Slashdot Log In
German Police Union Chief Wants Violent Game Ban After Shooting
Posted by
Soulskill
on Mon Mar 23, 2009 05:58 PM
from the perfectly-logical dept.
from the perfectly-logical dept.
A recent shooting in Germany has raised the ire of many politicians and officials, and they're turning to video games as a scapegoat after it was revealed that the shooter was a fan of Counterstrike and played Far Cry 2 the night before the rampage. First, a major retailer decided to drop mature-rated games altogether, and then the Minister for Social Affairs suggested restricting "addictive games," such as World of Warcraft, to adults only. Despite an unfavorable reaction from gamers and game developers alike, the chief of Germany's national police union has now spoken out against violent games as well, saying, "The world would be no poorer if there were no more killergames."
Related Stories
[+]
German Interior Ministers Seek Ban On Violent Games 222 comments
GamePolitics reports that "Germany's 16 Interior Ministers have banded together to ask the Bundestag (Germany's equivalent of Parliament) to ban the production and distribution of violent video games. Moreover, the ministers hope to see this accomplished before Germany's new elections take place on September 27th." Violent games became a national issue in Germany earlier this year after Far Cry 2 was scapegoated for a shooting. Germany-based game developer Crytek could be forced to move or outsource if the ban goes through. Spiegel Online has the original story (Google translation).
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure it would. (Score:3, Insightful)
The world would be no poorer if there were no more killergames.
Nor would it be any poorer if there were no movies in which people died, or books containing stories involving violent conflict.
I also think the world would get along just fine without football, golf, chess, horse races, and many other things.
But that doesn't in any way justify me taking those things away from people who want them....let alone those who turn a decent profit from facilitating them.
Re:Sure it would. (Score:5, Insightful)
Football: a violent contact sport, frequently resulting in personal injury. Chess: A game in which you are encouraged to send blindly loyal soldiers of varying specialties to their untimely deaths all in the name of protecting a single political figure. Horse races: Involves brutally pitting horses against one another, some choose to include whipping. The horses get nothing but a fresh feed bag, while the trainers get millions in prize money, and book keepers rake in billions from the gambling. I'm sure there's something bad about golf, but all I could think of is "known to cause heart attacks in managers who should be behind their desks", but that's no loss for the world.
Anything can be portrayed in a bad light by phrasing it correctly.
Parent
Re:Sure it would. (Score:5, Funny)
Admit it, you're just an apologist for the necromancy lobby that's trying to push its sick message on our children.
Parent
Re:Sure it would. (Score:5, Funny)
promoting the pawn
As an engineer I am here to hell you that pawns never get promoted.
Parent
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Police are supposed to investigate and solve crimes. (among other things).
How can you investigate and solve crimes if you don't understand the difference between correlation and causation?
Is anyone else worried that the Chief of Police makes conclusions like this?
It basically shows that the guy running the police force isn't smart enough to reason properly about simple casual relationships.
For example, if you turn up bound and gagged at a murder scene, is this chief of police going to conclude you are the murderer?
Rather than that some third factor (the actual murderer) is responsible for both you and the victim being there?
It's not good.
Parent
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interviewer: "If you could say anything to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, what would you tell them?"
Manson: "I wouldn't have said anything, I would have listened to what they had to say."
Parent
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
But, in particular, I appreciated the irony that the most intelligent comment about the killings out of all the interviews came from the very man who was the scapegoat.
Parent
Oh common... (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously? This is completely ridiculous. There is no way that just video games alone made this person go on a shooting rampage. Several studies by groups such as Harvard Medical, The Journal of Adolescent Health, and the British Medical Journal have shown that there is no conclusive link between video games and violent activities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy). These people don't think that uhm...the media for instance has anything to do with it? Let's get real here people. There is no way playing some Far Cry 2 or any game like it alone contributes to the initiative to do violent things.
