After the tragic events in Erfurt last week, where a recently expelled pupil went on a gun rampage and killed 16 people, German opposition leader Edmund Stoiber is calling for a ban on violent games.

Apparently when the expelled pupil, Robert Steinhauser, carried out the attack wearing a black mask and dark clothes. He spent much of his time playing computer games, his favourite being Counterstrike.

This was a very tragic event, and I think the reasons behind it need to be analysed so that at the very least the authorities can try to stop something like this happening in the future. There is no way I want to get into a gun-lobby debate as this is not what this article is about. Here I think Stoiber is being too reactionary, what if Steinhauser constantly watched the Simpsons and copied Itchy and Scratchy?

I know in the UK, about 10 years ago a similar thing was mooted when two 10 year olds murdered a toddler after playing violent games, but such a view was subsequently rejected.

But in a liberal society can you really stop something like this happening by banning a contributing factor (which is mostly innocent). Shouldn’t states instead try to identify such social problems in education before anything like this happens again?

I don't believe violent videogames are the root problem. Rather, I believe that in cases like these, they are the symptom. Most of us who play video games that involve violence have the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. I enjoy "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", for example, I love WW2 historical fiction and it makes it a lot of fun. Why has playing it then not made me buy a Schmeisser MP40 machine pistol and shoot white supremacists (tempting though it might be)?
I find it disappointing that no-one looks at the ratio of people who play these games who DON'T commit violent crimes, who lead normal lives, treat relatives and friends with kindness and respect, instead they point their finger at one horrible incident and as is human nature, search for any one single symptom that they can point their finger at and use as a cause for someone's actions. I'm much more likely to believe in multiple small causes fragmenting a person's psyche than a single, blanket, pin-the-tail-on-it reason for someone's ability to step outside the bounds of what the world regards as acceptable behavior and commit an unspeakable horror. It's sad that now and again, a person with some mental difficulties or an antisocial personality disorder may happen to have access to weapons, but just because an average person might know how to pull a virtual trigger in an arcade or at home, it doesn't correlate their willingness to pull a real one aimed at a human being.

__________________
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ aircooled
ASUS A7V8X-RAID mobo, Enet, SATA, 1394, USB2.0, all dat junk
512MB Crucial DDR
AOpen HX-08 case, Enermax 430wPS
80GB WD Spedial Edition 8MB cache
(all SCSI) Plextor 40x CD, Yamaha 8x4x24 CDRW, Seagate DDS2 DAT
Visiontek Geforce3 Ti200
Adaptec 2930U2 SCSI
ATI TV Wonder
SB Audigy MP3+

No.

__________________
Road Runner!!!!

What ????? Hell no !

Last month i read in the journal that a man as been kill by a fork . Scientist said that 0.001% of the world population have think one day to kill someone with a fork . Do you think we need to ban all the fork ?

Clearly Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves proved that spoons are much more lethal.

__________________
"And knowing is half the battle!"

oh well violent games are stil cool

I think the games should be banned
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

video games are very violent in deeed they should all burn in the pits of hell if it stops thugs killing people.

bollox

haven't you mutha fuckers learnt anything????? violent computer games are one of the leading factors in violence. There is sooo much proof, why don't you ban them already, weve already had enough tradgedy. We don;t want anymore. BAN THEM NOW.

i belive that some computer games are violent and some are not that bad
sratagy game s are violent for sure but there a hella lotta fun and they refflect world issues past and present
so go cool computer games

i believe violent video games arent even symptoms there just scapegoats for cma(not country music awards but "concerned mothers of America.) All of these people blame video games for these atrocities should mabey start pointing the fingers at the parents, or mabey even school bullies that pick on these children day in and day out. Mabey these children turn to video games to escape the harsh world that they live in... now im not saying we should all bring ak's to school. Im just saying stop blaming the things that could acctually be helping these kids in need.