gun control

[b00bie]

The military has actually found that those who play first person shooters are better suited for controlling UAVs (I shy away from the term piloting because the UAV flies itself and you just direct it where to go from a remote location).

This is due to their ability to perceive vast amounts of information from a screen and quickly identify points of interest in real time... a skillset improved from playing first person shooters.

Absolutely, and I believed they've developed games for that specific purpose as well.

The issue at hand here is how it related to marksmanship and gun violence by proxy.

Which seems far fetched at best, IMO.

[Doc Shakalou]

I'm not a doctor I just play one on RCF, but personally I consider anyone that goes on a shooting spree insane. You said video games aren't a factor. I gave you quotes from the guy who killed more people than anyone I've ever heard of in a shooting spree. He said it was a factor, that he used it to train and that it was a simulator for him. I'm sorry, but his own actual statement(the guy that actually murdered the 92 people) is more important than you repeating it wasn't a factor and that it is not a simulator...whether he's insane or not.

Again, i'm not for banning violent video games, movies or any of that. But to act like they can't be a factor, however small, in some of these cases is ridiculous. You are lying to yourself.

Just because a crazy guy said he used it to train doesn't mean he actually got anything out of it. The same guy said he played World of Warcraft to get away from consumerism. Well the game has a highly developed in game economy full of consumerism.

[RappSoda]

Absolutely, and I believed they've developed games for that specific purpose as well.

The issue at hand here is how it related to marksmanship and gun violence by proxy.

Which seems far fetched at best, IMO.

Just because a crazy guy said he used it to train doesn't mean he actually got anything out of it. The same guy said he played World of Warcraft to get away from consumerism. Well the game has a highly developed in game economy full of consumerism.

I don't think that whether or not it actually helped is an issue here. I think that the perception that it helped the guy plan his attack clearly tells me that the desire to kill people was exacerbated by his playing the video game. What playing the game actually does, IMO, is moot.

[Doc Shakalou]

I don't think that whether or not it actually helped is an issue here. I think that the perception that it helped the guy plan his attack clearly tells me that the desire to kill people was exacerbated by his playing the video game. What playing the game actually does, IMO, is moot.

That's not how it reads at all. He said he used the game to train for his attack. To me that sounds like he decided what he wanted to do and then played games to prepare for it.

It's not at all surprising to me that a guy who wanted to (and eventually did) go on a shooting spree would be drawn to a game like CoD. That doesn't mean that it exacerbated or caused the problem though.

[ArchieBunker7]

This really isn't near as complicated as people want to make it out to be. People have used the "devil's tools" for years now to excuse/rationalize socially unacceptable actions. About a decade or so ago, some idiot killed his mother with a barbell and blamed it on a Metallica song "Ronnie", saying the song spoke to him and told him to do it. The guitarist from Panterra, Darryl "dimebag" Abbot was shot on stage by one of his biggest fans, a former marine. He worshipped the band but came to think they stole his music. The "Son of Sam" murders were sparked by some loon saying his neighbor's dog was possessed by the devil and commanded him to do it. A school teacher in Arizona was fatally stabbed because he was living with Satan and was an alien. Movies such as Natural Born Killers have been used to explain killing sprees and a scene from The Basketball Diairies was used as reasoning behind the Littleton school shooting. A token-booth clerk was incinerated right after Money Train premiered. There's a ton more examples of movies being used as fronts for murder(in all forms, and most not having one thing to do with assault rifles).

So far, we have music, movies, the video game ref Max gave, dogs, and God. There are multiple examples of each of these. I only chose to list a few, as going too far was starting to turn my stomach. The point is, we can ban all these things and use these examples I gave as justification. And then what? Deranged/ill people will still find "reasons" to justify what they have done. Some, hell most of them, will actually believe it, too. It's also readily apparent that banning assault rifles would have done little to deter most of these murders, and a slew of others like them.

As RonG and I were saying yesterday, I really don't have issue with banning mega clips(and I own a few myself). Hopefully, over time, that will help curb the mass murders. However, they will still happen. There will always be other means. And let's not forget, many of these mass murderers are highly intelligent. They will come up with other methods of carrying out their burning desire for bloodshed.

I guess I'm just saying we need to make sure we draw the line. We can't put the cart ahead of the horse. There will always be mentally unstable people(and that covers a very broad range of issues that would cause a person to carry out such horrific acts). They will always find a means to their end, assault rifles or not.

[Jack Brickman]

You're actually wrong.

The military has found that those who play first person shooters are better suited for controlling UAVs (I shy away from the term piloting because the UAV flies itself and you just direct it where to go from a remote location).

This is due to their ability to perceive vast amounts of information from a screen and quickly identify points of interest in real time... a skillset improved from playing first person shooters.

I would think other types of games would be far better at getting you to perceive vast amounts of data from a screen than first person shooters. Strategy games, for example.

[cafemerald]

I would think other types of games would be far better at getting you to perceive vast amounts of data from a screen than first person shooters. Strategy games, for example.

What strategy games are from a first person perspective?

First person shooters emulate the first person guiding of aUAV. UAVs cant teleport across a map like Starcraft...

