Man Shoots, Kills Seven Year-Old Girl in San Andreas Row

Well, it seems like I've missed a heated debate here.

For what it's worth, I don't see why the people of US need to keep arms. Guns are dangerous weapons and, with respect, accidents and murders will happen if guns are readily available.

The argument with videogames is the same as the argument with film. The person identifies with the protagonist and attempts to incorporate aspects into their own life as well as becoming desensitised to violence. Violence becomes normal and acceptable. This assumes that people are easily influenced by the media they consume.

My personal feeling is that if people below 18 do play GTA it is possible it could influence them. Children do associate with the people in films and probably games, and I can see this affecting them to commit a violent act. However, I cannot see Joe average being so influenced by videogame he goes out and kills. It may feed his hunger for more violent games, but most are able to separate reality and fantasy.

What is more unacceptable able in my eyes, is that if mentally unstable people are driven to killing my a form of mass-media they are able to easily obtain guns to do it.

In a world where kid's Superman costumes come with a warning that they do not enable the wearer to fly, I think we have to worry about a small percentage of the population being influenced by the media they consume.

There will always be people who are, for one reason or another, slightly unbalanced. They may go on a killing rampage if they play violet video games, they may believe they can fly after seeing Superman the movie, they may believe they can cast magic spells after seeing Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Point is, they are "nutters" and will always be present in society.

There are also members of society who are very impressionable. Not all of these people are children, but many will need to be treat as such. In these cases (children and child-like) it is up to the parents, carers and other supervisors to stop these people from being affected by the media they consume. Film, DVD and game ratings are mainly there as a guide to the supervisors. Unsupervised, under-age media consumption is a bad thing in most cases, children can be traumatised or desensatised by what they see.

I think it is high time that the blaim for under-age media cunsumption is aimed at the parents or supervisors who are responsible for the children.

We don't see campaigns to ban violent or lewd books anymore, we see few campaigns to ban violent or lewd movies, TV and home cinema slightly more so, but mainly slight complaints about parts of what has been shown.

However games are somehow seen as an evil and corrupting force against morality, one that can only be tamed by laws and regulations. This is, to put it mildly, b******s.

With an appropriately rated trailer, it's possible to advertise an 18-rated film to the audience of a 12A-rated film. Why is advertising an 18-rated game in a games magazine such a "crime"?

There seems to be a notion in the population at large that "games are for kids", but that's as daft as saying "animation is for kids" then complaining about half of the Anime out there is unsuitable for kids. It's a classic "straw man" argument.

Is this just the "new medium" syndrome, whereby the newest mass-market medium is vilified for degrading the morals of the population? It has happened to books, film, comics, TV and home video after all. Or is it just a huge perception chasm that needs to be bridged?

If it's a case of the latter, then surely we, as responsible members of society, should act. If we see a mother about to buy an 18-rated game for her obviously under-age son or daughter, shouldn't we point this out to her? Shouldn't we try to educate friends and relatives on the rating systems applied to games?

Wow, that turned into a bit of a rant. Anyway, hope I've sparked some ideas out there. I'll shut up for now.

http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm

670,000 people using guns for self defense.

Adam, what you forget is that gun control gives criminals an upper hand, they aren't going to turn in their gun, thus it would be a good idea for you to have some form of protection (a gun!)

Politicians think it is ia noble idea to ban guns, but they don't think of the repercussions.

A gun is a tool that can be used for good or evil, don't blame the guns, blame the person who committed the crime.


(Yes I know that the federal gov't is restricted of using gun control, and the states can use gun control, for example, DC nearly banned all types of guns, and then murders skyrocketed)

The age rating system needs to be more heavily policed - and this will only happen if the system is brought to the public's attention. Perhaps the BBFC need to run some TV commercials, to highlight how important it is for parents to monitor what games their kids play. Because recent opinion states they're indifferent at present.

Adult themed games (e.g. gang warfare, contract killing, prostitution etc) have only become consistant top-sellers in the last 5 years. The previous big-selling "satan spawn" (Doom, RE) were hardly in the same league as GTA:SA.

Now the publishers know that "crime simulators" are virtually guarenteed hits, we'll be seeing a lot more of them. And so the importance of sticking to the ratings will become even more imortant.

Also, if the rating system for games gets more exposure, and it's importance engraved into society, maybe the printed publications will be divided? Maybe a sort of "Smash Hits" type for kids and "The Source" for adults?

It's probably all too late, though.

Welcome to Detroit! (circa Robocop)

During the cold war NATO and the Warsaw Pact played this game with nukes, it was called MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. These days there are very few nukes in the world. I know I feel a lot safer. Don't you worry that you might get caught in a gang warfare version of the Cuban missile crisis?


Less profit for their friends at Smith & Wesson? :-)

OK, cheap shot, but really, we have quite tight gun control here in the UK and we don't seem to have as much gun crime as the US does.

