New California video gaming rules

[PureSnipe]

I actually don't find anything of where our culture to be going as shocking. As time goes on, we become more desensitized toward moral issues and humanity as a whole. Granted, I highly doubt we'll return to a lawless, anarchy type state, but our version of entertainment resembles that of ancient Rome with gladiator fights. Eventually, people are going to have enough and begin banning things, as has been done in a few other countries. Either Germany or Russia, can't remember which, banned Gears of War 2 from being sold there as a result of violence and gore.

[Michlo]

Elraine: That's not normal? What? I'm 17 and I sleep with a Kimber .45 by the pillow, have a Benelli 12 gauge tactical shotgun in the closet, and a long-range AR-15 beside my desk.

/snip

 

Umm, if you're being serious there (can't be sure) then a) HOW does a 17 year old manage to own guns and b) WHY?

 

 

Being older than most of your parents, I suppose I see thing differently than the majority of people on this forum. People will always look for an exterior cause, and excuse. It's hard to admit that you are wrong and so they will always look for someone or something to blame. No one ever says, "My child is bad because I am a lousy parent." Why should we when we can blame something like video games? I don't think that any one thing is to blame, it is the culmination of events that has led us to where we are now.

 

Years ago if two people on TV were married they could not be shown in the same bed on the show. Look at reruns of shows like I Love Lucy, the married couples slept in separate beds. The first couple to share a bed on TV was actually Fred and Wilma Flintstone. In the eighties, sex in the movies grew exponentially but that was in theaters where the ratings were enforced not only by caring parents but also the theater management. With the invention of video (VHS, DVD Blue Ray , etc ) Sex has moved into our homes. What was shown in X rated movie houses in the seventies can now be rented on DVD with a rating of R or less. What you see as pornographic today will be the norm when you are a grandparent./snip

 

Agreed. I'm the eldest of five. When I was growing up in England I wasn't allowed to watch the Benny Hill shows or the new Liverpool set soap called Brookside when it first opened (and given that I'm from Wallasey, across the river from Liverpool, that one irked me).

 

A few years later on a visit home I noticed my younger brothers watching what was then deemed a "video nasty" which they had rented! I pointed this out to my Mum and I don't remember her exact words but the essence was that she was tired of being the cop.

 

That's pretty sad because I think kids DO grow up way too fast these days, for many reasons and more often than not they don't even realizing what they are losing and that once it is gone, it is gone.

[PureSnipe]

Elraine: That's not normal? What? I'm 17 and I sleep with a Kimber .45 by the pillow, have a Benelli 12 gauge tactical shotgun in the closet, and a long-range AR-15 beside my desk.

 

Umm, if you're being serious there (can't be sure) then a) HOW does a 17 year old manage to own guns and b) WHY?

I live in the south, I shoot competition, and the weapons are licensed to my dad. Rifle and shotgun are being transferred to my name in 8 months.

Meh rifle:

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f104/PureSnipe/bushmaster-1-1.jpg

[Deleted269910User]

Elraine: That's not normal? What? I'm 17 and I sleep with a Kimber .45 by the pillow, have a Benelli 12 gauge tactical shotgun in the closet, and a long-range AR-15 beside my desk.

 

Umm, if you're being serious there (can't be sure) then a) HOW does a 17 year old manage to own guns and b) WHY?

I live in the south, I shoot competition, and the weapons are licensed to my dad. Rifle and shotgun are being transferred to my name in 8 months.

Meh rifle:

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f104/PureSnipe/bushmaster-1-1.jpg

 

No offense, but your post seems to be containing more irony than true arguments.(You're not even arguing against the actual point of the post as far as I can see.) It is NOT normal for a kid(Of any age.) to be sleeping with(Or having.) guns in his/her room, no matter where they live, granted it might not be illegal or completely impossible idea in some places. You have to note that normal is not defined by you, but the general public and as far as I know, it's not the standard anywhere for kids to sleep with their room filled with guns.(Somewhere in the conflict zones, possibly, but that's way off the point.)

 

You also missed the point of my post on that paragraph(In the regard of attaining the weapons.), although which I didn't think I'd need to specify, un-licensed guns. I've yet to see any(As in; heard from any case.) moron shoot their friends with a licensed one, unless stolen. Also note that your use is supervised, in my example and as the cases have shown in the USA(And here in Finland. Two cases so far, with the closest having been within 50km of my home.) the handling of the gun is not supervised, nor does the buyer need a license(Or several, depending on the gun and it's purpose.) for owning the gun, like they would if it was legal.

 

Anyway, this discussion would need a debate of it's own, so I'm simply going to end my part of it on this post.

 

~Elraine

[PureSnipe]

My comment about sleeping with the guns was meant to arouse a few laughs. I was being sarcastic, sorry if it didn't come across that way.

 

Reason they stay in my room is for the fact I want them to. Makes for easier access when I feel like shooting due for the fact that I live on enough land that it's legal to go in my backyard and shoot. Again, I was trying to bring a little humor into an otherwise troubling situation.

 

Besides, as you so kindly pointed out yourself, the norm is determined by the general population. Since you seem to know what the norm is for my area, you must have lived here on ranchlands in Texas. If not, let me explain some of what's normal in my area. About 75% of us that live on an area close to, or on, a ranch have a pistol, rifle, or shotgun within reach of us at all times. Granted, usually not loaded as to prevent problems, but have the ammo within easy reach.

 

Also, while homosexuality is accepted in other parts of the US, and is widely considered to be normal, but here, people freak out if they see it. Now no offense here, but I would NEVER say I know what's normal in Finland, due to the fact that I've never lived there.

 

Because of that, I believe that others shouldn't assume they know what's normal for places they haven't lived in recently, or studied in-depth.

