In a "Friday Follow-Up" segment that aired on her show, Katie Couric admitted that her recent show on video game violence that featured a "who's who" of anti-video game voices was one-sided. The show, "Are Video Games Ruining Your Life?" aired on April 29 and featured Daniel Petric, who cited video games as being a "catalyst" for shooting and killing his mother on October 20, 2007. It also featured Dr.

Back in March we told you about Moses Lake, Washington teen Nathon Brooks, the 14-year-old charged with attempted murder for shooting his parents with a .22 caliber pistol while they were sleeping because they took away his video games (see this story for more details).

A 14-year-old in Washington state has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting both of his parents in the head after they restricted him from electronic devices - including playing video games. On Monday, Grant County prosecutors asked the court that the 14-year-old, Nathon Brooks, be tried as an adult on attempted murder charges.

A new study from Brad Bushman of Ohio State University comes to the conclusion that some players of violent video games are led there out of a sense of frustration because they cannot engage in taboo behaviors in the real world such as stealing or cheating. Don't worry, the latest Bushman study will connect this to aggression, violent video games, and a negative effect of some kind... The temptation to steal or cheat is sometimes great — especially when the risk of being caught is low.

During a panel discussion on CBS' popular Sunday political show Face the Nation, former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole said that politicians rushing to blame video games for the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut are misguided because the evidence does not support their theory.

"It’s my experience that video games do not cause violence," O’Toole told CBS News."However, it is one of the risk variables when we do a threat assessment for the risk to act out violently."

Update: The New York Daily News claims that "Local media" are reporting that the teen was a "home schooled teen [who] wasn’t allowed to play video games, and that his family never let him watch violent shows on television." We're not sure of the validity of that part of the NYDN story because it's a third-hand account. Thanks Andrew Eisen for passing that bit along.

The Escapist reports that community members in the town of Southington, Connecticut have put a bulls eye on violent video games in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that saw 20 children and six adults murdered by a lone gunmen in mid-December.

University of Missouri Media Researcher Greg Perreault pens an enlightening article on violence and video games over at the Huffington Post, and while the entire article is definitely worth reading an excerpt from it really caught our attention. The excerpt is an exchange between Perreault and an unnamed journalist who contacted him looking to use him as an expert.

UK papers The Telegraph and the Daily Mail seem to be delighted with a new study from researchers at Brock University in Canada published in the journal Developmental Psychology. The study, which bases its findings on 1,492 adolescents surveyed from eight high schools in Ontario over a four year period. Researchers say that 51 percent of those surveyed were female, while 49 percent were male. Participants were ages 14- to 15-years-old at the start of the study and 17- or 18-years-old at its conclusion.

The New York Times reports that mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has been sentenced to 21 years in prison after an Oslo, Norway court ruled that he was sane when he killed 77 people. While the sentence for his shooting spree may seem short, the court has the ability to extend the sentence if he is considered a danger to society. Brevik's conviction is the harshest sentence permitted under Norwegian law.

A Health Canal report details the concern of a critic of the UK's new video game ratings system saying that it will fail because it doesn't deal with "irresponsible parenting." Yesterday the new PEGI ratings system went into effect in the UK. The new system includes penalties for retailers that sell age inappropriate games to children that do not meet the ratings guidelines.

Unfortunately CNN contributors aren't the only ones speculating on the motivations of 24-year-old Colorado mass-murder suspect James Holmes.

Last night 24-year-old James Holmes used four guns (a rifle, a shotgun and two handguns, according police), and tear gas to shoot, disorientate, and trap theater goers attending the opening of The Dark Knight Rising movie at a theater in Aurora, Colorado. The attack left 12 people dead and 38 59 injured. He was arrested outside the theater by police shortly thereafter.

Libertarian-leaning publication ReasonTV has produced an entertaining five minute video about how video games have gone from being murder simulators and the scourge of parents everywhere (accused of causing everything from obesity to the loss of empathy in children, for example) to useful tools in the medical and mental health fields and fine art at museums.

Three men have been arrested for their part in bombing a home in New Jersey, but the most bizarre thing about the case is a vague connection to a "video game community." What video game community? We do not know, nor does the New York CBS station that published the story or the victimized family who made the comment.

There's probably two lessons to be learned from the following story: don't take video games too seriously and don't engage your neighbor when they are agitated and engaged in an active argument (call the police instead).

This CNN article written by Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan to promote the new TED Book, "The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It," concludes that the Internet-using-male-gamer out there is addicted to pornography (sex) and video games (violence), and as a result isn't quite capable of achieving academic goals, real-world relationships, or taking any chances.

Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in July of last year has talked about "training with Call of Duty" and being "obsessed with World of Warcraft" in his 1000+ page manifesto and during his ongoing trial in Oslo, Norway this week. Naturally the media is eating the whole obsessed gamer angle up and reporting on it as fact, but mental health professionals like Seena Fazel are saying that there's a real problem with connecting the dots.