Just checked on the Internet (so this must be true)

United States
Murders with firearms (1999) 8,259
Population (2005) 295,734,134

United Kingdom
Murders with firearms (1999) 62
Population (2005) 60,441,457

Sorry the years don't match, best I could find on short notice. OK, so the US has 4.89 time as many people than the UK and 133.2 times as many murders with firearms.

Another blow for gun control, eh? :-)

Edit - I forgot the sources!!
Firearm Murder Figures
Population figures from CIA World Factbook


A gun is merely a tool for aiming a rapidly moving piece of lead it is true. However the true intent of guns, and the reason they were designed in the first place, is to kill people. Not wound, not defend, kill.


It's down to you to assign the labels of "good" and "evil" to that act.

I'll keep this bit short, since you aren't worth more space or attention. Bottom Line, trying to come off as riding on some moral high horse, protecting childrens everywhere from having their moral compasses permenantly skewed by too much violence, then saying that you're really only opposed to GUNS?

Like I said you're a hypocrite, probably a dilettante and poseur to boot. Its not that I can't respect people with opinions similar to your own, but original thought and true belief and passion are more convincing than whatever lukewarm feelings you have for the opinon you're spouting, apparently having read them somwhere...[/reply]

As to the Second Amendment, if you care about what the framers intended, read on, otherwise don't bother... First off, the bit about the militia, it was their intent to have weapons (and more importantly weapons training) widely dispersed among the population, the fact that we do not currently have a militia isn't relevant, the FACT that we someday might need one is becoming moreso. (Remember, the US is a much "smaller" country now thanks to communications and transporation technology, and we were facing many potential threats from all directions)

Also, remember that the Constitution was written in the wake of a successful armed rebellion, and there was no guarantee that the grand experiment wouldn't degenerate into some sort of tyranny or another, the second amendment was the framers way of protecting against the worst, by making arms freely availible to any future patriots.

So banning guns is counter to the vision of the founding fathers of our country, not that gun control advocates are dead wrong, or fail to have any valid points...

Finally, video games are both art form and valid social commentary, thus, protected speech, and should be free from government censorship.

I don't think I'd even want a gun for self defence.

Your argument puts the American people in a circle of paranoia. Because guns aren't available in the UK people aren't worried about criminals with guns.

By having guns readily available, don't you just think the government are making it easy for criminals to equip themselves?

Oh! You PROMISED. But still you couldn't resist dribbling and ranting on.

Look, we seem to have an impasse. I think guns are bad, and that people who support free access to guns are bad.

You support free access to guns.

Therefore, you are bad and your opinion doesn't count ;-)




And you made all your opinions up, completely indepepndently, and divorced from any social or intellectual context. Hmmmm, I intended that as parody, but now I re-read it, it looks frighteneningly feasible.




Agreed, they should be free of government censorship.

But that does not free the producers of such works from their moral responsibilities. Even well adjusted people are having their moral outlook recalibrated by the constant bombardment of violent images in news and culture. There was a time when a murder was seen as an abomination... now it is seen as an inevitable consequence of modern life. The glorification of murder in (mainly) movies, and games does not put them into a context of loss and emotional desolation that one feels when one loses a loved one, especially if the loss is an unnecessary and senseless one. Most young people have not experienced such loss, and thus cannot see the tragedy of these killings...

Criminals will have guns no matter what, CRIMINALS AREN'T LAW ABIDING CITIZENS, what gun control does is create a balance of power where criminals have the upper hand.

"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will carry guns."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm

Isn't that nice, gun control does not decrease crime rate, but actually makes it go up, let the statistics speak for themselves.

Not really, you are comparing two different countries that will have two different crime rates, why not give accurate statistics concerning gun control, for example, in the UK after they implemented a virtual ban on all firearms crimes and murders went up!!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/watson/watson12.html





Guns can be used to defend a person and not just kill.
If it were the case then, why don't we have 670,000 criminals dead?
That's the # of people who have had the help of a firearm when defending themselves against an attacker/criminal? (http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm)

hmmm????

More info:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=69

OK then let's compare gun crime against total crime for both countries.

Total Crimes
United States 23,677,800 (1999)
United Kingdom 5,170,831 (2000)
Source
Apologies about the mismatching dates again, however since our crime rate usually rises, I'm sure you'll let me off on this one.

The US has 4.58 times as many crimes in total as the UK based on those figures, fairly close to the ratio of populations, don't you think? The murders with firearms figures still look bad when we compare them against the total crime rate.


It's true that the gun crime figures in the UK rose after the gun control clampdown in 1997, but it's also true that in 1998/99 the way crime figures were counted changed and showed a marked increase. (see here) so the increase is mostly due to reporting methodology changes.

Also worth noting is that "crimes in which a handgun was reported" could easily cover illegal possession or use of replica firearms. Since most firearm possession was illegal after the amnesty, of course crime rates are going to go up.


