So I guess seeing pixelated, multicolored, flying people shooting at aliens makes me wanna shoot at other people, right?

Or maybe it's the pixelated monstrous ships shooting at other alien-infested monstrous ship that makes me wanna go shoot up people.

Or maybe it's me, a big pixelated marine, shooting at other big pixelated marines with weapons that don't exist, that makes me wanna shoot up other people.

I'm sorry, I think someone pushed my logic button, could you turn it back on?

Oh and by the way, how do I get an account here? Mail admin? =)

Actually I would enjoy shooting other people.

Sort of like Chris Rock's "kick in the ass", or even Kids in the Hall with their "pinching heads", I like to use my finger to mock shoot people all the time. For no reason at all, generally. But I imagine a really big gun if it's someone who is irking me for whatever reason.

When I shoot people, I like to think it's in a loving, caring, and affectionate way.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I was pretty surprised by what I read in the transcript of the interview. I won't go so far to say that I'm outraged or worried that they won't be allowed to make Unreal 2 and Diablo 3 and so on, but what I read did bother me a little.

I read an interesting column about the interview on Gamespy here. I think it was very well written.

I really can't fathom why no one seems to realize that it's the parents' responsibility to control
what their kids play.

Oh yeah, and since when does moving a mouse teach you anything about actually firing a gun? Other than you need to lead your target?

It really is sad that stuff like this is happening more and more in our society.

I suppose I could go on and on about this, but there are people who do that for a living and get paid to do it (see above link), so I'll quit now.

Happy violent gaming!

"Oh and by the way, how do I get an account here? Mail admin? =)"

Yep. Email me at [email protected]

"Actually I would enjoy shooting other people."

I wish my car had mounted cannons. I'd love shooting people who drive like jackasses! :)

"I really can't fathom why no one seems to realize that it's the parents' responsibility to control what their kids play."

Exactly, although the game industry seems to do very little to police the distribution of mature-rated demos.

Not to dredge up gun control arguments, but kids in urban areas like San Diego should not be able to get their hands on guns. Parents who own guns should own gun cabinets and keep those guns locked away.

When I was a kid my dad shot skeet so he had a shotgun. He also had a German pistol he kept as a souvenir from the Korean war. The pistol was never loaded and I doubt even worked, but the shotgun and shells were just kept in the closet. I remember getting the shotgun out from time to time when I was home alone and just holding it, pointing it, etc. Kids can't leave that kind of thing alone.

Yeah, it's pretty remarkable, really, how many parents manage to rationalize everything. When did it become the government's job to raise people's children for them? I get so sick of hearing crap like this...I've played violent games all my life, and I'm about as passive a person as you'll find. People are just looking for a scapegoat -- unfortunately, it just happens to be our favorite hobby.

I'm no NRA fellow traveler (was a member eons ago when I actually had firearms for target shooting, but I was so much older then I'm younger than that now), but I do find it interesting that these conservatives who bitch and moan about games "teaching kids to use guns" don't complain about kids actually having access to guns. In other words, it's ok to make guns freely accessible, but not to teach anyone how to use them!


Of course, games don't teach you squat about guns. I learned how to shoot on--get this--a firing range. With real guns.


I think the only shred of logic in this whole attack on games is the idea the games which have as your primary activity shooting people could indeed have a desensitizing effect on the disturbed or unbalanced (normal folks I think clearly understand the difference between aggression in play and for real). But this isn't a problem with games any more than it is with TV news, movies, music, whatever.


I think people who complain about violent games are just jealous that when they were growing up they didn't get to play anything more exciting than Cowboys and Indians (or is that Ranch Animal Handling Specialists and Native American Hunter/Gatherers?).

And the funniest thing I find out of all of this is that I live in Texas, we have about the lightest gun control laws in existance, and there's yet to be a shooting here (that I know of).

And with studio's developing FPS's here in Dallas, I find it quite funny that anyone could blame games for the shootings. If it were to happy anywhere, you'd think it would happen in the place with the lightest gun control laws (here), and the place where FPS's are developed and released (here).

Well, as someone pointed out, there's plenty of good articles on this, so I won't repeat what's already been said a thousand times.

