Editor:When was the last time anyone drove around aimlessly stealing other cars, picking up prostitutes and attacking strangers Ben Baily’s “Virtual violence still wrong,” ? It might be easy to describe a video game that an 8-year-old is playing, be disgusted with the imagery of a young mind being corrupted and simply blame the video game. But if you blame the media for the output of such material without first looking at the parents who allow these games to enter their homes, then the whole argument about getting rid of violent video games goes out the window.
Two years ago, I worked with violent offenders. Not a single one of them ever played a violent video game unless you count an Italian guy named Mario jumping on someone’s head as violent. Every violent person I’ve known personally has never played a violent game but had “real” violence happen to them in their past. In fact, every person can agree-they’ve seen more grown men imitating some fantasy movie and/or game than they’ve seen children and men combined pretending to be criminals. Blaming video games for influencing people to be violent makes about as much sense as blaming higher education for turning young minds into liberals. In the end, it comes down to parents to prepare their children on how to handle the different views and opinions they’ll come across in life. If you want to blame video games, it’s just a cop-out for parents who are powerless to do anything responsible.
Among many of my friends and past friends from high school, none of us have done anything violent.
I love “Grand Theft Auto,” first-person shooter and real-time strategy games. But I never want to run someone over, take their wallet, punch a prostitute in the gut or run around with a gun and shoot people in the face, or even click on people from a birds-eye view and have them do things. Neither do my friends or any of the countless video game nerds I’ve ever played with.
You can take almost anything, put it in the hands of someone irrational and he or she can corrupt it and use it in some harmful way. In the end, blame the parents, not the media.
Virtual violence is virtually awesome.
Michael WhitakerSophomore, Mathematics