cops came out. The one that did came out, was a game where you go around as a Supercop.

"Every time [officers] take down a gang house, there’s always one thing that will always be there,” Grossman says. “It’s a video game. The video games are their newspaper, their television, their all-consuming narrative.”

Let me get this straight. Police officers take down a gang house that contains gang members, that is, members of a criminal gang. These people are armed with guns, more than likely have committed crimes in the past (why else are the cops after them?) and are also more than likely involved in drugs. And the video game is what is to blame. Oooooo-kay...

Does he not realise how ridiculous this sounds? Did the riots over the Rodney King beating start because video games were people's "newspaper, their television, their all-consuming narrative"? NO! They began because they were watching real events on real television/newspapers.

"And their video games are all cop-killer, criminal simulators."

Perhaps I am being a little stereotypical, but is Madden a "cop-killer, criminal simulator"? I think if you spoke to gang members and asked them if they trained on Grand Theft Auto and got all their information from it, they would either laugh out loud in your face, or possibly shoot you for being so dumb.

you would think an ex-military member would have sense enough to know how firearms training works.

Grossman is an embarrasment and a liar.

So because games are found every time you take down a gang house and that means that games are causing the violence. shouldn't that mean that when they find food too, that food is causing the violence?

wow, the comments are amazing. its like saying in the early 1990s they stormed gang houses and found VHS movies. right.i just find it funny they talk about cops being killed and then speak of cops raiding gang houses. lets think this one through. more raids means more chances for people to get hurt. direct coorelation?

@hayabusa75 :

In fact, Grossman specialized himself in the act of killing, and the psychological cost of killing, in war as well as in society. He also studied the story of violence, weaponry and combat, but his main speciality remains "killology", the "psychology of killing". After more than a decade of research he wrote the book "On Killing" in 1995/1996, alledgely recommended for reading in West Point.

He had the theory that media violence conditioned children to kill the same way the army did for soldiers, but without army's discipline. However, even though he already targeted video games at that time, he was quite moderate. I think he was only aware of Lightgun games, and he didn't like them at all. But he made it clear he wasn't against all video games (you read exactly what he said about it in "On Killing" at this address : http://www.gamepoliticsforums.com/showpost.php?p=6692&postcount=9

But school shootings changed that. First, he is inhabitant of Jonesboro, he was there during the Jonesboro massacre, and he was training psychologists so that they could help victims, survivor and their families. So he saw a lot of horrible things. Second, he was an "expert witness" in Paducah, when he discovered that Michael Carneal, the Paducah killer, had been playing "Doom" among other things. So he became aware of first-person shooters. And finally, there was Columbine, and after, his second book, the over-cited "Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill", where his positions became radical.

Since then, he's quoted as an "expert in media violence", or an "expert in the effects of media violence". And he wrote a third essay, "On Combat", that deals more with fighting in general. But two chapters are related to media and video game violence, and they're even more radical than before. You can read them at this address :
http://www.killology.com/on_combat_ch2.htm
http://www.killology.com/on_combat_ch7.htm

As a former soldier, and avid gamer I find the idea that someone can use a game as a cop-killer training device too ridiculous for words. I think the whole thing is playing games that go along with personality. I like reading fantasy novels, as such I like fantasy games with swords and sorcery, Final Fantasy and whatnot. However sometimes it's just so refreshing to load up House of the Dead and take out some zombies, but even with a good light gun it's nothing like using a real gun, and were it not for my history as a soldier I would not be able to be in a fire fight just because I played a "violent" game. Maybe I'm just not playing the right ones because I've always thought the GTA series was lame, though having watched some friends play it I don't believe this is the case.

Recent history has shown an increase in police brutality and raids, which have left the general populace with a higher level of distrust for them. More raids against people who like you less and are armed will always equal an increase in fatalities. The overuse of SWAT teams has been a major cause in this, as they're trained to be brutal, and with them being called into situations they never should have been involved with, innocent and non-resisting people have been hurt. If a gang member sees that innocent people who didn't resist are being busted up by police what do you think he's going to do when they come busting through his front door?

if thats the best that guy can come up with the only thing he is an "expert" at is being a fucking moron.

@nightwing2000

You are very right my good sir.

@Yuki,
Is there a reason you used 3 out of 9 and 6 out of 9 instead of saying "one third" or "two thirds"? It sounded like you were just trying to make the numbers sound larger.