For me, video games are a great way to relax after a long day. It's an unwinding period and I don't feel violent at all when playing. I'm not alone saying this, there are many others who feel exactly the same way. The German police chief should look at the facts and statistics before he jumps the gun.
Just my two cents.
Re:Oh common... (Score:4, Funny)
Ban this entartete kunst - it degrades a nation.
Parent
Re:Oh common... (Score:5, Funny)
+1, Obscure Godwin-bait.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The prosecution is charging the guy's father for keeping a gun unsafe when his son was pathologically depressed. Also the father is a gun nut and taught his son how to shoot at a pretty early age.
4 words: (Score:5, Insightful)
External locus of control. The shooter had it. Why do you think 14 out of 15 victims were female? He was gunning for females, because he was blaming all females for his condition. He blamed them for so much that he thought they collectively deserved to die.
Now the interesting part: pretty much everybody who wants to ban videogames because of events like these believes just as much in an external locus of control as the shooter. Except instead of believing that a group of people is directly harming them, they believe that a group of people is influencing "their" people through violent games. And instead of wanting to shoot the people they accuse, they want to ban their product.
Granted, it's better to ban a product than to shoot someone. But the fundamental drive is the same. It's also the drive that's behind book burnings and conspiracy theories like the protocols of the elders of zion. It's bullshit that makes people feel better and in control - it's not them that's the problem, and there's an easy solution at hand.
I despise both the shooter and the idiots who clamor for video gaming bannings equally. One's more harmful than the other, but that's just because the other is a bigger pansy. I'm convinced that under the right circumstances, the head of the state's police union would be just as willing a shooter as the 17 year old kid.
Parent
Re:Oh common... (Score:5, Funny)
I have experienced personally the effect video games have on real life. I actually wound up in hospital and with a criminal record after my last visit to the zoo where I:
Parent
Re:Oh common... (Score:4, Informative)
Wal-Mart has no presence in Germany (although they tried). The retailer is in question is Kaufhof, which has hypermarkets in many major cities. Compared with the hundreds of MediaMarkt, Saturn or Medion stores I don't think their decision will have a nocticeable impact on the market. Even among hypermarkets Kaufhof is one of the minor players. This is totally played up by the press.
Parent
Re:Oh common... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're wrong, too. The kid felt the need to kill people, and so he did. His father teaching him how to use real weapons did not cause him to feel the need to kill people. His father not locking the weapons away did not cause him to feel the need to kill people.
It is easier to kill with guns than a knife or baseball bat. It is easier to take an unlocked weapon from your dad's closet than steal one from the gun store. But making it harder to kill isn't going to stop people from feeling the need to kill others. Maybe we should find out what it is that causes people to want to kill other people. Find that out and make it harder to do that. Then you will solve problems.
Parent
Right. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is in the same vein as people who blame pornography for rape.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Relax. He's not actually personally blaming violent games. He's just taking a queue from Obama's Chief of Staff and not letting a serious crises go to waste [youtube.com].
Re:Right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Right. (Score:5, Insightful)
The effect of censorship on people is a thousand times worse than the effect of romantic comedies, which is ten times worse than the effect of pr0n, which is one half as good as the effect of video games. This is basic psychology, empirically proven.
Parent
What about the Bible? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mentioned *fiction* works. What about a Book that a significant percentage of people not only claim is NOT fiction, but a work full of moral and ethical teachings? What if that Book has scenes of drunkenness, incest, genocide, murder, prostitution, debauchery? How much worse would be the effect of that?
Parent
Re:Right. (Score:5, Insightful)
To say that viewing pornography everyday, where women are treated like beautiful objects at best, and dogshit at worst, wouldn't have an effect on one's outlook is rubbish. You can't even watch a romantic comedy everyday without it affecting your views - that is basic psychology, empirically proven.
And, of course, you naturally have the studies which prove this "basic psychology" of yours, right?
I mean, you wouldn't be advocating censorship based solely on your baseless assumptions and anecdotal evidence, would you? Because *that* would be a really *really* bad idea.
