Virginia Tech blame game

[Dagobahn Eagle]

As is the case every time someone carries out an act of unspeakable evil, people desperately look for a convenient scapegoat, pointing fingers in every direction - to the point of hilarity.

 

Who'd have thought the shooting was the result of Space Laws, colleges where students major in English, and, of course, the Jews? Read and discover who to blame for the Virginia Tech massacre!

[steven]

Although I haven't completely read the list, I know I can safely say most of these comments are completely bull.

 

"It’s the hippies’ fault."

How in the name of all that is holy, do hippie's cause a murder masscure? They believe about freedom, aliens and goofy government conspiracys for heaven sake.

 

And it goes on to blame the victims of the massacure... Am I the only one who see's a problem with this? Do people even think before they say these things?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Although I haven't completely read the list, I know I can safely say most of these comments are completely bull.

That's kinda the whole idea - they're crazy. They're even more

 

I haven't visited too many of the links yet, but I've been told they're even crazier. My favourite so far:

Blame massacre on PC

 

Regarding the massacre at Virginia Tech by the student gunman, Cho, it is amazing that his suitemates were apparently unable to recognize Cho's anti-social personality and behaviors that he allegedly exhibited on a daily basis.

Cho's roommate described him as expressionless and non-engaging, and that he had no friends nor made telephone calls. He mostly sat at his computer putting together documents.

No doubt Cho's nonjudgmental roommates, products of the current trend of political correctness that assigns equal validity to all viewpoints and behaviors and exhorts college students to refrain from making any judgments, rendered them constitutionally incapable of recognizing Cho's anti-social personality and acting appropriately.

Isn't it possible that a suite full of college men could have confronted Cho, and this massacre might have been averted?

Political correctness only helps to create evil persons like Cho.

May I ask what 'political correctness' and failing to notice that a roommate needs psychiatric help have to do with each other?

 

Oh, and as a side note, many students and faculty members did worry about Cho. The ignorance of this woman, and her readiness to use a tragedy she obviously knows nothing about to further her agenda, is frightening.

 

This one is crazy, too. Apparently, the blame of the massacre lies with an innocent woman who happened to have broken up with Cho. Who'd have known.

[Davinq]

Good Lord... after reading that, I can no longer take this whole situation seriously. I mean, it's probably LF's fault too!

[Jediphile]

This just so sad on so many levels...

 

Honestly, how the hatemongers exploit the general ignorance to peddle their nonsense just makes me cringe, and not in a good way...

 

Somebody should file a lawsuit for slander, really. I mean, that's US they're talking about!! We all play videogames. Yet I don't see all of us shooting people left and right. Simple statistics alone will reveal this people as the liars they are - how many gamers are there, and how many crazed shooters are there? Thank you...

 

Now kindly shut your mouth, Dr. Phil, and try to speak only about stuff you actually know anything about!

 

It's like they say, nothing ruins a good discussion as much as someone who actually knows what he's talking about...

[Q]

Here's my favorite:

It's Collective Soul's fault.

[Negative Sun]

I'm sure the people he killed's families are having a good chuckle about this too...

[Dagobahn Eagle]

As someone who's suffered from some pretty serious mental illness and have tonnes of 'crazy' friends, not to mention that I'm seriously considering psychiatry as a profession, I personally find the attack on psychiatry to be the worst one so far. Such a stigmatized and at the same time life-saving practice does not need more ignorance-induced attacks upon it.

[zelda 41]

D

It’s Simon Cowell’s fault.

lol

[SilentScope001]

Shame. I thought this topic would lead me to a website where you get to actually play a game where you get to blame people.

===

Somebody should file a lawsuit for slander, really. I mean, that's US they're talking about!! We all play videogames. Yet I don't see all of us shooting people left and right. Simple statistics alone will reveal this people as the liars they are - how many gamers are there, and how many crazed shooters are there? Thank you...

 

Acutally, I disagree. Violent video games will not go and turn people into killers, but they could act as a strongly dehumanizing agent.

 

I mean, it's logical. If you hear that someone is killed in real life, it's horrifying. But, well, if you have just killed someone in-game before you hear that someone was killed in real life, well? You wouldn't care as much about that person.

 

For example, if I hear that a person died in Africa, I shrug my shoulders. Heh, if I hear that a person died in my hometown, or if an Iraqi man was killed in Iraq, I shrug my shoulders. They are just mere stats, they mean nothing. Add in it that it was likely I killed that same person in say, GTA or an Persian Gulf War game, and well, you can see the dehumanizing effect is there.

