The youth will buy these games, play them and without realizing it take what they have seen on the games and remember it. There are numerous games that have extreme violence in them such as Grand Theft Auto , Assassins Creed, Halo, Call of duty, Left for dead and so on. Of those games, a murder case arose. Two teenage brothers shot both of their siblings, murdering their brother and wounding their sister. The boys told the investigators that they decided to go on a shooting spree after playing the video game Grand Theft Auto III.
Critique on Do Video Games Kill? This article “Do Video Games Kill” by Karen Sternheimer addresses the wide spread idea; video games are the cause for “young killers” (210). Sternheimer believes concern for the influence video games may have on youth is spiraling out of control. She put most of the blame for this out of control concern on the media. She also writes some about politicians and the Juvenile Justice system.
News spread that one of the gunmen, Dylan Klebold, spent much of his time playing violent video games. Other similar situations have occurred in history. Michael Carneal and Adam Lanza, both participants in two different school shootings, have both been said to be imitating violence they witnessed in video games. Senator Chuck Grassley, who graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a Ph.D., states, “There are too many video games that celebrate the mass killing of innocent people — games that despite attempts at industry self-regulation find their way into the hands of children.” Video games offer “rewards” to players who annihilate their opponents, giving children the mindset that violence in real life may bring the same effect. The link between video games and school shootings is prominent.
Rhetorical Analysis of John Leo’s article, “When Life Imitates Video” Throughout his article, John aims to convince his audiences that violence in gaming has an adverse effect, rippling through children and jeopardizing their well-being. From the beginning, he utilizes vivid imagery to portray horrifying scenes into the Colorado massacre. Along with a chilling description, he indicates that two shooters indulge in the simulated killings which desensitize themselves to actual violence. His purpose is to demonstrate greater correlations between playing murder games and aggressive actions. To further strengthen his insight, he cites Los Angeles Times that address their aggressive behaviors by imitating murder-violence modeled on the game.
Thesis: Throughout history and into the present, serial killers have terrorized and preyed on innocent people. Should movies be blamed? Or how about violent video games which many young children encounter? Or the fact of being mentally ill can cause individuals to do outrageous actions. Point #1: Mental Illness (Individuals need to be born with an incentive which affects them to do actions as to kill).
Many studies and statistics will back up both sides to this debate leaving the controversy still being debated. This paper will cover three articles that cover both sides to this debate as well as some statistics that will still not prove which side is correct. Video games such as shooting games that demonstrate violent behavior have been linked to many violent acts that teens and children have done. The Columbine high school shooting that took place in 1999 the victim’s families blamed video games for the acts of the shooters (Cate, 2013). Every bad experience or violent act that has been seen in the public somehow will get linked to violent video games causing the violent acts of the people that do the crimes.
This massacre has provoked much debate into the issues of gun control and availability of firearms in the United States, as well as high school cliques, bullying and the role of violent movies and video games in American society. What has made so many teenagers turn to violence to
Violent Adolescents Annette Fuentes writes an interesting article called Crackdown on Kids. Fuentes wrote this article for the June 15/22 issue of The Nation. This article is about how we have neglected to see the real problem at hand with juvenile delinquents and how quick we as a society are to just throw them in detention facilities rather than solve the problems in a more effective manner. Fuentes wrote this article in response to the shooting sprees at a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas. On March 24, 1998, three boys, ages 11, 13, and 15, unloaded a slew of mini arsenals and were responsible for the deaths of four students and a teacher.
Mortal Kombat characters partook in some incredibly violent maneuvers, including decapitation and hearts being ripped out of chests. As one of the most violent video games of the time, Mortal Kombat also contained copious amounts of blood. Parents were concerned with their kid’s behavior after playing such a violent and graphic video game. Many people believe that Mortal Kombat was the tipping point that led to the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994. This was an official and standardized rating system for video games.
Violent Video Games and Their Effect On Children In 1999, the shootings at Columbine High School seemed to spark the debate about many things wrong with our youth but one thing in particular was violent video games. Parents claimed that these violent video games were a catalyst for the violent actions that these young men committed that day. According to Sean P. Neubert of Rochester Institute of Technology, a person who is biologically predisposed to aggression will be more strongly influenced by violent scenes and thus will have a greater risk for carrying out destructive actions. For example someone with Antisocial personality disorder has a greater risk of going out and shooting someone after playing hours of Grand Theft Auto or a game of a similar nature. [1] Also, Barlett, Branch, Rodeheffer, and Harris, (2009) found that a violent video game produced greater elevations in heart rate, hostility, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive behavior compared with a nonviolent video game.