A prominent school safety speaker has advocated the imposition of a 10-day moratorium on video game play and television viewing by students, reports the Grand Forks Herald.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author, retired military man and longtime critic of video game violence, made the remarks during a keynote presentation to North Dakota school officials yesterday.
As he typically does in his speeches, Grossman linked violent video games with school shootings:
[Grossman] described, in chilling detail, school massacres at Columbine High... the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota and Virginia Tech. Just as graphically, he conjured the brutality of video games such as “Grand Theft Auto” and “Manhunt.”
Grossman, an expert on school violence, went on to trace a connection between the two, complete with brain scans and a study of juvenile murderers. And he pitched a singular idea to gathered educators – a 10-day television, movie and video game “detox”...
“This is not business as usual,” he said. “This is our world coming unglued. This is our society coming unhinged.”
Comments
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
Considering that the "Columbine and Virginia Tech Shooters video games made me do it" theory has been definitively busted, I'd say he makes a really solid point...
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
You know... Am I the only one thinking of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" right now?
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
I get the feeling Grossman is the sort of guy who would have made arguments about getting kids off the streets to decrease teen violence in the past... now the answer is to get them on the streets to reduce violence? This is going to end with Grossman wanting kids stored in boxes until they're 21
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
These idiots have it all wrong. Kids just need something to do is all. Anything is better than nothing, because nothing = boredom and boredom is the number one cause of anything I or anyone I know doing something stupid.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
LOL Grossman. I was in a video game club in my high school and was allowed to play many a violent game and nothing bad happened.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
“This is not business as usual,” he said. “This is our world coming unglued. This is our society coming unhinged.”
If you replace the words 'our world' and 'our society' with 'my mind', he's actually right for once.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
The statistics on youth violence, do they support your theory Mr. Grossman? Youth violence is way up thanks to the corrupting influence of "murder simulators", correct?
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
The idiot, it burns! The googles do nothing!
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
The world has been pretty much unglued for a while now Dave.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Seriously? "...our society coming unhinged"? Hasn't this been the call of so many for so long? As I recall, Elvis shaking his hips on national TV was our society coming unhinged. It would be different if these people had a different song and dance every 20 years, but the fact that they keep saying the same thing over and over and so few people catch on...
It isn't the world that is coming unglued. It's YOUR world. Your little world where you can reach up, touch the painted sky, and stop the paper mache sun from setting.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
I have often been curious if School shootings are up or if there is just more media coverage over the incidents when they occur. If I were to go by Wikipedia, then the bulk of school shootings have occured since 1990, but I can gurantee there have been far more than those that are listed before that period of time.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
Don't forget to cross reference the number of kids actually in school over time, and of course cross reference with all crime propogated by children. Hmm depending how far you go back you might just have to adjust for life expectancy and change in economic situations over the last 100 years...
Bah, screw it.
Video games are making child killers!!!! Kill them all before it's too late!!!!
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
So, Grossman pokes out from under his rock again? Yeah, somehow I don't think you're going to find many schools willing to clamp down on games or TV for 10 days like it's Lent or something, Dave. You'd have better luck going after JT for him stealing your whole "murder simulator" rap from you.
And is it me, or is Grossman also starting to ape JT as he's sounding a lot more "prophet of doom"-ish than usual? Sounds to me like Grossman's the one becoming unhinged.
Re: Game Violence Critic Urges Schools to Impose 10-Day Ban ...
Well, with JT starting to fade, thanks to his disbarrment, repeated bill failures, and even anti-gamers getting tired of him, Grossman's becoming (at long last) the primary "murder simulator" fear-monger once again. We're seeing more and more of him as we see less and less of JT.