 

Violent video games can also increase the aggressiveness of the person playing the game, according to some studies. And there is the case of one school shooter using a video game to learn how to aim a gun.

 

Am I calling for a ban? No. I play violent video games too. I just want people to understand that the people claiming that violent video games are wrong...well, have a point. I would just consign it to a factor instead of something so important...

===

You know who I'm going to blame? The Mass Media.

 

The Mass Media is focusing so, so much on the tradegy that it provides fame to any copycat shooters. No, a person won't pick up a gun automatically if he hears that he gets on TV and gets his message and works read...but it would be a good impetus towards that direction. I called it "success", in that this person has gained lots of fame (or infamy), and well, frankly, it will be copied by other people upset with society, and wanting to destroy society as well as themselves.

 

The Mass Media have to do it, but maybe, ease off on the coverage, please? You guys are creating the trend you are deriding here...

 

Actually, now I'm worried of "lone wolf" terrorists/activists starting to use school shootings as a way to cause terror and strike at American infrastructure. It's easy to do a school shooting...if you just add at the begining of the shooting, "I'm doing this for the [so-and-so] cause! Death to America!" well, there we go, we just suffered the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. Combine the 'lone wolf' with the traditional coverage provided to school shootings, and we got ourselves a good recipe for lots of media coverage by the Mass Media, causing for more copycat school shootings/terror attacks. (Lone wolf attacks are bad...while they do less damage than when people band together...they also are harder to prevent.)

[Dagobahn Eagle]

SilentScope actually make some good points. I could launch into how I and most others got desensitized by the violent video games and mass media, how the media doesn't ever care too much about the harm it does, as long as it makes money, and about a lot of other things. But I'll just go with saying that I agree with what he writes.

[Rogue15]

it was the weatherman's fault!

[Dagobahn Eagle]

The devil made him do it.

[Aash Li]

Lots of people, and I do mean lots of people grew up watching cartoons like Buggs Bunny and tom and jerry, that are now deemed too violent for children. And I doubt anyone that watched them with the regularity that I did turned out to be psychotic killers. If they were going to be psychopaths, then taking away the cartoons and video games isnt going to help.

 

 

I clicked on this link expecting to find something about it being the conservative christians fault or something like that... O,o

[Ztalker]

Since when do groups get the blame for the failure of one?

 

It's so easy to blame groups...look at the Second World War. One single individual (Hitler) decided all the suffering in the world was to blame on one single group of people(Jews) , and systematically tried to erase these people from history.

This article is doing something similar...disgusting.

 

What happend at that school had possibly many mistakes or groups involved, but the main atagonist remains the shooter himself. He is the one to blame, he shot those people.

[SilentScope001]

What happend at that school had possibly many mistakes or groups involved, but the main atagonist remains the shooter himself. He is the one to blame, he shot those people.

 

Course not. Who got the Shooter to shoot? If we change those factors, could we change the desicion of the Shooter?

 

After all, the Shooter is mentally ill. If the Shooter was not mentally ill, he wouldn't have done the crime, no? Therefore, is the Shooter responsible for the crime...if he did it only because he was mentally ill? Of course not, the Shooter has no control over him doing it, since he did it only because he had a mental illness. Since control is necessary to be responsible for anything, the Shooter therefore is not responsible for the crime, only the mental illness.

 

All you have to do is correct the mental illness, and the Shooter will not shoot. And all the other risk factors that made the Shooter shoot. Especially the Mass Media frenzy that started up the blame game at all the other School shootings that sort of encourage Shooters to shoot.

[Ztalker]

So we actually blame the murders there on Death Metal/Internet/Random group of people who had influence on the kid?

 

He commited these murders out of hate against the rich people, right? (Haven't seen the whole video/heard the whole story).

So if i'd stand up, for example, and say "I hate rubber ducks" and continue to kill of a bunch of people, would rubber ducks be the reason behind my killing spree?

 

'course not. It's the way I interpreted rubber ducks.

(A silly example, I know...)

 

Just like the shooter at Virginia Tech. He thought the rich/poor balance sucked in this world. I wouldn't go shoot people for it, but apparently he did.

Of course it's a kind of ilness that made him choose this way to 'fight' for his ideals, but it's still his own responsability. He could have chosen to send a letter to politicians, or donate money, but he didn't.

Again, imo, it's his own responasbility, Not that of the mass, or the things that influenced him.

 

Don't want to flame or anything, just my op.

 

Edit: @ post below:

Sure. Enjoyed the discussion though.