Parent
Re:Right. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing people that enjoy porn on occasion versus people that have addictive personalities and over-indulge.
The occasional viewer is not harmed in any way shape or form nor are their views towards the world any different.
Anyone that takes anything too far, even drinking too much water can be deadly invariably leads to problems.
Naturally the same is true of violent video games or video games in general. When their use is destructive in your life then you need to stop. Just because you can't handle something doesn't mean I can't and so there is no cause for censorship in any form.
Parent
GOOD IDEA. (Score:5, Insightful)
Correlation? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll find that the vast majority of school-shooters play first-person shooters.
The vast majority of young males also player first-person shooters.
You'll even find that the vast majority of young males eat bread.
What exactly does this tell us?
Re:Correlation? (Score:5, Funny)
Men are a bunch of violent bread eaters?
Parent
Re:Correlation? (Score:5, Funny)
Men are a bunch of violent bread eaters?
Let them eat cake!
Parent
Re:Correlation? (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly does this tell us?
The vast majority of all statistics are made up on the spot?
Parent
Re:Correlation? (Score:5, Funny)
No, that only happens 34% of the time, a signification minority and not the majority you claimed.
Parent
Re:Correlation? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Some school-shooters are young males.
2. Some school-shooters eat bread.
3. Some bread-eaters play first-person shooters.
4. Some bread-eaters shoot schools.
5. Some breads eat young males.
6. The males of some species eat their own young.
7. Jung was a noted psychologist who might have some insight into why kids shoot other kids at schools.
8. Jung would hesitate to imply correlation and causation wrt fps and school shootings.
9. For that matter, so would Freud, who would instead blame it on unrealized feelings towards the shooter's father.
10. At any rate, did you know that Bread released an album entiteled "Baby I'm-a Want You" in 1972?
11. I'm terrible at logical progressions.
Parent
I would say something... (Score:3, Funny)
I would say something about violence in Germany, but I am afraid someone might call Godwin's Law [wikipedia.org].
Maybe bullets first? (Score:5, Insightful)
This wouldn't have happened
1) if the guy hadn't had access to inordinate amounts of bullets (you can't kill 15 people with less than 15 bullets)
2) if the guy hadn't had access to a gun that was stored outside the legally required locked safe
3) if the guy hadn't been given weapons training even though his diagnosed mental condition (again, this was against the law)
Once you've addressed these issues, we may want to talk about banning violent games.
Re:Maybe bullets first? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's the reasoning the UK used to ban guns. If no one has a gun, then there isn't going to be any more killing right? except that now people are killing with knives. some people are even calling for certain knives to be banned to stop the killing. The thing is that they are completely missing the point. If a human being really wants to kill another human being, it is going to happen regardless of what weapons or anything else is banned. The real problem here is that there are murderous individuals not the tools that they could potentially use nor what media they watched.
Parent
Re:Maybe bullets first? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree mostly with you, but I think you're doing your argument a disservice by intentionally missing the point of these sorts of bans. The intent isn't to make it impossible for people to kill other people. The intent of gun legislation is to introduce hidrances which tend to result in less crime. There must be plenty of incidents which are mostly impulsive, not a case of "a human being really wants to kill another human being", wherein maybe the guy wouldn't have killed if it hadn't been so quick and easy. Obviously gun bans don't eliminated crime - but surely you can't claim they don't help at all. The question is how much they help, weighed against the loss of liberty imposed by the ban.
Parent
Stop isolating games for their interactivity... (Score:4, Insightful)
Movies like Last House on the Left would have a hard time getting made even in the 1980s. Yes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre existed, but Last House on the Left depicts a violent rape, and the Saw movies are torture porn.
Responses to web boards (every major newspaper now takes comments to about every single story) depicts a violent world. I took a look at the Entertainment Weekly website, looked at an article about Natasha Richardson's death from head injury. Unfortunately, the sysadmins at EW don't screen comments. It was horrific, with comments that are hard to repeat, many talking about what they would do to her corpse and many being glad that she "got what she deserved".
