Weekend mass shootings: Politicians "partly" blame video games, Cloudflare cuts ties with...

[midian182]

In brief: Not for the first time, certain politicians have said video games should take some of the blame for mass shootings. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick both pointed to the medium as being partly responsible for the tragedies that took place over the weekend.

A gunman opened fire at a crowded El Paso shopping area on Saturday, killing 20 people and injuring 26 more. Thirteen hours later, another mass shooting took place, this one in downtown Dayton, which saw nine people killed and at least 27 injured.

Speaking about the shootings on Fox News, Patrick mentioned what is believed to be an anti-immigrant manifesto posted by the El Paso shooter on 8chan, which includes a Call of Duty reference.

"How long are we going to let, for example, and ignore at the federal level particularly, where they can do something about the videogame industry," said Patrick. "In this manifesto, that we believe is from the shooter, he talks about living out his super soldier fantasy on Call of Duty.”

Patrick added that "there have been studies that say [video games] impact people, and studies that say it does not.”

"I look at the common denominators, as a 60-something father and grandfather myself, what's changed in this country? We've always had guns, we've always had evil, but what's changed when we see this rash of shooting? And I see a videogame industry that teaches young people to kill.”

His sentiments were later repeated by McCarthy in an interview with Fox and Friends. One thing he blamed the shootings on was “a video game industry that teaches young people to kill.”

clip here -- it's very much jumping off Tx. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick's comments to F&F earlier pic.twitter.com/J8PqvNtvz0

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 4, 2019

"I've always felt that is a problem for future generations and others. We watch from studies shown before of what it does to individuals," he said. "When you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within videogames."

We’ve been here before, of course. Video games have been shouldering the blame for mass shootings going back to the 1999 Columbine massacre, which saw families of those who lost their lives attempt to sue several game companies, but the suit was dismissed.

Following the Parkland shooting in Florida last year, President Trump held a roundtable at the White House with industry representatives to discuss violence in video games. The meeting began with an 88-second montage showing deaths from M-rated games. The clip (below) features a lot of content from the Call of Duty series.

There have been numerous studies showing no links between video games and aggression, but it seems they’ll always be demonized in the wake of mass shootings. Another Fox News guest, Former FBI agent Maureen O'Connell, said of the El Paso shooter: "If I were a betting man, I'd say that he probably logs 6-8 hours a day playing one of those, you know, Fortnite, or one of those video games.”

In related news, Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure company that helps protect websites from DDoS attacks, has announced it will stop offering its services to 8chan. Company CEO Matthew Prince wrote: “The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths,” he said. “Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit.”

8chan founder Fredrick Brennan thanked Cloudflare for its decision, writing “Finally this nightmare may have an end,” in a tweet.

Thank you so much @CloudFlare. Finally this nightmare might have an end. I just want to go back to making my fonts in peace and not have to worry about getting phone calls from CNN/New York Times every time a mass shooting happens. They could have prevented this and chose not to.

— Fredrick Brennan (@HW_BEAT_THAT) August 5, 2019

In 2017, Cloudflare was one of several companies to sever ties with white supremacist sites in the wake of the Charlottesville protests, which saw Heather Heyer killed when a car drove into a crowd.

Image credit: aschwaphoto via Shutterstock

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https://www.techspot.com/news/81284-politicians-video-games-partly-blame-weekend-mass-shootings.html

 

[m-tec]

Australia had a mass shooting then banned guns, guess what? No more shootings. America will always have guns, so it will always have mass shootings.
It really IS that simple., But hey Americans clearly know better?!
Pretty sure it's hard to shoot someone without a gun?!
If video games were to blame, they clearly are not very good at them.
The only thing video game like is the high score that the country is going for on its public while the rest of the world look on in amazement

 

[noel24]

Other countries also have brutal video games, but if they don't have easy access to weapons, They don't have mass shootings.
American politicians are either retarded or They hope Their constituents are.
How do You think, which one is it?

 

[Nobina]

It shows how much they don't give a single **** about these issues when they simply blame it on your hobby and move on instead of doing some actual thinking.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I'm just glad I bought my both my AR15's and my silencers before the bans come.

 

[Uncle Al]

Amazing that the boy in Dayton had a 100 round clip and didn't get off more shots in that time ..... damn amatures give all us crazy's a bad name!

 

[Hexic]

Australia had a mass shooting then banned guns, guess what? No more shootings. America will always have guns, so it will always have mass shootings.
It really IS that simple., But hey Americans clearly know better?!

