Violent Video Games did Not Cause the Columbine High School Shooting

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“I feel like getting a baseball bat, breaking it over his head, and then STABBING him with the broken end!!!!” vents Eric Harris about his local weatherman on his web page (Anton 5). Harris, being one of the killers in the Columbine High School shooting, was called a “die-hard gamer who loved the interactive bloodbath called DOOM” (Anton 2). Doom was thought to be one of the factors in Eric Harris’ violent tragedy. The question is: did playing Doom lead to him being a violent child, or did being a violent child lead him to playing Doom?

Proceeding my perusal of articles and research, written by authors with scientific credentials or otherwise, I have concluded that video games are no more to blame for the ebullition found in today’s society than any other possible cause. However, the incessant brouhaha as well as the negative notoriety surrounding media and video games refuses to cease or let up. These claims—for or against video games—are ultimately subjective and inconclusive and very little can be confidently derived from them. Granted, the violence found in our youth is growing rapidly, and there must be external reasons for that, but using video games as a scapegoat will not rectify anything.

Video games have been subjected to much finger pointing and blame for the too often seen violent tragedies as of late. David Grossman, a military psychologist that researches “killology,” is one of the many who provides his opinion against video games. Killology is a term he coined for the study of the methods and psychological effects of training army recruits to circumvent their natural inhibitions to killing fellow human beings (Grossman 1). By observing past wars (preceding killology), one can see how much people will...

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...C IGN. 19 March 2002 http://pc.ign.com/articles/091/091815p1.html

Grossman, David. “Trained to Kill”. Christianity Today Magazine – COVER STORY: Trained to Kill. 10 August 1998. Christianity Today. 20 March 2002 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/8t9/8t9030.html

Anton, Mike and Lisa Ryckman. “In hindsight, signs to killings obvious”. In hindsight, signs to killings obvious. 2 May 1999. RockyMountainNews.com. 20 March 2002 http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0502why10.shtml

Tzemach, Gayle. “Blood and Gore Onscreen”. Violence Invades Video Games. 1 December 2001. ABC News. 19 March 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/dailynews/internetgames981201.html

Zarozinski, Michael. “Video Game Violence”. Violence in Video Games. 12 September 2001.

Louder Than A Bomb. 19 March 2002 http://www.louderthanabomb.com/vg_voilence.htm

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