Should I be scared of Sandy?
Posted on Friday, Mar 4, 2005 at 12:00 AM in Games
I'd hate to call this pack of fallacies an informed interview, since that presupposes a reasonable grasp and analysis of facts, but there are plenty of grandstanding quotes from a lawyer who like to misdirect the blame for violence onto video games. It's the same paranoid, "blame the culture" crap that promised we'd have packs of devil-worshipping, human-sacrificing, suicidal people running around today because they played Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's. According to this nutcase, I should fear for my life because my friend Sandy plays Grand Theft Auto.
How lovely that GTA weds sex and violence in the same game. We are training a generation of teens to combine sex with violence, just what America needs.
He then goes on to use this statistical misdirection:
Question: According to the Center for Child Death Review, 1,242 kids were murdered with guns and 174 children died from accidental firearm-related injuries in 2000. Aside from stories that get covered in the news [like Columbine], there are few, if any, actual statistics that show how many children's deaths are directly linked to video games. Do the facts speak for themselves? Or is it just that nobody is really keeping tabs?
A: The federal government found that in the school year 2003, there were 48 school killings. The year before that there were 16, and the year before that 17. Something is going on. I submit that the video game generation is coming of age.
Clearly it also correlates with George W. Bush's presidency and his "No child-left-behind" reforms. Shouldn't someone be looking into that? Won't anyone think of the children!?
Comments
Patty says
You know seriously if I could model my life after a video game I'd pick one where I'd know all the cheats and have all the money -- like The Sims!
Sandy says
We all should.