Basically mudslinging their competition and taking the focus off their own role in sensationalizing these incidents and helping to create copycat killers who crave the limelight they give.

Basically Paradox games are designed to **** up history but realistically, according to my Hearts of Iron Ireland is now fascist and invaded Northern Ireland during WW2.
I can't find any Irish school shooting but there was one in the U.K (thought they'd be more in U.K)

I knew there was a difference but just didn't know there was that much between amount of school shootings in America and Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
The amount for one decade in US is the same as the total amount in Europe...

Pardon me for asking a silly question, I mean no disrespect, but are you insinuating that I 'made up' the Revolutionary War and the subsequent "Articles of Confederation"?

No I meant changing it nowadays or recently, do it in Paradox games, I don't doubt your knowledge of US history especially since I know little of American history.
Edit: Plus it reminded me of a mod about alternative history where the 13 colonies broke up and 100 years later you're competing with them for North America, it's pretty fun actually.

Sorry. I seriously need to lighten up. I get a little touchy about this stuff, if for no other reason than all the money and time I spent at college. If I was to find out I was wrong about it all I'd be a little pissed! :P

While I've never heard of Paradox I do read books about similar things; recently I saw a book about what would have happened had Napolean made a very slight change to his flanks during Waterloo and what the world would be like now because of it.

It's a company that makes "hardcore" strategy games among other things, you should try them though they're difficult to learn, they are some of the realistic strategy game out there. They made Crudader Kings 2 for example if you've heard of that.

In Finland (where there has been a couple of school shootings too) video games don't seem to get much of blame either, at least I don't recall so.

Usually the blame partly goes that guns are too easily available and should not be granted to people with mental problems, ie. anyone who applies for a gun permit should first be ok'ed by a doctor (but the doctors understandably don't want such a responsibility on their shoulders, in case some gun owner loses it anyway), and some members of the parliament always have some less useful suggestions like that homes should not have guns at all, but they should stay in some central places e.g. the shooting ranges' or hunting society's premises (in Finland we don't have such a concept as owning a gun for self-defence or in order to oust the decision-makers; you can get a gun either for hunting, or for sports).

Then part of the blame also goes to what could have been done to prevent someone lose his mental health so much that he goes to mass murder others. Ie. was he missing some (psychological) help from the society, should more money be put to mental health care in schools etc. This second one is surprisingly something that seems to be missing from the US school shooting discussions?

We don't have guns for self-defense either but as well as guns for sport and hunting, people are legally allowed own guns for vermin control or basically farmers.

That's not quite correct. Unless a game is literally banned, it can still be sold in Germany. Publishers just don't bother to actually release the uncensored version because those games can only be sold to adults and may not be advertised or displayed publicly which heavily influences sales figures.

But at the end of the day even banned games are still legal to own and play in Germany. At worst (and we're really talking worst case scenario) German retailers are not allowed to sell banned games. But it's still perfectly legal for you to buy and import them via international retailers like Amazon UK/US for example. You'd have to wander into child pornography territory to actually make import/possession of a game illegal.

In fact virtually every violent game can legally be bought and played in its uncensored version, provided you are old enough (read: know how to order via the internet) and have no assclowns like THQ/Valve in the case of Saints Row - The Third preventing you from activating you're (legal!) international version.

That is true. Sadly, there are people who read pravda.ru and think that it is a good source for unbiased news.

Nope, a game needs to have a USK rating in order to be sold openly in Germany. "Banning" (putting it on the Index) is actually worse than that. Media on Liste A can apparently still be sold to an adult who specifically requests them but distributing media that are on Liste B is illegal, no matter whether you do it commercially or non-commercially. And while owning games from either list isn't illegal at least the Liste B media can be confiscated by the police or the Grenzschutz. For example if I carried a Liste B game from Poland to Germany the Grenzschutz could take it away from me but I won't have to pay a fine (that's how two people who deal with this topic professionally explained it at conferences).

"Guns don't kill people, videogames do"

I haven't seen or heard of a case where someone tried to clobber another guy to death with a videogame. Even trying to slit his / her throat with a CD sounds rather difficult, at least as long as it isn't broken to pieces.

Even if videogames affect someone so much, that he's feeling the need to kill someone else, he'd probably still get a gun to do the job.
I fail to see what's so difficult to understand about that.

The only thing news sites never lie about is the weather besides like you said I go here for my news

http://www.politifact.com/

Well, then those two people are wrong. Plain and simple. And your explanation isn't completely correct either.

- Media without a USK rating are treated like Liste A media. They can be sold to adults as long as they're not displayed or advertised where minors can see them. Video rental stores will usually have them in stock because they have areas inaccessible to minors, and even any old electronics retailer is allowed to sell them to you although they will have to roder them in most cases due to the lack of a closed off area. Some might not sell them as part of the store policy, however.

- Now, Liste B media may not be
1. distributed,
2. exhbited, made available,
3. made available to minors, or
4. kept in stock, produced, sold, advertised or be ex-/imported with the intent to to do any of the things mentioned in 1.-3. (I'm quoting the relevant legal article here). The important part herte is to do any of the things mentioned in 1.-3., this is the qualifier for everything under 4.: It's only illegal to import if you intend to sell, lend, make it available to others, etc. This means that Liste B media cannot legally be taken away from you, if you're importing them for private use, be it personally or via mail.

It particularly cannot be taken away from you by the Grenzschutz, because it's not their jurisdiction in the first place, that would be German customs (where an uncle of mine works, so I'm not talking out of my ass here).