Videogames are simply reflecting this culture shift. A game like Bully simply reflects what goes on. It's a deep, and very unfortunate, confusion of the chicken and the egg. Somehow, legislators look at Resident Evil 5 and see something that they don't see in the remake of Dawn of the Dead. They look at Far Cry 2 and they take a pass on Sorority Row, a trailer I saw last night that looked as violent and horrific as anything I've seen from Wes Craven.
Somehow the interactive nature of video games makes people feel that it "thresholds" behavior. If you fantasize about harming animals, you need therapy. If you actually bind, torture and kill animals - you are quite a step closer to being a human killer. Somehow, this logic is being applied to shooters. That makes playing shooters itself a deviant behavior. I think it signals something deeply wrong with our culture, but it's interactivity alone does not single it out as threshold behavior.
Re:Stop isolating games for their interactivity... (Score:5, Insightful)
You might want to look further back than the `80's. Last House on the Left [imdb.com] is a remake of Last House on the Left [imdb.com] from 1972. Hell, the original was directed by Wes "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" Craven. Don't forget that Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th had their heydays in the `80's as well.
You mention that playing shooters signals something "deeply wrong." Could it be that such forms of entertainment appeal to our baser instincts and have for millennia? The Romans sure seemed to enjoy watching gladiators fighting to the death. Violence and violent entertainment are nothing new. Also, as has been said before, perhaps those with violent tendencies are more drawn to violent entertainment because they are already predisposed to enjoy that type of imagery. Does that mean that everyone who enjoys such forms of entertainment is drawn to violence in the real world? I highly doubt it, and for every study that one can find to say there is a correlation between violent entertainment and actual violence, there are several others that say there is no causal link, not even on an "if there's smoke, there's fire," level. Violence is more often borne from desperation of one form or another, I'd be willing to bet.
Parent
Cue correlation != causation... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that most responses to this sort of article are of the form "violent video games have nothing to do with what he did!" And then when something about a black shooter in a ghetto comes up, most people say "It's his society and location, if we could just get rid of the ghettos/black gangs/whatever, we'd have less violence/shooting/murders."
So it seems that in general, people do think that the environment one lives in affects one's decisions. Well, video games are part of my environment.
So instead of simply dismissing video games as having anything to do with decisions (which, IMO, is a ridiculous proposition, the idea you could spend 20+ hours a week playing video games and not have it affect you, whether that's morally, ethically, intellectually, ... grammatically ... what about, oh, say, myspace? no affect?)... I'd propose that we start posting how video games (especially violent ones, since that's this article's topic) DO affect you. How does virtual violence affect someone.
And preferably more than the curt "Duh, it lets you cool off virtually making you less likely to kill someone in real life." I'm not sure that is any more or less proven than video games causing real life shootings. If it does... then [citation needed]
Re:Cue correlation != causation... (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, I don't recommend playing a racing game that rewards smashing into other cars for 8 hours, then immediately getting out and driving down the freeway. To a certain extent your automatic reactions are trained by video games. But not your conscious decision-making processes.
Parent
Not the chief of the *German* police union (Score:5, Insightful)
Crappy journalistic research.
It's "just" the chief of the Hessian section of the DPolG, not the Chief on the federal level.
And there's several police unions as well, with the DPolG only being second largest (about half as big as the GdP with a few micro unions not worth mentioning).
Apart from that, it was pretty clear that everyone's gonna scream BANZOR KILLARGAMES after the little fuckwit ganked his old school, so no big surprise there.
What is imo most surprising is how careful and diplomatic Christian Pfeiffer is with his statements. He usually was pretty rabid anti-"Killergame" the last couple years and I expected him to gloat and go "TOLD YA" to his critics, but he actually says stuff like games are not the deciding factor, not the original cause for stuff like that, just a small piece of a big puzzle with social issues being the real problem, etc.
