Obama Instructs CDC to Research Links Between Violent Media and Real-Life Violence

"Here's ten million dollars, make it look like I'm actually doing something about this."

What about books?Books can get awful violent.It paints a picture into a readers mind.Young children can be exposed!Won't somebody think of the children?

It's annoying to see this same stupid thing brought up again, but I guess we need to go through the motions every so often. Hopefully nothing comes of this. Can't wait until this pandering, useless dipshit is out of office.

What would we blame if someone went into a school and started beating people to death with a copy of "The Audacity of Hope"? (Obama's second book... to save a Google search)

Eh, "recommendations" are about as significant as the dirt under my fingernail.

Fifty bucks not a dollar goes to ANY research on account of Congress behaving like a perpetual slow-motion car crash.

I hope the days of using violent acts in video games as a crutch for game play are numbered. I hope they start finding new ways to entertain using the medium on a wide scale. Just listing off a few downloadable games or Indies isn't enough. Have a look at the local EB, most of it revolves around violence and criminality. I'm not saying there is no room for it, but have some balance. If the movie industry was skued like this you'd only see 1000s of predators, a few any given Sundays, with the odd fast and the furious.

They should use that money to study the immature and idiotic most gamers can be.

I could solve Americas problem with 10 mil. Just buy up all the guns and put harsher restrictions on buying them fuck it's so simple fucken idiots.

Let's pretend I like Train Simulator. Why am I not stealing and driving trains all the time? I like Madden. Why am I not a pro football player?

@crow13 said:

@2kings: I don't think the 1st amendment protects anything, I think mass consumption does. If you ban anything that would be deemed inappropriate for kids, for the entire society, there are plenty of people who will do it anyways. Violent games won't go anywhere guys, they just may not be legal to buy at wal-mart.

I cannot argue that point cause it's a good one. They did ban alcohol for a while, thank goodness that didn't last. I think I want a drink now.

I hope that once the study concludes people will no longer be able to use video games or movies as scapegoats for guns.

Money well spent. Still, if it has the slimmest chance to shut morality guardians the fuck up, I'm all for it.

Ok you want a connecting between violence and video games I've got your connection . Japan has more video games then we do and they had 11 gun related homicides total in 2008. connection found the connection there is a direct connection to less violence.

Guys I found the link: humans! Humans are violent animals! They do violent things! Wipe them off the face of the Earth and we may finally know peace.

Maybe the US should stop killing millions of civilians in the middle east to set a good example.

See, this is what you get when you pay attention to TV, and vote, and give them government types any thought or attention... they think you care... People need to stop having emotion and realize people are crazy, and when untreated, do crazy shit. Banning guns will just piss off rednecks, and putting bans on media will just piss people like us off. If "The Man" want's to make all this go away, tell the pleading stay at home parents to "Cowboy up and deal with it", make selling M rated games to underage kids illegal and not just a "We'll fine you" thing, and put more regulations on gun owners.

My "real news" and "Video game" streams need to stop fuckin crossing. I come to video games, and related sites to escape from reality, not plan for it.

I am sure that when Obama appropriated funds for this study that it will be conducted in a purely bipartisan manner, and the results will in no way be agenda-driven.

The only people i have had a vengeful hatred towards always wears a suit and is is standing in front of a microphone telling sheep how they know everything or can do it with my money. When will sheep learn.

At least there's no blame being put on violent games and instead a willingness to do research. I don't believe in violent games having causality in these incidents, but keep an open mind.

I think that the Supreme Court already ruled on the legality of game regulation, and the majority decision included Obama's appointees.

I'd like to point out apparently the government isn't as broke as it wants people to believe after all it seems to have money to waste on shit that has already been done and has either found no connect or simply did not work.

@TooWalrus said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

OK, now I think this is stupid.

Which part? Let them research it all they want, they're not going to find anything. Or is it the money?

Mostly the latter, it's a waste of money to look into a scapegoat that has only been proven to be correlational not causational.

Violent media as an influence to killings? Boy, this is going to get interesting.

If there is anything to blame these killings on, then it should be the lack of communication, lack of support, lack of morals, lack of love, and boredom that such people have.

@floodiastus said:

Maybe the US should stop killing millions of civilians in the middle east to set a good example.

No way, bro. Hypocrisy is a constitutional right.

I have a Master of Public Health - essentially the graduate degree you obtain to work at the CDC and various health departments. The fundamental problem with what the president's asking is that he, and the CDC, already know the answer. Of course violent video games and violent actions are linked. There will be a clear, linear correlation. But the layperson will assume that the correlation is causality. Violent people play violent games, but violent games most likely do not create violent people. The problem here is not violent video games, it's mental health.