Only by intimidation. Nukes were also used for defence through intimidation, see my comments above about MAD. Swords can be used to defend people, should we all carry those again? How about baseball bats, purely for defence, of course.

Body armour is designed to defend people, guns are designed to kill people. If defence is your aim, why not buy a kevlar vest and learn to run really fast?


Because not everybody is a good shot? Because most criminals who were wounded got medical attention and survived?

From the page you link to above

So shouldn't you have 670 dead criminals and 6,700 wounded criminals?

As I said above intimidate or try to kill, there is no other alternative with a gun. If you are going to try and intimidate, you will eventually have to shoot. If you hit, you will stand a chance of killing. If you miss, you stand a chance of killing an innocent bystander.



From that page

Please! Dial down the rhetoric to levels that stop your eyes from bulging! Quoting these sorts of figures does nothing to help your case.

By the way you have fulfilled Godwin's law by proxy!

You're not getting what I am saying... give me the UK crime rate before gun control and then after gun control...mmmkay!!!



Thanks for explaining away, its the methodology, not that gun control actually increases crimes



Or how about, they didn't fire the gun, they used it as a deterrent, I love liberal logic! lol!


I don't get what you are trying to say



So, we should just ban guns altogether???



It just shows you, that we both agree on one thing:
GUN CONTROL WORKS!



Did I compare you to Hitler? no!!!

You don't get my point, gun control takes the citizen's rights away to defend themselves and gives criminals the upper hand.

I have abbreviated this post and replied only to the salient points as I see them, since everybody who is still interested can read our points of view above.





OK, try this site where the reporting change is explained. The site quotes a UK government report that claims a 5% reduction in "violence against the person" over the 2001/02 reporting period.


I believe I mentioned intimidation, which would be a form of deterrent. I believe I also pointed out the cold war MAD scheme and my thoughts on it.


I was pointing out that your example figure for dead criminals was slightly inflated according to the source you were quoting. You were using the figure as a refutation by extremes argument, but I was showing that your extreme was a bit too extreme and damaged your argument slightly.


By George, I think he's got it!


I thought your whole argument was that it doesn't work? Or are you now saying that it works to the advantage of a dictator? Check out the bottom of the page I linked to above, many private individuals had a gun in Saddam Hussain's Iraq and gun controls were brought in to pre-WW2 Germany in order to disarm Hitler, not the Jews.


No, you linked to a site (hence my by proxy comment) that compared the gun laws in the UK to those in Nazi Germany. Only a comparison to the Nazis must be made to invoke Godwin's law, not a comparison to one of the posters.

Here I was trying to inject a little levity into this, admittedly very interesting, discussion and you took it as an insult. Please believe me when I say that I respect your right to your opinions, I just disagree with them. That doesn't mean we can't take a civilised approach to our discussion of our different points of view.


You don't get my point, by having more guns in circulation, it's more likely that the criminals will get guns in the first place. Without controls on ammunition a single gun can be used for years, control access to that ammunition and that gun can only be used until the owner's supplies run out.

After gun and ammunition controls are enacted the only way to get more is by illegal means, this is a reduction in supply. When guns and ammunition are legal to purchase then the criminals, as well as the non-criminals, have much easier access. The chances of someone being killed by a gun go up in proportion to ease of access.

The original intent of the second amendment (which started this discussion, if you remember) was to allow the people to throw off an unwanted federal government if such a move was deemed necessary. This amendment was ratified on 15-Dec-1791. However it didn't help the Southern states throw off the then unwanted federal government in 1861-1865.

jsm30625, I am quite enjoying this discussion, it has been the catalyst to me finding out quite a bit of information regarding the US Constitution and other matters around it. Please don't take my difference of opinion as a personal attack. You have raised some interesting points in your argument, which I have investigated and, I hope, countered with points of my own. Even if in the end we agree to disagree on this matter, I hope we have both learned something, I know I have.

I look forward to your reply.

Right. My 2-cents (and not based on stats at all, just my paradoxical "common sense"):

Criminals need to feel they have the upper-hand over their victims, and part of this reassurance is weaponary.

So, in America a home owner might well have a handgun; therefore a burgler will also need a handgun, or even shotgun, in order to be on level pegging.

In the UK, the homeowner will have nothing but his/her fists, or maybe a golf club, so the burgler doens't need anything more than a club of some sort.

If a burgler is detected, he (yes. sexist. whatever) will get the Fight or Flight syndrome. Presuming neither are psychopathic, neither want a confrontation, but it'll sometimes happen.

Should this situation arise, someone will end up worse off. But which would you prefer; a broken nose or gun-shot wound?

I've had a broken nose... and it hurts.

But I'd take it over someone popping a cap in my ass any day of the week.

Guns are bad, mmmm-kay?