Erm, happen, wow, that makes me look smart... =)

In order to practice shooting people, I am planning to make a trip with my wife to this gun range in the near future:

http://www.davisguns.com/Home.html

They have rifles, shotguns, and a variety of handguns to shoot, and conveniently person-like mock silhouette targets.

Let the virtual killin' begin. And if any of you niggas cross me, I'm coming for you.

Heck, they even have the .50 cal Desert Eagle style handguns. I had no idea the .50 cal ammo was so expensive! It's just like Fallout: Tactics! The guy on the phone said a buck twenty five a shot for that one. Sheesh.

Anyway, I'm curious to try these guns. Then I can bitch about realism with a renewed fervor.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

All I know is...
Once they make a gun that works just like a mouse, I'll be unstoppable. I've been practicing like crazy.

~Andrew

No shootings in Texas? Um, maybe not this week, but I do recall Kilene a few years ago, that famous Irish guy who got shot in Dallas in 1963, any Saturday night in Houston, etc. Oh, you meant school shootings specifically?


I am originally from Georgia where guns are ubiquitous. I used to have a carry permit and packed a .45 and a Walther PPK. Why? I have no freakin' idea. It was just something young men did. What a dumb ass were I; money spent on ammo should have been spent trying to get laid more often back then....

"I am originally from Georgia where guns are ubiquitous. I used to have a carry permit and packed a .45 and a Walther PPK. Why? I have no freakin' idea. It was just something young men did. What a dumb ass were I; money spent on ammo should have been spent trying to get laid more often back then.... "

Why would you want to walk around packing heat? For any gunfights you might stumble across at the grocery store? I can see how this might lead to more interesting anecdotes for Mark, though.

I can understand wanting a gun at home, or in your car. But to carry one on your person.. that's a little odd. ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Well, when I was in my early twenties I used to read mags like Soldier of Fortune and books on self-defense. I never bought into the whole culture 100%, but for a year or less I kinda was a fellow traveler. In retrospect it's rather silly, I agree, though at the time it was easy to convince myself that I needed the guns to fend off any possible muggings at the Kroger I guess.


At home I had a .12 gauge, a 7.62mm HK assault rifle and a 5.56mm CAR-15 assault rifle . Sold them too.

"At home I had a .12 gauge, a 7.62mm HK assault rifle and a 5.56mm CAR-15 assault rifle."

Hey! So does one of my Fallout: Tactics characters! ;)

In all fairness, I've become more interested in real-world guns now that realism is the order of the day. Not interested enough to own one, but definitely interested enough to want to give the real thing a try at a shooting range.

Oh yeah, and I have fired a 45 before. So I'm not a complete newbie.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I wish my car had mounted cannons. I'd love shooting people who drive like jackasses! :) "

This reminds me of that question in Jagged Alliance 2. About what you would do with a really slow driver in front of you, I always answered with the RAM FROM BEHIND! answer... heheh

Carrying guns around in person should only be allowed for cops imo. my brother is a cop, and its unbelievable the amount of "insane" ppl he has to deal with and threaten him. and then he imagines every one of them carrying a firearm...

anyhow, guns ARE as american as American Pie. . . at least we are told it is, says Charlton Heston.

etc

Kids in the Hall with their "pinching heads",

btw, that show was so great...in fact I liked it a whole lot more than SNL and Monty Python. I think it has to do with Canadians. . . caught between the English humor and the Suburban American humor. or something.

Wumpus I'm Crushing Your Head! fingers upright.

etc

"btw, that show was so great...in fact I liked it a whole lot more than SNL and Monty Python. I think it has to do with Canadians. . . caught between the English humor and the Suburban American humor. or something."

Yeah, I liked it a lot too. The show I really liked, though, Was SCTV. They only had a few good years, but they had some classic stuff with John Candy, Rick Moranis, and others.

I also really enjoyed that one year of SNL when they had Billy Crystal and Martin Short as regulars, among others.

oh yes SCTV was awesome...remember the SCTV movie Strange Brew? hehe, that movie predated Bill and Ted and Beavis and Butthead and is still way funny! whats odd is that Max Von Sydow is in the movie! how did they get him?!?

etc

"A horn is a poor substitute for a forward mounted cannon."