I'm confused. It's like if Jack Thompson would go ahead and offer to become BFF with John Carmack.
Guns... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. Let people buy guns. When they use them to kill people, ban video games. Hey, some crazies have killed people because God told them to! Let's ban religion!
Tragic == False Blame (Score:5, Insightful)
When ever you see a tragedy such as a school or public shooting or anything for that matter the first thing you do is say why, the second thing you do is find the easiest answer. The truth is that if someone does something that people don't understand they tend to blame the thing that person did that they didn't understand. I would agree that violence can breed more violence but it's pretty hard to blame video games when you see it played out in movies, TV, on the streets, and anywhere. The question is, is that when every one I know plays violent video games and not one of them has been convicted of a violent crime what does that prove? Counter-strike has 4.2 million users(just the original not source as there would be some cross over between the users number comes from Wikipedia) world wide. If this game(which is 10 years old give or take a few months) truly breed the kind of violence that made this kid kill people that's 0.0000238% of all people that play are made violent enough to commit a crime, I'm pretty sure that's an anomaly.
I would hope that things would settle down people would look at it a little more logically and decide that this kind of thing is silly. I would hope parents would be aware of the mental state of their children and be trying to get help if they can, and be aware of what content they can handle. I have heard of kids calming down once fighting games were removed but as a parent you should be watching them instead of letting them socialize on video games alone. If you let them play video games watch or play with them, of course as they get older it's harder to do that besides not giving them money to buy games, and then if they are still violent it's tragic but at least you shouldn't be blaming video games at that point.
Let's ban chess (Score:4, Insightful)
People can't admit the problem is society. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I know: we're all tired of idiots saying "I blame society."
However, for smart children, this society is a mess. It has no goals. It suffocates us in platitudes (equality, generosity, compassion) while forcing us into a life of conformity to very basic aims, like money and popularity. While all this public bloviation goes on, commerce destroys everything good by turning it into a lowest common denominator product. The smart kids see this; everyone else is oblivious.
From my reading of the documents that school shooters like Jeff Weise, Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold, and Pekka-Eric Auvinen leave behind, this more than anything else is their motivation: our society is a monstrous hypocrite that has lost direction, and because it cannot face that, we all serve in boredom and frustration.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why stop there? (Score:5, Insightful)
While we're at it, lets also ban drugs, that way, we'll never see them on our streets again! ... Oh wait, we do. The only thing this will accomplish is an advocacy of piracy. Do you really think passionate gamers aren't going to turn to the torrents to get their fix? Keep dreaming you simple-minded jackasses.
Parent
Re:Why stop there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets also ban paintball, and movies and books with violence and/or guns. Lets also ban guns in general. Lets ban bad words. Lets ban Islam. Lets ban anything that isn't Christian. Lets ban homosexuals and Jews.
Oh wait... I've seen this before....
Parent
Re:Why stop there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any restriction for Godwin's Law if it's actually insightful?
Parent
Re:Jack? Is that you? (Score:4, Informative)
Nah, we just have that a lot in Germany. Something bad happens, and politicians jump to it and want to ban violent computer games over it. So, for example, someone shoots some people at a school and the day later, we learn from the press that we need to ban Counterstrike, and also that suspicious pornography was found. Then of course we need to something against child pornography, regardless of no child pornography being involved whatsoever in the shooting or the shooter's private live. You get the idea.
That said, I would personally appreciate if computer game makers could cut down on the violence a little, I don't like it very much in my games. Of course, other adults who like to shoot pixels should be allowed to do so, and the government should stay out of it.
Parent
Re:I don't mind the new Germany (Score:5, Funny)
Understandable point of view - I'd be against eugenics if I was at the fucking stupid end of the 'tard spectrum.
Parent
Re:That makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
And what are you doing by making a general statement about 60 million people based on what some of their grandparents did hmmm?
Parent