Jack Thompson must've told them everything.  They need to stop talking about how video games supposedly train people to kill others.  Just stop it!

I'd like to apologize for some of the comments made by Wayne LaPierre during the recent NRA press conference. While I agree with most of what was said, I most definitely did not agree with the assertion that violence in games was a contributing factor to the atrocity committed at Sandy Hook and in similar incidents. Literally my earliest memories are of playing Road Rash with my Dad on our Sega Genesis and thumbing through an issue of Guns & Ammo, and I'm very weary of one or the other of my hobbies (and the rights associated with them) being used as a scapegoat for one interest or another, it's especially painful now that one is beating up on the other. I'll be writing my regional NRA staffers to tell them that I was displeased by the position the NRA has taken, and I encourage others in my position to do the same. The NRA will continue to get membership dues from me because I need to support my 2nd Amendment right, but I refuse to do so at the expense of my 1st Amendment right and vice versa, and I'll do my part to let them know I don't want them to fall into the same reactionary *** we always accuse our opponents in the gun argument of. We all need to focus on how we can increase the security of our public places and our people, blaming guns or games isn't going to help that. Not sure what else there is to say, but I'm deeply sorry for what happened in Connecticut and for the fallout gamers and gunnies are both getting. The last thing we need is to try throwing each other under the bus. It's easy to point fingers at guns, or even games (as we've just seen), but that doesn't address the problem of WHY this man did something so terrible, or WHY he was able to effectively just able to walk on the school grounds.

While this is an awful, horrible thing that happened, it's also something that is pretty much inevitable in a society such as ours. Everyone on here is right in saying that no matter what, when there's a will, there's a way. In a free democracy, things like this will happen. Does that make it ok and acceptable? By no means. Should we always strive to improve the system? Absolutely.

But everyone wants to boil this issue down to one thing, one cause. It's the blame game like it always is, and that's not right. The NRA wants to say it's violent media. ECA wants to say it's gun laws. The fact is, it's never that simple. It's a combination of things that are able to create this situation. Maybe the guy was mentally ill and didn't get the help or attention he needed. Maybe he was able to buy ammo rounds too easily. Maybe he looked to violent games and movies as inspiration. While we'll never know what exactly motivated him to do this, we have to be able to be honest enough to look at every possible influence.

And while none of these influences should be condemned for what happened, all of them, media included, should take responsibility for their part.

Parental control and your child's upbringing is where is starts and stops.

I feel for the victims and families involved in these tragedies, but I don't think that media is the sole cause. There have been many different studies that have proven that there's no link between video games and the ilk and mass violence. I think people just need to get over the fact that video games are a viable art form and not something that just spawns shooters and felons!

I hate how everyone uses video gaming as a scapegoat. Its ridiculous. What about violent movies or books? I've been playing video games ever since I was like 8, and they never once made me think it was ok to go hurt someone in real life. Video games aren't going to turn someone into an evil psycho.

Despite multiple studies showing violent video games have no connection to real-life violence they will have to go through these accusations of causing violence because they are a "new" form of media. Rock n Roll and rap music was accused of also causing violence, but are now accepted by most of society.
Also people are looking for something to blame after this tragedy and trying to explain how a person could go in to an elementry school with guns and murder 28 people, most of them children.
On the idea of putting armed guards in school, during the columbine massacre there was an armed officer in the school and another officer close by, but both of these men were unable to stop the massacre at all.

Personally, I blame the NRA themselves, because well, they promote the "violent tools" that are used in these heinous incidents.

I'll just say that I'm extremely disappointed with any elected officials, NRA representatives, news anchors and anyone else who is suggesting that the cause of the Sandy Hook shootings has anything to do with playing video games or watching movies.  The shooter had serious emotional problems and was known from a very young age to be potentially very dangerous and unpredictable.  He should have been separated from society and closely monitored a long time ago.  The system needs to do a better job of protecting the public from known ticking time bombs.  Either people who were in a position to protect those kids and teachers from that shooter dropped the ball, or the laws currently on the books rendered their efforts useless.  

Playing video games doesn't make me forget that I don't want to murder people.  

