Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

So at a young age I was introduced to first person shooter games. My dad and I loved playing Medal of Honor and old school Call of Duty. Somewhat I liked it for the history and the being involved with historical wars in a small sense. All from the comfort of my living room. That game was violent and americans in general are quite desensitized to violence. Hence our being stereotyped as being gun loving "'MERICA" patriots.

A lot of the con articles on video game violence and violence in children pointed out the fact that, "according to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low." 

The research is nearly impossible to do and the articles that said yes, video games cause violence in young adults and children seemed to have a narrow scope on things and just saw what they wanted to see. It seems like they decided the outcome before getting any solid evidence, which there doesn't seem to be any. People bring up the high number of school shootings in the past several years when making comments on the matter. I would like to point them to our history books. 

Like I mentioned I played Call of Duty. That took place in a time of great violence between humanity. World War I&II, Vietnam, Revolutionary, America has seen a lot of violence. The western part of the states was called "The Wild West" for a reason. There was lawlessness, senseless violence. We've seen violence between black people and white. Violence against the native americans. This is all just in America. Romans, Germans, Brits, they've all had a hand in some unspeakable evils. Guess what, none of them had video games, or media to the extent we have it in any form. Humans have a capacity for evil, video games can be used as an excuse perhaps but do they themselves always cause violence in our kids? No I would say not. I'd say it's a case by case scenario. 

Some people can handle a lot of media violence and it has no effect on them. Some are more easily manipulated by it, or more accurately, let it shape them into violent people. 

Also, the ratings on games are there for a REASON. Just like how you wouldn't let your fourteen year old go watch Ryan Gosling smash a man's head like a watermelon on Drive, you don't let that fourteen year old shoot cops and cocaine in Grand Theft Auto. A mature individual knows the difference between playing out these games and acting them out. They also know themselves and know what hurts them and what doesn't effect them as human beings. 

Really there's nothing we should do about the violence in media, just be better about discerning it ourselves and teaching our children how to do the same.  

Now...Enjoy these elders shoot up cops and punching ladies on the street.