Saturday, May 26, 2018

Video games spuriously blamed for school shooting violence

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to respond to the Santa Fe school shooting by cutting subsidies aimed at luring video game manufacturers to Texas on the grounds that they promote a culture of violence. “We have devalued life, whether it’s through abortion, whether it’s the breakup of families, through violent movies and particularly violent video games, which now outsell movies and music,” he told ABC News' George Stephonapoulos. Grits has a long record of respect for the Second Amendment,  but this seems like pure deflection: “We cannot sit back and say it’s the gun,” Patrick told ABC-News. The guns aren't to blame, but video games are? Huh.

Personally, Grits believes violent video games have contributed to crime reductions, and this article co-authored by a couple of Texas academics demonstrates why. (Bottom line: Kids spending hours honing video game skills don't have time to burglarize your house.) In 2012, the Washington Post reported that, "the United States has the highest firearm murder rate in the developed world. But other countries where video games are popular have much lower firearm-related murder rates."

RELATED: The Houston Chronicle published good commentary debunking this false meme about video games.

10 comments:

Phelps said...

Virtually every school shooter is raised by a single mother. The ones who have fathers (like the Santa Fe shooter) have long histories of psychological treatment.

When are we going to start looking at bastardy and psychological malpractice as sources?

Gritsforbreakfast said...

So to recap: your single-mother trope does NOT apply to the Santa Fe case but you want to focus on it anyway. And you think that, when people have long histories of psychological treatment, the issue is with those treatment providers and not the underlying mental illness. Got it.

Phelps said...

When I go to get treated for something and get worse, the doctor needs to have some answers.

As for the "single-mother trope", I would say that my sin there is no worse than people who call for gun control that wouldn't have prevented the shooting that prompted them to call for gun control.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Your trolling on this topic is WAY subpar, try to pick up your game. It's like you're not even trying.

Anonymous said...

All Phelps ever does IS trol.

Phelps said...

These are not arguments -- this is you surrendering the point.

Anonymous said...

Sex offenders undergo years of treatment and nobody believes it makes a difference, are you going to ask the next SOTP you see why not too?

Gritsforbreakfast said...

@Phelps, no one has surrendered anything. You blame doctors for illness and have admitted your theories don't fit the case facts. Once we clarified that, I don't see much more to debate.

Phelps said...

And now you are trying to conflate my blaming doctors for making the illness worse (which is a fair thing to blame) and conflating that with the other shootings, where the pattern (both of them) fit.

Once you attempted to confuse those, you figured you had taken your best shot.

Anonymous said...

Phelps, there is no way of proving the treatments made the illnesses "worse" though I'd like to see you try with logic and reason, not homespun conspiracy theories that lack evidence. As a taxpayer, I'd be all for spending more on mental health issues in general as well as de-stigmatizing people in need getting help, the amount of bang for the buck is almost certainly going to beat most current expenses on dealing with the mentally ill through the criminal justice system or secondary costs.