Placing blame on society for the actions of individuals only ends with things getting worse. Osama Bin Laden and a small cadre of psychopaths cause the events of 911 and the entire Islamic religion suddenly becomes suspect and vilified simply because those individuals associated themselves with the religion, even if it was patently obvious they didn't have any tenets of the belief in mind. They were sick people, and, instead of placing the blame solely on the individuals responsible, the media, our country and countries sympathetic to ours took up arms agains their entire society, including countries adjacent to the one Osama called home. Muslims weren't responsible, individuals were, and it's taken years for the country to reacclimatize and not assume that every person who appears Muslim happens to be a terrorist.

Some people suck. That's a fact. Some people are unfortunately predisposed toward mental instability and irrational acts of violence. Some are born into bad circumstance and, instead of adapting and overcoming, turn into monsters themselves and blame the world for their problems, losing all sense of empathy for those in their way. Preventing all tragedy is impossible. Even with a concerted effort to diagnose, treat, or, if treatment is not possible, detain violently unstable individuals before they act on their impulses, bad things will still occasionally happen to good people. And that is an awful thing to understand, and impossible to accept. Attacking society, specifically modern entertainment, based on those isolated tragedies, in the hopes that interfering with the lives of the many on the off chance that some time in the future a child won't grow up with negative stimuli from books, movies, television, or video games and as a result won't grow up to be a murderer is fallacious logic.

People absorb and interpret information in different ways. Some of that is genetic predisposition, some of that is upbringing and the influence of society. There are too many variables for personal circumstance and brain growth to point to one aspect of life and say "that is it. This is the thing that makes people evil." Video games are just one aspect of life that many people don't even have the time or money to involve themselves with to the extent that it will spontaneously modify their thought processes, if that is in fact the assumption the government is operating off of. Millions of people play video games today. Some are violent, yes, but some are joyous, sad, abstract, moving in ways that continue to improve with time. Millions of people play video games, and yet there aren't millions of video game related murders. That should be a hint.

The fact is, most guns and ammunition are specifically designed for the murder and maiming of human beings. These objects should not be sold to civilians. Hunting rifles and birdshot shotguns are fine. Those are designed for the hunting of animals. Assault rifles, automatic shotguns, SMGs, pistols are not, and they should be restricted to the police, military, and licensed private security officers who are trained to utilize them without endangering friends, family, and children. Sure, there are many ways to kill a person, but few are designed with such cold functionality, ease of operation, and ready availability as guns offer today. Guns don't kill people, but they sure as hell make it easier. Prevention and treatment of every problem individual from doing harm would obviously more effective, but it's not always a simple thing to see a problem coming before it happens. The reduction of guns would at least make it more difficult for terrible people to do terrible things.

I would just like to say that now is not the time to point fingers. People are in mourning and all we can do is look for sombody to blame, or a set of laws to reinforce. Let us not forget that as Arthur C. Clarke wrote "we can create laws and fail-safes that stop accidents and idiots. what we cannot stop are genuine attempts at malice" I dont think we can ever truly stamp out incidents like this. Regulations will help, but we really need to be more vigilant. The man involved in the sandy hook shooting was known to be mentally unstable. Why did we ignore that?! Now is not the time for us to fall apart and start yelling at eachother. Now is the time to comfort those who have been affected by this tradgedy.

video games = video games

real life = real life.

f**k you NRA.

You mean people that love guns are pointing fingers at another scapegoat because they don't want their guns taken away?

Color me shocked.

To be more serious though, nothing will come of this, so I'm not gonna bother with it. They can try to link something that's already been proven false many times over now, but nothing will be affected in the least.

It's just some scared gun owners trying to place blame to feel better, that's all this is.

>National Rifle Association

>Rifle

>Massacre weapon= Rifle

>Not a video game

Simple logic is the best.

It all comes down to people not being taught the value of life.

It's bull. One scapegoat blaming another.

This is how we feel about it:

http://tinyurl.com/bves546

It's stupid, I don't believe any of that!

A guard would prevent the scale of the occurrences, but nothing can stop all of them. I do believe gun freedom and video game expression are necessary rights and are not to be blamed for such mental extremists. The media stirring the blame wars never helps the discussion in the least.

Apparently there was never violence until around the 1970s according to these people. Violence has existed ever since humans have been around. What happened in Connecticut is horrible. Those children had so many years ahead of them. But video games do not cause violence. Instead of looking at the real issues and solving them, they look for something else to blame. The man was mentally unstable. He needed help, but got none. He had easy access to guns. Those two things can only spell disaster. If this country actually cared for mentally unstable people and had stricter gun laws, this might not have ever happened.