Shooting incident in US state of Wisconsin leaves six dead

[Mandy]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/10/america/NA-GEN-Wisconsin-Shooting.php

[page redirects if I embed]

At the risk of being flamed, I cant help feeling that incidents like this (without knowing specifics of this one issue) are more likely to happen when we have video games with people shooting up a Church in Manchester.

[faceless]

There's a difference between being flamed and having a vast chasm of speculation pointed out. How can you make any judgment on the story based on such a short article?

[Mandy]

[faceless]

so why make the suggestion that it could be linked to a video game at all?

Maybe the killer was deprived of video games and so didn't have a method of releasing those demons in a virtual sense - causing them to finally become real? It's just as possible considering there is no information.

[luke]

mandy kinda has a point, not particularly about this case, as there isn't much to go on, but in general, i can't help feeling that games like those, certain films, the way media covers war, certain music etc, could, on easily impressionable people, have a negative effect and make them react in ways that otherwise they might not have done.

[faceless]

I don't doubt it could happen either, but it's got nothing to do with this story as we know it.

[nekokate]

Well I've got GTA San Andreas and I'm not planning to go on any killing sprees. I think the video games = violent people equation is something of an over-reaction. It's like back when they banned the movie Natural Born Killers incase people decided that it would be a good idea to imitate it, or when Kubrick pulled A Clockwork Orange because some nutcase did sort of copy a scene in it; totally pointless.

If someone is planning to go around shooting people then they're already crazy, so it would be unfair to look at their CD or DVD collection, or video game collection, to try and find answers. If they did own lots of violent movies, it's surely more logical that they were violent to start with and that's why they went out to buy violent DVDs, not the other way round.

Having said that, I do have a massive problem with children being exposed to stuff like that, but as I always say - if you bring your kids up well in the first place then they're much less likely to become violent idiots. It's so much easier and more convenient to use a computer game as a scapegoat for bad or indifferent parents.

[luke]

thats it, if kids are brought up right, then those kinda things aren't a problem. i mean i played mario when i was a kid and i didn't go around eating mushrooms and popping magic pills ... but i think the cumulative effect of those different influences, could, like i said, have an effect on kids that aren't brought up so well, those that are easily influenced - we have white kids round here and they sound like american rappers - if they are that easily impressionable and are mimicking accents i don't suppose it takes much to copy actions either ...

i wonder if theres any studys into this kinda thing ...

[Mandy]

[Mandy]

[alan1254]

HUM! All kind of valid points , people do copy crap that they see , kubrick pulled a clockwork orange when some kids acted out the tramp scene in a disused cinema on oxford rd manchester uk and killed the guy , that was i think in 69 or 70 , but thats just an excuse in my opinion nearly everbody that see's 'natural born killers' goes home having seen a vastly over rated movie but somewhere out there there is one indervidual who thinks its cool to the point of acting it out well that person had serious problems before seeing the movie/video game, if all it takes is a movie or a game to spark extreme violence why dont we all do it after 2 hours of pulp fiction?

[Mandy]

[nekokate]

[Mandy]

[luke]

shall i ask next door for the paddling pool again?