If that line of logic is your understanding of the issue, then it proves you know nothing at all about the total issue itself. But keep believing “it’s just that easy”.

 

[Azshadi]

You're talking about a culture and an economy that spends ~700 Billion dollars on military alone. Also a country that shows 35%-43% of households having a firearm. Americans make up about 4.4 % of the global population but own 42 % of the world’s guns. Even though it's peanuts compared to Amazon for example domestic gun sales are still around 62 billion dollars. The difference is in the culture.
"The United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.
The main reason American regulation of gun ownership is so weak may be the fact that the trade-offs are simply given a different weight in the United States than they are anywhere else.
After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.
That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html


Thus said, nothing will change any-time soon, the government thinks the trade-off is worth it.

 

[johnofo]

Australia had a mass shooting then banned guns, guess what? No more shootings. America will always have guns, so it will always have mass shootings.
It really IS that simple., But hey Americans clearly know better?!

If that line of logic is your understanding of the issue, then it proves you know nothing at all about the total issue itself. But keep believing “it’s just that easy”.

It is a good point though, and one covered quite hilariously by Jim Jefferies in his comedy show a few years back,

If you're saying that the public's easy access to military grade hardware isn't the issue then what is? This seems to be a very American problem. Something in the US is making small numbers of people go radio rental and murder a bunch of random punters in public. Surely the access to weapons designed to kill as many people as possible in a short space of time is at least partly to blame?

 

[Impudicus]

I feel like the problem isn't video games or guns, but it comes down to how we treat each other in this country. So many of us have become extremely judgemental and it seems no matter what your beliefs or opinions are you will ridiculed and shamed by someone. People become alienated and angry at the world as a whole, or just a group of people... And out of spite lash out in pure frustration and anger in an act of desperation or hopelessness. At least that's how it looks to me.

 

[ypsylon]

Politicians are everywhere just empty balls of hot air in the skulls looking to blame everything and everybody but themselves. In the USA with a twist that country is basically held hostage by military lobby. Last US President which tried to stop 'military-industrial complex' from running this country was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He failed miserably. Easily million of innocent people died across all mass shootings since then. US is run by guns $, guns $ and more guns $. I'm sure that ANY US administration trying to enact strict gun-control reform will end with bullets in their heads and full scale civil war.

It is not normal to spend untold billions on military and guns every year, more than whole continents spend to run the countries itself. US Kids or sometimes 2-3 years old babies play with guns at home like dolls (multitude of "accidents"). It's mad house. You can't allow population to held more guns than all of the country military combined - you think that one recent example of guy in California IIRC which had 1000s pieces of guns in his house with heaps of ammo is the only one? There are millions of those and that's the terrifying truth.

 

[Udelh579]

I feel like the problem isn't video games or guns, but it comes down to how we treat each other in this country. So many of us have become extremely judgemental and it seems no matter what your beliefs or opinions are you will ridiculed and shamed by someone. People become alienated and angry at the world as a whole, or just a group of people... And out of spite lash out in pure frustration and anger in an act of desperation or hopelessness. At least that's how it looks to me.

Yeah, I see that, too. We also try to distract ourselves from our pain until we can't tell the difference between friend or foe. It's hard to see the world clearly when we are consumed by our emotions.

 

[wiyosaya]

I feel like the problem isn't video games or guns, but it comes down to how we treat each other in this country. So many of us have become extremely judgemental and it seems no matter what your beliefs or opinions are you will ridiculed and shamed by someone. People become alienated and angry at the world as a whole, or just a group of people... And out of spite lash out in pure frustration and anger in an act of desperation or hopelessness. At least that's how it looks to me.

Honestly, I think you are spot on with this.

As I see it, it goes deeper in that the economic system and its effects on society only make any one individual valued if they make lots of money. Honestly, I see many of those who are at the top of that economic ladder that I think contribute nothing to the overall advancement of humanity. To me, things are totally f'd in that aspect. Until people wake up and see the emptiness there, nothing will change and people like this will continue to make an effort to make their mark in the world since they seem to feel that they have nothing else and are ever willing to blame their situation on everyone else.

But that is the day and age that we live in - and I am not so sure that over the past several hundred years, things have been any different. There are those that think that solving perceived problems can be done by blaming every one else for them. It is often the easiest course, even if it is not the right course, to blame problems on someone else rather than face them in one's self and conquer them there. Often, those who are blamed are the ones most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves; not only that, but they also have little to no true influence over those who blame them.

And so we see the same thing in the responses of these politicians - blame something else because it must be those damn video games.