Plus, if two thirds of the crimes you're referring to involved people with violent histories and one third involved illegal immigrants then i would say that the violent people released from prison are the "freaking" problem. Since, you know, they committed the same crime twice as often as illegals.

"Every time [officers] take down a gang house, there’s always one thing that will always be there,” Grossman says. “It’s a video game. The video games are their newspaper, their television, their all-consuming narrative. And their video games are all cop-killer, criminal simulators.”

And I take it before the invention of video games that gangs did not exist? Oh no wait, they did.

@Austin Lewis
im not sure i understand your analogy at the end there. wasnt durant held for months by the somalis? granted, he wasnt in a prison camp, and they tried to keep him alive so the us wouldnt be too mad, but isnt the experience comparable?

Apparently having a highschool diploma and being over 5'3" entitles one to become an expert in the effects of pixelated images upon the attitudes and behaviors of people.

I was completely wrong about cops! I thought their best work was done at the lunch counter. Turns out all that coffee has made them behavioral experts.

Consider me a follower!

Thing that annoys me is that they've been blaming it on games even when it wasn't rising, now it IS rising, and only started this year it's almost as though they're jumping up and down and going 'look, all that rubbish I spouted, there's actually something that makes it look accurate from a distance!'.

@Capt Crunchie.

No sir, Michael Durant, at the time of his POW experience ranking CWO3 of our USARMY, 160thSOAR, was held captive for 11 days.

11 days, wherein he suffered no abuse, and just a broken leg (which was later mended to the point where he ran the Boston Marathon.)

His story is one of the least terrible POW experiences in modern military history.

Austin was the M249 incident before or after the assault weapon ban. I can definitly see the problem in that scenario 9mm

here in Florida its normally racism that kills the african american cops.

@Scolar Visari

I'm expecting Austin to say it was before, but I wouldn't be suprised if it was after. Automatic weapons will always be present.

@Austin Lewis

I dunno about you, but an M249 looks one hell of a lot like an M60.

I'm gonna go along with Michael Moore and blame the number of guns (I know I'm gonna get flack for this). Let's face it, you can't shoot somebody if you don't have a gun.

(P.S. Don't bother to flame me, I really don't give a crap about who shoots who at the other side of the pond).

Afterthought:

Machine Guns (whatever you want to call them, they're Machine Guns to me and my boss/bosses mates/my co-workers) aren't my prefered method. Give me a Dragunov over an M60 anyday. I guarantee i'll wipe the floor with you.

And the setting of a GTA game! Oh noes!!

Because not a single policeman has died in the line of duty before GTA came out, right? *eyeroll*

@Mariner

Do popular games like Madden also create a violent person?

Nope, it makes them a football SUPERSTAR! Shazam! ;)

Soooo, Al Capone was a gamer?

Someone is living in a land of fiction...and its not the gamers....

from No one lives forever
"Random thug 1: Our studies show that criminals drink three times as much alcohol as law abiding citizens.

Random thug 2: So beer turns people into criminals?

Thug 1: A correlation doesn't imply causality. Just because criminals drink a lot of beer doesn't mean that beer causes crime. It's possible that people with criminal tendencies enjoy beer because it helps to soothe their conscience. Or perhaps criminal behavior is caused in part by a genetic predisposition that also, coincidentally, makes criminals like the taste of beer more than the average person. Who knows?

Thug 2: You're very knowledgeable about these things.

Thug 1: Criminal sociology is a hobby of mine. I think it's important to understand not just the individual, psychological roots of one's behavior, but also the social circumstances that foster that behavior. Whether we like it or not, we are shaped by our environment.

Thug 2: Surely you're not suggesting that individuals aren't accountable for their actions.

Thug 1: Oh, no, of course not. Just because we are products of the societies we're born into doesn't absolve us of personal responsibility. Our religions and laws teach us what is right and what is wrong. Frequently, the right choice is the more difficult path to take. It requires sacrifice, self-discipline, patience … virtues that many of us find somewhat lacking in our natures.

Thug 2: But what if you're born into a hedonistic culture?