As for his sudden righteous indignation against guns - I hate guns, but the 2nd Amendment is what it is. It has been consistently defined as such by previous Supreme Courts as well. The crux of the problem isn't gun ownership, it's people who aren't licensed to carry guns somehow obtaining them. Impartial data shows that licensed gun owners commit less than 1% of all gun-related crimes. We shouldn't be grandstanding about how many new laws we need to "restrict" certain weapons, we should find ways to seriously penalize people found in possession of weapons without a license.

This is so stupid. America needs to get a grip and stare firmly in the mirror. Honestly what is this crap!?

I'm sure if i really tried i could hurt someone seriously with a Guitar Hero controller but other than that i really don't see the dangers of video games. Video games aren't as absorbing as these idiots in government think. Honestly have they looked into Hollywood and all the movies that in some cases glorify such acts as mass killing sprees. All done with far better effects than a game could produce. The same industry that created such innocence and purity like The Human Centipede. Video Games being used as a scape goat for the real issue and the real cause of those kids deaths i.e a GUN is frustratingly baffling to me. NRA idiots act as if owning a Gun is a God given right or something. How did they get the power they have. Where do they get off? Guns kill people, that is their purpose. It was why they were invented. To kill things is their only purpose. So why is it not considered a problem to have so many in circulation and how does it manage to avoid the blame for these horrors.

Sorry for generalizing abit, mindless rage can do that.

Standing on the bodies of the dead to further their agenda. The quick fix is is the one a fool takes.

Obama is essentially asking a group of biased researches to find a connection. Who thinks they'll find one?! I bet they do, and I bet the millions upon millions of normal people involved with violent media will continue paying taxes and being upstanding citizens. Oh the humanity!

If the ESRB isn't doing it right, and age checks aren't working at every location for Gamestop or movie theaters, then what do YOU want, U.S. government.

We have EPA's, and DMV's, and CIA's, and FBI's, and DOT's, and dozens more agencies that regulate everything in our lives. The games industry self-regulates. Now is it motivated by consumer protection? Of course not, it's profit if they want to sell in Wal-Mart. But the industry self-regulates. Steam isn't going to allow a baby murder simulator on their service, though they could.

I guess I'm saying, what will funding a research group ultimately accomplish that isn't already in place? Why am I angry? I DONT KNOW WHAT WERE YELLING ABOUT!

The Supreme Court has already struck down a ban on violent video game sales in California. I just want to know how my tax money funding a think-tank will bring to light a connection between violent video games and violent kids who come from broken homes and piss-poor parenting. There's your connection.

I love it when politicians or government is the subject of an article - it really seems to bring the crazies out of the woodwork.

@00 said:

Having properly funded and well regarded research on this subject can only be a good thing.

I think most of us know that violent media does not make you violent, but people that don't know anything about video games may not. Having science to back this up helps us.

Exactly this. A proper scientific study will support what gamers already know: violent games do not cause actual violence.

If Obama feels there might connection between gaming and nutjobs killing people...who are we to dare question his superior intellect and problem solving skills? We're all supposed to fall into line and let him spend us into oblivion, punish hard work/success, and provide freebies to everyone else. Why should gun control be any different?

Always remember, Barry knows best. Sit down, shut up, and let government take care of all of your responsibilities...

No, no, no, fucking no, what the hell? That's not what a government should do, and people shouldn't let the government do this. There's no need to mess with what i play or watch, specially if you spend that much money. Use that money to focus in mental health services, or education, not in studies like that.

I seriously cannot believe that the nation who gave us the guy who said "anyone willing to give up freedom for security deserves neither" is actually willing to do exactly that.

@Brodehouse said:

And here is where an entire nation gives up their right to free speech with triumphant applause.

This guy knows what's up.

Why is it always the violent media being blamed? Obviously people who do these things are drawn to violent media, but that doesn't mean its to blame for these events. Hopefully this research is unbiased and finally puts this debate to rest.

Every mother needs an Assault Rifle, America Fuck Yeah!

No one here should be freaking out. This is just happening so that the federal government can point at something the next time Wayne LaPierre or some no-name pundit on Fox News brings up "vidja games" in lieu of giving up their murderizers.

It's a ruse. He already knows that there is no correlation between violent games and violent actions. When the report comes back from the CDC that there is no link then the NRA will have to stop using this as an excuse. I, for one, welcome the CDC's conclusion.

This will get the mothers and nannys to pipe down on video games once this study proves there isn't a correlation here. This is what social scientists get paid for so let them get to work and finally get video games and movies out of the gun debate. Is anyone actually worried they may find some kind of link between violence and video games?

@Superfriend said:

Wait, the guy who ordered more drone killings than any other president before him does that?

I know. They talk about this culture that glorifies violence. Well yeah, we have that. I mean, the American government funded the live-streaming of the invasion of Iraq a decade ago.. If that isn't glorification of violence, I don't know what is. Must be the games, though.