 

And to further elaborate on reasoning here. Ever see how much a equine vet's bill is for a horse that's been mauled by a coyote? About $10,000. If we see a coyote, bobcat, or anything that's a threat to horses and livestock, it gets shot. Now think of this, I'm sitting here in my room, and the gun storage is on the other end of the house. In order to get to a rifle, I would have to go there, open the safe, retrieve the gun, proceed to load it, since you shouldn't store a loaded mag in a rifle that's being stored due to safety issues, and then go outside and fire it. That would take about 60 seconds, and if you've never seen what one of those animals can do, 60 seconds is more than enough time for them to run off and do damage.

 

And since you claim my original post seems to make no sense, did you even read the second part to it? I'd really like to know how that's not arguing along the lines of the original topic, since I was providing evidence to reinforce a previous statement.

 

It's like saying that fingerprinting a shard of broken glass that was from a break-in isn't helping to support the original case, whereas it's providing further evidence to reinforce the fact that the shard of glass was linked to the robbery by providing supporting evidence.

 

Seems you went off on a rant about my post due to the first statement made without thinking about how relevant, or how the second statement, may tie into the argument as a whole.

[Deleted269910User]

-sigh, You're hopelessly missing my point, which means I'm just not articulating it well enough;

 

I'll try re-phrasing/explaining few things from my post/views;

 

General public is not a single a country/state, that would still be considered local. Texas simply happens to be on the list of 'exceptions' regarding the amount of weaponry civilians have and that is something even you must know, when comparing yourself to the other states or foreign countries.

 

Now secondly I had only read that one paragraph which was quoted by Michlo, that you can blame on me being lazy and tired.

 

What I meant when I said we're going off-topic is that this discussion we're having at this moment is not relevant to the main topic. Discussion regarding games being blamed for kids shooting their friends->on topic, discussion about how to attain the guns, or how the amount of them varies locally for whatever reasons->off topic.

 

After reading your full post, your second paragraph isn't directly linked to the first one, which makes your claim about it null. The paragraph is well written though and has valid points.

 

The sarcasm on your post; I don't speak english natively, so my comprehension still isn't perfect and the message came through to me as irony/mockery, but that was a misconception on my part it seems. At no point did I mean to offend in any way.(And I apologize if I did.)

 

~Elraine

[PureSnipe]

The second paragraph of my original post was where I was trying to state my point. The first paragraph was meant as a joke, for I joke around about bad situations in order to help ease some of the tension by nature, and when Michlo asked about my statement, I simply answered him. I don't ignore questions though, for that's considered to be rude. If we want to say the "global norm", then sure, it most likely isn't normal for me to have a rifle in my room. The thing is, the norm isn't determined globally. We tend to divide the norm amongst regions due to the fact that the world we inhabit is so culturally diverse. The norm changes depending on where you go, and if we were to base everything off of a global norm, then we would be assuming there is little variation in culture, government and social structure, which is completely false. If I'm wrong there, I'd appreciate it if you can let me know which country bases its laws off of a global standard over what's considered normal for their country.

 

Back onto the topic.

 

If you think about it, a video game has no substantial effect on how violent a person is, unless they already have a mental instability. If a person sees the violence, and is able to determine that it's fictitious and not real life, then it does not affect them in such a drastic manner as to stir violent actions. In all honesty, for most people I know, a violent video game actually helps to relieve anger due to the fact they can take it out on a virtual target. The violence is stirred when the person dwells on the images and actions, and the majority of the time they have a mental problem that causes emotional problems anyway. What's to say that a kid that is harassed at school isn't going to take the violence displayed to him/her, dwell on it and take action on that? The same can be applied to movies.

 

To summarize my statement, if a person is able to separate fiction from reality, then they'll be largely unaffected. If they can't, yet a game is removed, what's to say they won't receive the violent thoughts that are turned to action from themselves, from a book, or even what they see in their day to day life? It's up to parents to notice how a kid is behaving and be a parent, it's not the position of a government ,as is stated in the Constitution, to step in and censor material believing they know what's best for a child they've failed to even meet.

[Michlo]

I deliberately avoided straying into the "violence imbues violence" debate as that is a can of worms we've opened before and I made my views known then.

 

What I am saying here, though, is that kids DO grow up too quickly these days. Once that childhood / innocence is gone, there is no getting it back. Sure, part of that is due to the pervasiveness of communication and information these days but to my mind, this is no reason parents can't still make attempts to keep their children in childhood for as long as possible rather than having them rush into being young adults.

 

As far as I'm concerned, letting them view sex, violence, own guns, any of these things, detracts from and shortens the time of that precious childhood.

 

/rant

 

But then, what do I know? Tonight it seems certain that California will be retaining the decision to make the likes of me a second class citizen despite the fact that I pay taxes, much of which goes to the education / housing / rehabilitation, etc. of children, even though I'll likely never have my own.

 

/endrant

[Vagrant0]

Maybe we should just call them "high detail virtual novels" instead of games. Then we can differentiate between those things which are designed with only violence in mind from those things which may happen to use occasional violence as needed (determined by game maker). Then you can ban one while the other can remain unrestricted. Afterall, what you call something is all that really matters anyway.

[myrmaad]

Is the issue actually "banning", I didn't realize that was part of the debate?

 

I thought the issue was making life easier for someone who doesn't have time to watch or play a certain videogame their kid wants to play. I don't want to watch most of the tv my kids watched. My niece, who lived with us when she was a teenager, loves horror movies. I never pollute myself with them. But since I, personally, happen to be a voracious reader, I tend to normally know quite a bit about media. However, there have been times when I didn't have time to read anything that wasn't work-related, because I was working my ass off. Frankly there are times when you just want the QUICK ANSWER.

 

So this, I believe, is an attempt to retool the game ratings, not to censor anything. If that's the case, then I'm all for it.