[SilentScope001]

Of course it's a kind of ilness that made him choose this way to 'fight' for his ideals, but it's still his own responsability. He could have chosen to send a letter to politicians, or donate money, but he didn't.

 

I doubt a mentally insane person would go and peacefully campagin for the total destruction of the rich. None of us are insane, you know, so we cannot go and pass judgement, "Oh, he could control our actions", and I sincercly doubt that the person has any control over his actions.

 

Also think that if the person did not have the mental illness, he wouldn't have this rage against anything, rubber duckie or rich people. So, the mental illness plays a huge role in motivating him to do such a thing. To go and blame the shooter for shooting seems essentially a copt-out, avoiding the main issues that actually pushed him to the crime.

 

But actually, I'm not really interested in playing the blame game right now. Is it okay if we stop blaming "mental illness"/"the shooter" and agree to disagree on this point?

[MTV2]

I think it's Gods fault. If He never made the Korean kid, this would have never happened.

[JediMaster12]

I think it's Gods fault. If He never made the Korean kid, this would have never happened.

Why not have God be made responsible for creating the kid's parents then? Were there is one finger being pointed there are three pointed right back at you with this statement you just said.

 

As someone who's suffered from some pretty serious mental illness and have tonnes of 'crazy' friends, not to mention that I'm seriously considering psychiatry as a profession, I personally find the attack on psychiatry to be the worst one so far. Such a stigmatized and at the same time life-saving practice does not need more ignorance-induced attacks upon it.

The problem is that there are other factors that influence this opinion. I know this is TV but on an episode of SVU, I recall a psychiatrist saying that the mental state or the anger was induced by bad genes or something. I am probably off the mark with that but the point is the media and other things have portrayed psychiatry in a bad light thus creating the stereotypes. I admit that I am not impressed by clinical psychiatrists mainly because like me they are human.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Acutally, I disagree. Violent video games will not go and turn people into killers, but they could act as a strongly dehumanizing agent.

 

I mean, it's logical. If you hear that someone is killed in real life, it's horrifying. But, well, if you have just killed someone in-game before you hear that someone was killed in real life, well? You wouldn't care as much about that person.

 

For example, if I hear that a person died in Africa, I shrug my shoulders. Heh, if I hear that a person died in my hometown, or if an Iraqi man was killed in Iraq, I shrug my shoulders. They are just mere stats, they mean nothing. Add in it that it was likely I killed that same person in say, GTA or an Persian Gulf War game, and well, you can see the dehumanizing effect is there.

 

Violent video games can also increase the aggressiveness of the person playing the game, according to some studies. And there is the case of one school shooter using a video game to learn how to aim a gun.

 

Am I calling for a ban? No. I play violent video games too. I just want people to understand that the people claiming that violent video games are wrong...well, have a point. I would just consign it to a factor instead of something so important...

 

People heard that a genocide was happening in Rwanda back in 1994. People shrugged their shoulders and left a bunch of people to die. This was 1994, before the age of violent games domination. I realize that Doom was released in 1993, but it's still before their domination.

 

People had enjoyment when they saw two persons gutting each other in an arena back in ancient Rome. This was before the age of violent video games domination.

 

My point? Linking both as a causality is impossible.

 

Also, if you've actually used a gun in your life, you'd know that it's quite different then pressing the R button for reloading and the right-mouse for zooming. I still don't understand those who can actually blame a game for teaching them how to "shoot". Hell, an idiot can use a gun, you don't need video games to teach you exactly how to pull a trigger. There's also a difference in gunning down a bunch of pixels and seeing a real person getting killed in real life. I've cut heads and found some sick pleasure doing it in some game. When I saw an actual person getting his head cut off, I vomited.

 

 

I do, however, blame the media for a lot of things. Though video games portray fiction, the media report reality. It emphasizes on all these cases of murder, of killing, of X,Y,Z acts of violence ad nauseam. I don't think however that it's something inherently new. Did the people in Great Britain in 1909, care about some random guy who got killed in South America? Do people, living in big cities, cry about some girl who was murdered by her boyfriend across the city? Is it something new?

[montnoir]

We've got mentally ill people in my country too and sometimes they crack and grab a weapon and start... stabbing! So someone gets a cut hand and someone else gets a gashed leg, then the madman/madwoman is brought to ground by some random, or a few random passersby.

 

US citizens;

Having free access to automatic weapons then whining about mental illness leading to mass destruction is self-delusion on a grand scale.

