Depravity and violence rule in video games
By Glenn Gramigna
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Video games in which contestants compete to run over innocent pedestrians...Video games in which kids test their skills at shooting down police officers...Video games in which the object is to rape a mother and her daughters....(No, we're not kidding!)
Obviously, every kid who plays a violent and sadistic video game doesn't immediately go out and take out a whole neighborhood or rape a high school class. And, it's true that the scientific studies are all over the map as to whether playing games whose object is killing or hurting people leads kids to anti social behavior. In fact, some social scientists seem to think such schoolboy pastimes are as harmless as previous generations' devotion to stick ball or “Alley, Alley Out and Free!”
A 2004 Secret Service study found that only one eighth of school yard killers were also video game players. On the other side, a 2000 FBI report includes playing violent video games in a list of behaviors associated with school shootings.
No matter what the researchers say, why should we want our children playing “games” that degrade human life to the extent that destroying others is portrayed as “fun?” And, there's another point that deserves consideration.
If you happen to be one of the unfortunates who is shot by one of the one eighth of violent video gamer players who kill, knowing that the other seven eighth are busy at choir practice would not be much consolation.
“What parent would want to bring a video game into their home called, 'Grand Theft Auto?”...This was the question that opened a 60 Minutes report on violent video games several years ago. As it turns out, the answer is apparently tens of millions since 'Grand Theft...' has sold more than 35 million copies, with total sales well over $2 billion.
During his report, the late Ed Bradley described the game as “a world governed by the laws of depravity. See a car you like? Steal it! Someone you don't like? Stomp her! Run into a cop? Blow him away!...It is 360 degrees of murder and mayhem: slickly produced, technically brilliant, and exceedingly violent”.
All just good clean fun of course...Unless you happen to be Officers Arnold Strickland, James Crump, or Ace Mealer of Fayette, Alabama. All three were murdered in 2005 by 18 year old Devin Moore who had played “Grand Theft Auto” day and night for months before shooting and killing all three. Despite having no previous criminal record, Moore suddenly grabbed Officer Strickland's 40 caliber Glock automatic and shot this dedicated law enforcement officer twice.
Moore then shot Officer Crump in the head before turning and firing five shots into Officer Mealer. When he was finally caught, the teenaged murderer told police, “Life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime.” Once the mayhem ended, Attorney Jack Thompson filed a lawsuit on behalf of two of the victims' families against “Grand Theft's...” manufacturers. The suit alleged that Moore was acting out a scenario that is part of the game in which the player enters a police precinct and escapes by shooting police.
“I've got the entire police force after me,” Moore explained when he was arrested. “So you have to eliminate all resistance.”
Naturally, the video game industry would point out that this is only anecdotal evidence, of course. Still, if it happened to you, it would be quite a memorable anecdote.
In any case, law enforcement professionals who are on the front lines in the battle against adolescent violence every day don't have to wait for academic studies to know what's going on on the mean streets they patrol.
Says Sydney, Australia Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione: “There is nothing more dangerous than the sort of violence kids are being exposed to be it in movies or console games they are playing...How can it not affect you if you're a young adolescent growing up in an era where to be violent is almost praiseworthy...You get rewarded for killing people, raping women, crashing cars and killing people. That's not going to affect the vast majority. But, it's only got to affect one or two and the result could be a great tragedy.”