Thug 1: Look across history. The reason hedonism is discouraged by most religions and governments is that it weakens a civilization. It breeds sloth, petulance, degeneracy, and selfishness. A divided nation is a fragile nation, waiting to be conquered. Unity is strength. Humans instinctively fashion order out of chaos. It is a natural, probably genetic impulse. Therefore, even an individual born into troubled times has the capacity, and even the duty, to behave in a manner that promotes unity, however difficult it may be.

Thug 2: Then what about us?

Thug 1: I can only speak for myself. I am a product of a broken household, which introduced a general lack of self confidence in me at a very early age. These feelings of inadequacy blossomed into anger as I matured that the rigors of adolescence, with the teasing and abuse and awkwardness we must all endure, only exacerbated. But even though I've identified the source of my problems, I'm still too childish and petty to become a responsible, mature citizen.

Thug 2: Well, admitting you have a problem is the first step, I suppose.

Thug 1: I like to think so."


You know though, i was talking to one guy, and both of us have the same sort of fasination with decapitation. Not like the French decapitation, but more of like magical decapitation. You know, were you can remove your head but still be alive, and we both kinda belive it stims from when we were young and saw david cooper field preform a trick were he put a woman in a box and slice her up, then reagange the boxes.

But its not the matieral that the child takes in, but how they process it. Just look at all the other crap out there. Anything you might have enjoyed in your childhood has probally become twisted by someone into a porn. Rule 34.

Memo to David Grossman:

1. When cops take down a gang house, it is because they have already committed a crime (allegedly).

2. A gang house would usually contain drugs such as pot, crack, and meth. With those drugs in the house, video games are not the problem.

3. Stereotyping gets you nowhere.

Cops get shot, die in a hail of gunfire.

News at 11.

Seriously, what kind of hackneyed psudeo-science is this guy coming up with? It's no wonder Thompson likes this guy as they share the same conspiracy-ridden idea that games are a form of mind manipulation set out to turn our kids into Blackwater super-soldiers.

Yeah, maybe in a MGS game, but not in the real world.

I hate to derail this slightly, but other people have already done that... I'm just following up their comments.

A brief note for the readers who actually think that stricter gun control laws will reduce crime.

You're wrong. Period.

Have a read at the following, then take some time to Google phrases like, "Gun control correlation crime rate."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4706

I don't know the causes of criminal activity, but there's ample proof that guns, in and of themselves, don't cause violence, and some evidence to the contrary - that widespread ownership of licensed, legal firearms is a deterrent to violent crime.

[...] Volgens de Amerikaanse politie is het eerder regel dan uitzondering, dat als ze een inval doen bij bende leden ze ook video games vinden waarin het mogelijk is om virtueel agenten dood te schieten en criminele activiteiten te ontplooien. Staaltje Amerikaanse politiek of gewoon bullshit?? Perhaps not surprisingly, a well-known video game critic points to violent games. From the September 28th issue of Time: [...]

THERE WAS NO SEPTEMBER 28 ISSUE OF TIME

Well at least not for this year. It went September 17, then September 24, then October 1. I would know, I get Time ever week.

For the whole gun debate, as a Brittish citizen here is my view:

Summed up: less guns around = less people get shot

Now before anyone shouts "Buts that means only criminals have guns!" i agree that is true to a point, but if a crimal is not expecting to come across armed resistance in all but the most extreme circumstances, they are going to be far less inclined to shoot someone, as they won't feel the need.

If guns are the rule rather than the exception, criminals will *know* victims/cops probably have guns, so will more likely take the 'shoot first before they shoot me' mentality.

And if you ask me, less people getting shot is a damn good thing for everyone involved.

I'm not sure if someone has said this already but those two police officers who died weren't two separate incidents. I'm from Charlotte, NC and they died in one, terribly tragic, act of violence. If I remember what happened correctly, a single gang member shot both police officers from behind. Also, I'm fairly certain the killer did not play video games (if he had I'm sure we would have heard of it by now).

@koi

True, less guns would mean less shooting. Less bullets would be the same as well. But there are cases in which people are going to kill...

Its all very situational tough.

It is not because of games that violence are up. It is because of the government themselves.

The government is allowing people killing other people. The government is pro-death penalties, they encourage cops to kill, the want more soldiers to kill more people.

Look at Japan. They have even more violent TV shows and games. But they are against death penalties and are not allow to fight wars. But they also have very good parents unlike some part of this country.

@BearDogg-X

Also, it’s not a 60% increase in police officers being killed in the line of duty, it’s 38%.