[Notorious]

[Jack Brickman]

What strategy games are from a first person perspective?

First person shooters emulate the first person guiding of aUAV. UAVs cant teleport across a map like Starcraft...

Well my point was more that complex games like strategy titles can help you become better at multi-tasking and absorbing large amounts of data. First-person shooters probably can to, but to a much lesser extent because they're naturally much less complex, especially the more mainstream titles like Call of Duty.

[Kiddo]

Wow, way to make up a lie you moron. This guy has no business being in any leadership role of our country.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...re-questioned/


Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s claim that he heard the gunshots of a 2006 school massacre while playing golf is raising questions about his veracity or his memory.

Mr. Biden told a meeting of mayors in Washington Thursday that he was about a quarter-mile away from an Amish schoolhouse on Oct. 2, 2006, when a gunman shot and killed five students and wounded five others.

“I happened to be literally — probably, it turned out, to be a quarter of a mile [away] at an outing when I heard gunshots in the woods,” Mr. Biden recounted. “We didn’t know … we thought they were hunters.”

But a search of maps of the area in Lancaster County, Pa., shows the nearest golf course to the site of the shooting, Moccasin Run Golf Club, is about five miles away. Rodney King, the golf pro at Moccasin Run, said Friday he was working at the course on the day of the shooting and never saw Mr. Biden, who was then a U.S. senator.

“There’s a lot of things here that I find hard to believe,” Mr. King said. “I looked in my database, and he [Mr. Biden] is not in my database.”

Even if Mr. Biden had played at the course that day, Mr. King said, “It’s very far-fetched that he would have heard it.”

“I know he didn’t hear those gunshots,” Mr. King said. “They were inside the school. Even if they were outside, he wouldn’t have heard them.”

A spokeswoman for the vice president did not return a request seeking comment Friday. Mr. Biden told the story as he was describing for the mayors’ group the Obama administration’s efforts to enact new gun-control laws.

Another golf course in the region, the Lancaster Country Club, is about 10 miles away from the site of the shooting. Mr. King said it’s more likely that a group of golfers including a senator would play there.

“I would be honored to have Joe Biden play here because he’s a public figure,” he said. “But I put myself in his shoes — Moccasin Run Golf Club would not be the golf course I would go to if I’m going on a golf trip. We are a public facility.”

Mr. Biden said after the shooting, he saw helicopters flying to the scene. Medical helicopters were used to transport victims on that day.

Mr. King said there is a sportsman’s club about a mile from his golf course, and golfers can hear the shots from time to time during target practice. The schoolhouse has since been razed.

While running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007, Mr. Biden said in a debate that he had been “shot at” during a trip to Iraq. Pressed by reporters, he eventually described three incidents on two separate Iraq trips in which he felt that he was shot at or might have been shot at.

He ended up revising his description by saying: “I was near where a shot landed.”

Aides later said that on one occasion Mr. Biden heard mortars being fired a few hundreds yards away from the building where he was staying in the Green Zone, and on another occasion a bullet was fired at a helicopter in which he was flying.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2IQpk44Jy
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

[Cratylus]

i) 90 million people in the United States play first person shooter video games.
ii) 9 of them have gone on rampages and killed multiple people.

ERGO

Video games are a major part of the gun problem in the United States.


Sounds reasonable to me.

[Doc Shakalou]

i) 90 million people in the United States play first person shooter video games.
ii) 9 of them have gone on rampages and killed multiple people.

ERGO

Video games are a major part of the gun problem in the United States.


Sounds reasonable to me.

There are a lot of studies out there that show violent video games lead to children becoming more aggressive. That said, I don't care how aggressive a video game makes you, you don't go on a shooting spree unless you are a terrorist or suffer some form of mental illness.

[Jack Brickman]

There are a lot of studies out there that show violent video games lead to children becoming more aggressive. That said, I don't care how aggressive a video game makes you, you don't go on a shooting spree unless you are a terrorist or suffer some form of mental illness.

Yup, but they are a convenient scapegoat. Older generations always like to blame things they don't understand for all the problems of the current times. I mentioned this earlier, but it's why bands like Black Sabbath got blamed for shit in the seventies, Marilyn Manson got blamed for shit in the late nineties and early thousands, and why video games get blamed for everything now. The people blaming them have never played them, just like they'd never listened to Marilyn Manson or Black Sabbath. The people who have played games like Call of Duty and Doom and listened to bands like Black Sabbath know that they're harmless and, unless you're crazy, they aren't going to speak to you and tell you to do things that you wouldn't do otherwise.

[Notorious]

i) 90 million people in the United States play first person shooter video games.
ii) 9 of them have gone on rampages and killed multiple people.

ERGO

Video games are a major part of the gun problem in the United States.


Sounds reasonable to me.

103 million people in the United States own guns.
ii) 9 of them have gone on rampages and killed multiple people.

ERGO

Guns are a major problem in the United States.


Sounds reasonable to me.

[Doc Shakalou]

103 million people in the United States own guns.
ii) 9 of them have gone on rampages and killed multiple people.

ERGO

Guns are a major problem in the United States.


Sounds reasonable to me.

Yeah, because mass murders are the only kind of gun violence.