For years people have been blaming entertainment for society's blunders as an excuse for poor parenting and violent behavior among today's youth.  At one point it rock and roll was the target for outrage due to the artists 'corrupting the minds of young audiences' but today video games are to blame.  Anything from school shootings to hit and runs have been examples of blaming video games for a much larger issue in today's society.  What is this issue?  Some people are just plain nuts!

Part of this issue may be because many people of older generations just do not understand video games.  By seeing video games as 'murder simulators' to steal Jack Thompson's overused quote, it automatically puts the notion in peoples' minds that they are bad.  Again, I am not saying that a young child should be playing Grand Theft Auto, but games are rated for a reason.  Poor parenting is the biggest problem with this debated topic and the solution is pretty simple.  Do not let your child play violent games, the choice is in your hands, not the game maker's.  For example when Gears of War was first released I was at the mall with a few friends of mine.  We all were purchasing the game and we were some what shocked with who we saw buying it.  In front of us was a kid, probably not older than ten years old with a copy of Gears of War in his hand.  How can someone say that a game is causing an issue and then go out and buy the game for their son because he wants it? 

Bad parenting is one of the issues I have with this topic, but there is another problem I have.  Some people are just not mentally healthy.  If someone cannot seperate a video game from reality then obviously something s wrong.  Do not blame a murder commited by a man who claimed he acted it out in Grand Theft Auto on the game, blame the lunatic who thought it was real.  Much of society is turning away from the larger issue by pinning our problems on a form of entertainment.

Video game violence is a very debated topic in today's world and it is not about to go away anytime soon, until people begin to realize what the real issue is.  A form of entertainment is not a valid argument in this debate because for the millions of people who play video games, how many actually act on them?  Not many and these are the ones who are causing the problem.  Just because someone thought they could go on a killing spree and blame Grand Theft Auto is an excuse for their own insanity by blaming something other than themselves or even our society.  Once people begin to comprehend this, we will all be better off.