I feel quite badly for the 7 adults that guy killed. The media seems to only ever mention them as an after thought, if at all. :(

@AMyggen:

Oh I don't know, maybe because that's the whole point here. This started with guns and it goes back around to guns.

Believe me. I think that there should be complete and comprehensive background checks. I think that there should be proper mental criteria that has to be met. But these things in the US Constitution are there for a reason. What part of "Shall not be infringed" do people not understand. New York, my home state and the state that I left years ago, just put in place some serious laws just after midnight on Tuesday without public debate or discourse. Vague laws. Laws that state that people can't have more than 7 rounds in a magazine although you can still have magazines that hold 10 rounds you just can't load that many into it. That you have to register any assault style weapon in the state even after the federal registration. That you cannot have more than one accessory on a weapon, even though some of those "accessories" are there for safety reasons so you don't burn your fucking hand off. Legal gun owners are the ones that have to pay for this, not the criminals because criminals don't give a fuck. If you're going to break the law you're not going to care if you have 7, 10, 30 or 100 rounds in a magazine.

Granted some good things came from these changes too, like harsher punishments for criminals with illegal guns and that. But this is how absurd this whole thing is. Ready for this. The changes for legal law abiding gun owners that are exercising their constitutional right happen immediately when this thing is signed in. The changes for illegal criminals with guns take 60 days to take effect. 60 days. Shouldn't it be the inverse?

As for 10 million being nothing in the grand scheme of things, you're right and wrong. You're right in that for a government with trillions at it's disposal 10 million is nothing, but for a government that's 16 trillion in debt in a recession it's something. Just as a moral issue I don't like taxpayers footing the bill.

And IF by some chance the CDC says that games and movies lead to violence are you really willing to give up that most sacred of rights? We can all sit here and say, "Oh it's all okay. They won't find anything because other studies have been done and they say there's no correlation." But what if they by happenstance find a correlation? Say it only happens in crazy nuts that should be in the looney bin anyway. Are you willing to give up freedom of speech and expression for some crazy fuck that shouldn't even be in civilized society?

It's a knee jerk reaction to a tragedy, and people don't know how to react of what to do. So they overreact. But if they don't overreact they're viewed as not doing enough and are considered animals. Where's the fucking line here?

Part of me thinks that the main reason for violence will always be asserting dominance over another person, or revenge over another person for a slight either real or imagined. Before guns, before any kind of media ever existed, there was murder. I don't know if it's a result of mental illness, either. There are plenty of people who are unfortunately depressed, paranoid, even suicidal who are not violent in any way, while there are plenty of people who are reasonably "sane" who grab a gun purely out of blind anger, don't stop to consider what they're doing, and shoot someone without a second thought. I don't think we'll ever know what the Sandy Hook shooter's motivation was or what caused him to want to kill innocent people, because he's dead himself.

@00: I agree with you that this might be a good way to prove games don't kill people to non-gamers. Although I think merely pushing the ESRB a little harder helps as well.

I don't understand why everyone seems to be on the defensive. This is a win-win situation. One of two outcomes are possible,

1. They do the research, and find no relevant connection between violent video games and a negative effect on the minds of young people. If this is the case, games are free to go.

2. They do the research, and find a relevant connection between violent video games and a negative effect on the minds of young people. If this is the case, we'll be able to better understand why, and we would have to take action to ensure that games don't fall in the wrong hands.

If it's the second one, then so be it. We're not going to defend our hobby to the point where people have to die for our right to play COD. At that point, we would be no better than supporters of guns. I fear that this is just what might come to pass.

I dont know if its been said already...but without further adieu...

THANKS OBAMA

Good. Since people are apparently too ignorant to look at what studies and proof have shown before, this will show it again. Probably at the cost of too many man hours and too much money for something we've already done, but go for it.

And when it is proven again that there is no actual link and being COMPLETELY FUCKING BAT CRAZY in the head ALREADY means you might enjoy playing CoD more than my little pony, we can all point to it when idiot agencies and officials point to games as causes for these tragedies.

I know im in the minority here on this site, but I play a ton of violent video games and I think it's obvious there is a correlation between the two. Im not saying video games are worse then movies or music or just looking a violent images online but I don't see how anyone could say that a kid consuming a lot of violent media has no effect on them.

The amount of arm-chair experts in this thread is fucking amazing. Let the professionals do their work and stop acting like you know every fucking detail on the planet. Just because it involves games doesn't mean you have to jump up on your soap box on an internet forum.

Haven't they already done this research? And it turned out that violent media didn't cause real world violence? Silly doing it again.

@Siphillis said:

Get it on paper, make it official, prove it once and for all: there is no substantial link between extreme homicidal tendencies and violent media.

There is if they are mentally disturbed or autistic or kids who play it from a very young age, it's hard to say because graphics that actually resemble people have only been around for the last 8 years.