That article says 38% rise in deaths. Grossman's talking about a 60% increase in firearm-related deaths. It's not that criminals are killing 60% more cops, but that criminals are more than ever pulling out guns to shoot the cops they are attacking.

Still his conclusion is flawed in that a simple increase in the number of handguns in criminal hands would do *that*, you don't need video games.

@ austin lewis
Japan sent troops to iraq, but only in non-combatant roles. With their current laws, they are not allowed to offensively send their troops out. mad n1nja is effectively correct about that.

Maybe its because fully automatic weapons are currently legal???

Maybe its because mainstream TV show like Law and Order tell crooks where to get illegal weapons legally??? Not to metnion the internet and rocket launchers being just a clik away....

Maybe its because there are more illegal aliens in this country than the total number of people in Canada?

Maybe its because there are countless people in jail for non-crime crimes being trained to be criminals and to be like an animal just to survive? Why the hell are 18 year old one time pot smokers sent to prison longer than some murderors or rapists????

Maybe its because the police are severely under funded cause Bush is trying to cut corners while spending trillions on the war????

Maybe its because some states like florida have laws legalizing shooting and murdering people if you are afraid of them...(no joke they give out warning fliers in airports to tourists about this law....)

You know what are the main things they always find in the homes of gangs and criminals? Internet connections and television sets... lets ban the internet and television....

ANYONE WITH A BRAIN IN THEIR HEAD WOUD SEE THAT GAMES ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT FACTOR...but hey why should people get facts get in the way of their common sence...

About the issue of population crammed together in less land being a reason for an increase in homicides, I have to disagree.

I live in Japan. We are crammed like crazy, but the homicide rates are one of the lowest in the world.

We don't have NRA and the country is mainly pacifist.

The main factors for homicide are culture and economics. If you have a gun culture, there is bound to be more homicides. If your media supports strikes and invasions on foreign countries to achieve its own interests, people grow with the concept that getting what you want with force is OK. If you have empoverished ghettos with easy access to firearms, they will shoot for their loot.

@illspirit
My MAC11 was $350 and some change. My M4 was essentially a Colt Upper with a Class III receiver, costing about $3000.

I have other stuff too.

@Luis Allis

To be fair, we don't have nearly as many people working themselves to death as you guys do.

@Shady
Actually, 92.1% of weapons are gotten through illegal means. They are traded on the street for product, other firearms, or money.

The weapons are taken from the houses and bodies of people they kill and houses they break into.

@smeagol23

I don't know which Japanese troops you hung out with, I had a fireteam fight alongside me.

The new President or Prime Minister or whatever they have is changing the laws; that's why he got elected.

@illspirit
I know people who collect shit like that. They have fucking armories in their houses, so letting me have one for a good price doesn't hurt their pocket any.

@Austin Lewis

Thank you. Full-Auto weapons aren't my speciality.

I can find my way around a Kalashnikov (74, not 47), but that's about it.

@Austin Lewis

Those are some mighty fine friends you have to give you a discount like that! Do they need any more friends? :p

And FN makes a semi-auto SAW now? I've heard rumors that they were thinking about it at one point, but never new it came to fruition. Do they even sell them in the US though? Or are they toys for LEOs only? Hell, I'm still waiting for them to start selling HK416 uppers to civilians..

Either way, there was no mention of SAW lookalikes in the original AWB.

@ austin lewis

thanks for the correction. i got out of the service and moved back from japan a year or so ago, so my info was a little dated. didn't know that one got passed.

This doesn't surprise me

This is the same idiot who claimed that only 15% of U.S troops shot back at the enemy in WWII because the other 85% couldn't stand to kill another person even if thier own life is in danger

That there is straight up bullshit. I don't care how much of a pacifist you are. Most people would be willing to kill to save thier own life. This dumbass also claimed that playing video games can make into an expert marksman. And he was in the military? Wow. The military needs to raise thier standards if idiots like this can get into our armed forces.

@Illspirit
They're available to all, but you have to assemble it on your own if memory serves.

@BlackIce
You can buy anything; I have an M79. The problem is getting ammo.

It's legal to own anything within reason; not a lot of civilian owned ATs, for example.

@smeagol
No problem man.

fuck george bush

bad avenged sevenfold sevenfold blinded avenged