As you are probably aware, the trial of Anders Behring Breivik is in its third day in Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian man is charged with murdering 69 people at a summer camp and eight others using a bomb last year - a charge that he has pled not guilty to. Yesterday Breivik took the stand and the media pounced on what he said about gaming, along with what he wrote about it in his lengthy manifesto, along with his anti-Islamist views.

Birmingham resident Twana Bond-Jones has written a play called "Game Over" that deals with gaming and how it interferes with relationships. The first run of the play will take place April 21 at the Carver Theatre ( 1631 Fourth Ave. North) in Birmingham, Alabama at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm. Tickets cost $22 and are available at the box office and online.

Today, a jury has found Virginia Tech negligent in its response to the first shootings in the massacre committed at the school in 2007.

On April 16, 2007, at about 7:15 AM, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed two students in the Ambler Johnston Hall dorms.  About two hours later, Cho entered Norris Hall and opened fire on the students and faculty within.  He killed 30 and wounded 17 more before killing himself.

The university informed the students about the first shootings via email at 9:26 AM.

Common sense dictates that you can't scream "fire!" in a crowded movie theater and that doing so isn't considered protected speech. In the wake of the recent Ohio school shootings, making public jokes about shooting up your local high school also falls under the purview of widely held common sense doctrine.

The lawyer of a man accused of attempting to firebomb several synagogues in New Jersey is saying that his client suffers from mental illness and was unduly influenced by video games. The 19-year-old man, Anthony M. Graziano of Lodi, N.J., pled not guilty to first-degree attempted murder, bias intimidation and aggravated arson for two attacks on synagogues in the area. Graziano was in court today seeking a reduction in his $5 million bail. Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi cut the bail in half because Graziano is "destitute."

Oklahoma City police have arrested a 13-year-old boy in connection with the death of his nine-month-old baby sister after a questionable story of what happened to the child was told to the staff at a metro hospital. ER doctors became suspicious and called the local police. Officers were called to a metro hospital on August 16 after doctors noted that the baby's injuries were not consistent with an explanation given by the girl's parents.

The Georgian teen that murdered his great grandmother and injured his grandmother with a sword after being told to stop playing video games and do his chores, will be tried as an adult, according to a Reuters report. The 15-year-old's name was also released, along with the names of the victims in the incident. The 15-year-old has been identified as Gevin Prince, and the 77-year-old great-grandmother who died from multiple stab wounds has been identified as Mary Joan Gibbs.

A 14-year-old from Douglasville, Georgia is now in the custody of Douglas County Sheriff’s office after fatally stabbing his 77-year-old great grandmother and wounding his 55-year-old grandmother with a sword, according to multiple media reports. The incident occurred at around 5:00 p.m. on Monday at a home on Spring Ridge Drive in Douglasville. When the great grandmother told the teen to stop playing video games and do his chores, he apparently got a 3-foot sword and attacked the 77-year-old woman, who later died from multiple stab wounds.

A safety-escort tug that ran aground two years ago on Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef went off course because of a captain who was playing video games, according to a report from the U.S. Coast Guard. The tugboat ran aground at the very same site where the Exxon Valdez disaster occurred. The tugboat Pathfinder was part of a navigation safety system established in the aftermath of the 1989 oil spill and was designed to guide oil tankers through the sound after they fill up with crude at the trans-Alaska pipeline's maritime terminal in Valdez.

But the tug boat operated by the Crowley Marine Services ended up striking the same submerged reef that ripped open the hull of the Exxon Valdez supertanker, causing the worst tanker spill in U.S. waters.

By way of GameSpy comes this story of a man who decided to play Frogger in real life and lost. Toad in the road. Tire tracks across his back. Game Over. A 23-year-old Clemson, South Carolina man darted into traffic on Highway 123 at approximately 9 p.m. on Monday night and was promptly struck by an SUV. What looked like a jaywalking incident gone wrong turned out to be a real life game based on Konami's 1981 arcade classic.

Police say the man is now in a hospital bed recovering from his injuries. Police did not release the man’s name, or the friends who encouraged him to play the real life version of the game.

Source: WYFF4, by way of Break.com, by way of GameSpy

Citing their “potential harmful effects,” California State Senator, and anti-videogame law architect, Leland Yee is advising parents and anyone else buying gifts for kids this holiday season, to avoid purchasing violent videogames.

Yee urged purchasers to retain awareness of marketing and advertising that targets kids, check a game’s age ratings and content descriptors and to become familiar with the game. He warned that if any violent or sexual images appear on a game’s box, or in its title, “you can assume these themes are also in the game."

It was also suggested that shoppers avoid all first and third-person shooters entirely, as they “usually focus on gunning down hundreds of people,” and to avoid games “that reward the player with more points or new scenes for anti-social and violent behavior.”

A George Mason University teacher believes that society is blind to the permeation of videogame addiction in college students; a problem so widespread that she believes it is swelling the number of dropouts.

Demonstrating less tactfulness than Rush Limbaugh (yes, that was odd to write), Erica Jacobs kicks off her column by alluding that Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho’s addiction to Counter-Strike contributed to his actions, before recounting the tale a student of hers told about a roommate at school that became so addicted to World of Warcraft, he eventually dropped out.