 

[Dimitrios]

Why not go after rappers and violent movies instead? IDK I am a heavy gamer when it comes to FPS and I have a clean record. If I have a bad day I just load up Quake 3 Arena. Back in my teen years my buddies and I would drink and listen to rap music and it made me and them more violent because the music pumps up your adrenaline and mix that with alcohol it doesn't equal well.

 

[Teko03]

Australia had a mass shooting then banned guns, guess what? No more shootings. America will always have guns, so it will always have mass shootings.
It really IS that simple., But hey Americans clearly know better?!

Australia also has the benefit of being a freestanding "island" --- you'd still have to manage to keep guns from being smuggled in from neighboring countries in the US. Similar to our drug trafficking issues.

 

[CommonSense]

Why not go after rappers and violent movies instead? IDK I am a heavy gamer when it comes to FPS and I have a clean record. If I have a bad day I just load up Quake 3 Arena. Back in my teen years my buddies and I would drink and listen to rap music and it made me and them more violent because the music pumps up your adrenaline and mix that with alcohol it doesn't equal well.

The whole world listens to rap music and watches violent movies .... this isn't happening anywhere except the US .... Multiple mass shootings every year ... only happens in 1 place .... a place where you can go to your local grocery store and grab a weapon (kinda crazy when you think about it .... Need a bag for your tomatoes and AR15?)

 

[SwiftsTechTalks]

Lol rip 8chan

 

[SwiftsTechTalks]

Why not go after rappers and violent movies instead? IDK I am a heavy gamer when it comes to FPS and I have a clean record. If I have a bad day I just load up Quake 3 Arena. Back in my teen years my buddies and I would drink and listen to rap music and it made me and them more violent because the music pumps up your adrenaline and mix that with alcohol it doesn't equal well.

Buying a gun isnt that easy

The whole world listens to rap music and watches violent movies .... this isn't happening anywhere except the US .... Multiple mass shootings every year ... only happens in 1 place .... a place where you can go to your local grocery store and grab a weapon (kinda crazy when you think about it .... Need a bag for your tomatoes and AR15?)

 

[Jeff Re]

I missed the part where video games were used to kill people. Was there a special gun that shot the game boxes? Or shot DVDs?

 

[wiyosaya]

Why not go after rappers and violent movies instead? IDK I am a heavy gamer when it comes to FPS and I have a clean record. If I have a bad day I just load up Quake 3 Arena. Back in my teen years my buddies and I would drink and listen to rap music and it made me and them more violent because the music pumps up your adrenaline and mix that with alcohol it doesn't equal well.

IMO, the results would be no different. Each stimulus affects each person differently. Also, there is some exceptionally good rap music written by artists that "get it" in the deeper sense; although, I hate most rap music. For an example of such, watch the second season of Cloak and Dagger.

I missed the part where video games were used to kill people. Was there a special gun that shot the game boxes? Or shot DVDs?

Since most games are downloaded these days, it must have been bits and bytes.

 

[Catweazle]

Ban the NES Zapper!

 

[OortCloud]

American politicians are so deeply in the pockets of the gun lobby they can't ban guns so another shooting is just a bit more gore on their already blood-soaked hands.
Also one whole demographic seems to have been persuaded that 'the right to bear arms' is part of some rose-tinted American way of life that never existed and that in this context hasn't made sense in 200 years anyway. The arguments justifying the sale of guns, especially Assault Rifles etc, would make the Flat Earth brigade blush.

 

[netman]

It is sad, but a white supremacist cannot think rationally, and it goes without saying that he goes out to shoots live humans after playing violent video games to show the skills he just learned electronically...

 

[Eflow]

The NRA has become radicalized over the years. Their message has changed from "this is how to keep guns away from children" into "liberals are using public schools to brainwash children and take away your second amendment rights".

Does the rabid culture of gun ownership in America get any blame from conservative politicians? Nope, they point their fingers at the typical boogeymen of Hollywood and video games.

 

[cfbcfbcfb]

Mass shootings in the US have happened since the 1700's. What video games were they playing prior to 1970 again? What violent tv shows were they watching back then?

I've played video games for over 40 years, mostly shooters once Doom came out and so far haven't killed anyone. There is a direct correlation between number of guns per capita and deaths. There is also a raft of studies showing video games produce LESS youth violence.

The # of victims went up in lock step with the adoption of assault weapons. Pistols, single shot rifles and shotguns produced 1-5 victims. We went double and triple digit with semi automatic rifles and bump stocks.