Why Should Banning Violent Video Games Be Banned?

Banning Violent Video Games A child is killing police officers. A teenager is hiring prostitutes to potentially kill them. He is using weapons such as guns, chainsaws, and knives to kill and commit horrible crimes. Thousands of children and teens participate in these actions daily. How? Violent video games such as Doom, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto are just a few of the games that are full of these awful actions. An article in the Harvard Mental Health Letter states, “The Pew Research Center reported in 2008 that 97% of youths ages 12 to 17 played some type of video game, and that two-thirds of them played action and adventure games that tend to contain violent content.” Another investigation showed that over half of the games

Because these games promote violence, children and youth think it is okay to use violence to solve everyday problems. Therefore, this contributes to a major problem found in young people’s lives which is bullying. Most of the violent video games encourage role-playing in letting the player to actually participate in violent actions. This could cause the player to use these violent actions with others. “The view endorsed by organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescents Psychiatry is that exposure to violent media (including video games) can contribute to real-life violent behavior and harm children in other ways” (“Violent…and Young People” 1). Many youth today struggle with being bullied by others around them. These violent video games could be a contributing factor to this issue. If violence is what these youth see on a daily basis, why wouldn’t they start reenacting the violent behaviors they participate in while playing the games? The adolescents will begin to inflict harmful actions on others. Since all video games that promote violence seem to cause hurt and pain in the lives of many, banning them can prevent harmful situations from

The shooters in this horrible crime have often been found to play violent video games on a daily basis. This causes us to wonder, could these games have caused the shooter to kill many innocent people? For example, Adam Lanza shot many innocent kids and teachers in Newton, Connecticut in 2012. Many blamed his actions on his love for playing violent video games, “seeing his play of so-called first-person shooters—in which participants shoot down enemies from a first-person perspective—as a potential contributing factor to his crimes.” It is also reported that Lanza played games like Call of Duty where the participant shoots opponents is a very realistic way (“Violent Video Games”). There are many other cases like the one just mentioned. Many school shooters are just reenacting what they see in the video games they play. These actions cost the lives of innocent