Indeed. One of the major criticisms of the mental health gun bill in New York is that it will discourage people from seeking treatment out of fear of a state-mandated intervention. It's only compounding the stigma of mental illness, which hurts that entire field and the country as well. But tackling the mental health system is HARD, and it's a lot easier to tackle easier, more direct issues rather than the root cause. Making a lot of attacks on the periphery is short-sighted and I believe doomed to failure.


(Interestingly enough, the most common violent media connecting mass killers is actually violent LITERATURE. So like, we should totally burn violent books or something, wouldn't that be cool?)

There's already been many, many studies done on this subject. (See my first post.) The only reason more studies are being done is because they haven't gotten the answer they wanted yet.

Yup, pretty much all these shootings can be directly chaulked up to mental illness...but, as is the politicians way, let's just blame everything else, and fund a bunch of studies; and in the meantime, let's also work on taking more constutional rights away as well :-/

I agree. Information is always good, provided it's factual. On the other hand, I don't think that this is anywhere near the best response to the situation, nor the best use of the money that will be going toward it.

+1, the squirrel speaks truth

I know the perfect scapegoat they can target, how about we blame the guy who actually did the shooting instead of an inanimate object? When was the last time an inanimate object alone actually killed someone without someone else manipulating it?

On the other hand, I think my Katamari Damacy game is trying to kill me. It is laying on my shelf looking at me menacingly plotting evil with Epic Mickey.

edit: wtf, the links are major screwy again when quoting, I fixed them hopefully

Because young minds are impressional..Mature games are for Mature players. My girlfriends 9-year old son accidentally got the crap scared outta him one early evening when his older brother was watching Predator 2 and someone was disemboweled on screen..it really shook him up. To me, it's a no brainer. They are rated "M" for a reason

A related question to the more observant: Have people been talking about focusing on the mental health angle after other shootings, or is this the first one where everyone has started to realize that? I'm not sure I've paid close attention before.
I'd be inclined to agree. I don't think younger children should be exposed to "adult content" until they're mature enough to be able to understand it in an adult way (although I don't have any real studies or statistics to back that up).

While he's at it, maybe he can study the influence of Fox News on idiot brains and censor them.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/20/mosque-arsonist-tells-court-i-only-know-what-i-hear-on-fox-news/

I think it would be more appropriate for him to make them wear a warning label, as well as the rest of the lamestream media

...because pixel guns are more dangerous than real guns?

I think he's saying that the game industry needs to make games that teach people to read.

Media effects us all a HELL of a lot. It only makes sense to continue to study whether those effects are violence inducing. I don't think they are, but nothing wrong with study.

Don't blindly defend your hobby against knowledge.

Socialist call himself "liberal" drop his mask.

Tens of millions of kids play violent videogames every year and a few decides to become mass murders. Its not the games, but the mental illness of the kid. If they ban violent videogames, then next will be horror movies, horror books or heavy metal music, etc. There will always be mentally ill people doing evil things, society cant stop it by banning things.

The case for movie violence would also have to be made. And that would get the ire of the public. Thereby involving more people in this gun violence "debate". So is a good tactic to use, for protesting against video game censorship. Make them add movies to their list of censored materials. That will get people off their couches to protest.