 

By all means, keep selling your weapons in supermarkets it's a wonderful idea. When you're at it why not sell atomic bombs at K-Mart? Because after all "atomic bombs don't kill people, people kill people". Right?

[Emperor Devon]

Deaths without any visuals, specifics, or knowledge of the dead is too impersonal to seem a tragedy to pretty much everyone. I found the shooting at Virginia Tech even more horrible when I saw pictures of the victims and descriptions of their lives and how they died.

 

Numbers alone are extremely impersonal, and get to be even moreso when there are lots of them. To quote Joseph Stalin, "The death of one man is tragedy. The death of a million men is a statistic."

[SilentScope001]

People heard that a genocide was happening in Rwanda back in 1994. People shrugged their shoulders and left a bunch of people to die. This was 1994, before the age of violent games domination. I realize that Doom was released in 1993, but it's still before their domination.

 

People had enjoyment when they saw two persons gutting each other in an arena back in ancient Rome. This was before the age of violent video games domination.

 

My point? Linking both as a causality is impossible.

 

...Come on!

 

For the first situation, you can argue that people did not care because it was in Africa. For all intents and purpose, it was a war between Rwanda Hutus and Tustis.

 

For the second situtation, people enjoyed seeing two people gut each other. Culture said this was the right thing to do. There was violent works of arts too, you know. Violent poems, glorifying decapatication? Sort of the equivilant of our modern day violent TV shows and video games, no? Plus, what the point of violent video game domination when you can actually join the military and see actual violence?

 

I was never arguing casualty, I am arguing however that exposure to violence makes people desentized. Video games are one way.

 

Also, if you've actually used a gun in your life, you'd know that it's quite different then pressing the R button for reloading and the right-mouse for zooming. I still don't understand those who can actually blame a game for teaching them how to "shoot". Hell, an idiot can use a gun, you don't need video games to teach you exactly how to pull a trigger.

 

Still, any sort of training is good, and it can help grant the shooter self-confidence that he can indeed shoot.

 

There's also a difference in gunning down a bunch of pixels and seeing a real person getting killed in real life. I've cut heads and found some sick pleasure doing it in some game. When I saw an actual person getting his head cut off, I vomited.

 

...Actually, I doubt it. I see blown up body parts and I shrug my shoulder. You may have a different reaction, but you do not speak for everyone, and neither do I. But, prehaps, in the hands of a person who like violence, violent video games could be the equilivant of "snuff" films.

 

I do, however, blame the media for a lot of things. Though video games portray fiction, the media report reality. It emphasizes on all these cases of murder, of killing, of X,Y,Z acts of violence ad nauseam. I don't think however that it's something inherently new. Did the people in Great Britain in 1909, care about some random guy who got killed in South America? Do people, living in big cities, cry about some girl who was murdered by her boyfriend across the city? Is it something new?

 

Just because it's not a new trend doesn't mean we should go and shrug it off. It exist. It's real. And we should not discount it.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

I doubt a mentally insane person would go and peacefully campagin for the total destruction of the rich. None of us are insane, you know, so we cannot go and pass judgement, "Oh, he could control our actions", and I sincercly doubt that the person has any control over his actions.

Agreed, although I feel you use the term 'insane' a bit too broadly. But that's just me.

 

Also think that if the person did not have the mental illness, he wouldn't have this rage against anything, rubber duckie or rich people.

Seeing that we, as far as I know, hardly even know what he suffered from, that's not such a sure thing. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but you can perfectly well hate something and be mentally healthy. Murdering 32 people on the basis of that hate, though... that is probably not exactly a sign your brain's working well.

 

But actually, I'm not really interested in playing the blame game right now. Is it okay if we stop blaming "mental illness"/"the shooter" and agree to disagree on this point?

We can. However, I sure as Heck hope researchers don't. School shooting cases need to be studied, as do the perpetrators. The more we know about what motivates these things, the more we can do to prevent them.

 

I am probably off the mark with that but the point is the media and other things have portrayed psychiatry in a bad light thus creating the stereotypes.

There are lots of reasons. Bad portrayal in the media is but one.

 

As for video games causing unstable people to kill, I don't know, but I do know for a fact that portrayal of suicide in certain ways in movies, and the discussing of suicide attempts, etc. can 'push suicidal people over the edge'. Suicide is contagious (note, however, that asking someone if they're suicidal is not going to make them more suicidal, but on the contrary less likely to kill themselves. Likewise, discussions on alternatives to suicide, how you can get help, etc. are life-saving). So I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing was true for individuals with homicidal tendencies subjected to works that portray homicide?