-- From an old Car and Driver magazine

Still one of my favorite sayings. :)

"Carrying guns around in person should only be allowed for cops imo. "


...unless you live in LA or NYC, I guess, where it's the cops toting guns that sometimes are the biggest threats to the citizenry. Doesn't take much to give all cops a bad name, no matter how unfair I guess.

"Yeah, it's pretty remarkable, really, how many parents manage to rationalize everything. When did it become the government's job to raise people's children for them?"

Like it or not at least 20% of the parents out there are irresponsible idiots who have no business raising children. They may simply be busy yet well-meaning worker-bees who don't make time to give their children attention, or they may be crack addicted morons who beat up their kids at every opportunity. Or maybe they fall somewhere in between, and just have no clue how to deal with their own offspring (or step-offspring). As someone who works in public schools, even this 20% estimate seems to me to be conservative, but I'm going with the last research I heard.

Now let me be clear, I do not think that it is the government's responsibility to raise our kids, not in a perfect world anyway. But from a pragmatic standpoint we have a real problem, because a significant portion of our youth population is not being raised by anybody. I certainly don't believe banning games is the answer, mainly because I don't think games are the problem, no more than I think movies or tv are the problem. The problem is that we have always had these problems and people don't like to face that. Nothing has truly changed. There were no "good old days" where everything was idyllic with perfect families filmed in black and white and kids who never killed each other. Humans have always been violent and awful to each other. Some segment of the population has always ignored the children, or worse, used them to their own perverted means. I simply do not believe things are worse now, more violent. Perhaps we have the means for wreaking more violence more efficiently, but there has always been atrocity between us. The real difference is that we have so much more information about it so much more quickly.

So what is the answer? Simply accept our own human nature and get on with our lives? No. But certainly scapegoating isn't the answer, anymore than blithely saying "it's the parents' responsibility" and sticking our heads in the sand is. If we as a society want change, we'll have to evolve, and that means facing what we are. Not blaming our entertainment. It also means facing up to the fact that some parents will never do right by their kids, and somebody--perhaps the government--will have to pick up the slack somehow.

Amanpour

---

Quote:

Like it or not at least 20% of the parents out there are irresponsible idiots who have no business raising children.

---

---

Quote:

If we as a society want change, we'll have to evolve, and that means facing what we are. Not blaming our entertainment.

---

Bob said:

"Of course, games don't teach you squat about guns. I learned how to shoot on--get this--a firing range. With real guns."

Yeah, I've used a lot of different types of weapons, and about the only thing the actual act shares in common with it's virtual imitators is that you aim at things. And hell, if a kid needs a game to figure that out, then they aren't exactly the sharpest pencil in the box.

It's the equivalent of saying that playing Thief will make you a better criminal. Uhm... I kinda doubt it.

Is it just me? that ashcroft seems like a more anal retentive version of Janet Reno from the right wing...just a thought...though i never thought one can be more anal retentive than Reno. scary thought...

etc

"Actually I would enjoy shooting other people. "

Ehh.. Wumpus, ya know that thread on B3D? I was kidding! Honest!

Hmmm, that's a Steyr Aug on their Range page...

Yeah! Ain't it cool?! ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I'd like to ask Ashcroft what kind of video games the killers during the crusades used to play that made them so good at murdering and torturing non-Christians.

Amanpour

They played Doom: Medieval Edition and Castle Cromwellenstein 3-D. You could look it up. :)

Well, considering in the long run the Crusaders, um, lost, I bet they were playing Daikatana: The Early Years.


Saladin, however, was an ace at CounterStrike: Axe and Mace

I am sick of these idiots, like Ashcroft, spouting this nonsense. Anyone who has done both knows you can't teach someone how to shoot a gun with a mouse.

You can, however, shoot a mouse with a gun. It's messy, but it is possible.

It's not easy, either. Those little mice love to scurry. You've got to be a really good shot!

...and if you play Quake I'm sure your aim will improve enough to hit it! Oh my God, Ashcroft was right!

The man's a genius!!

I wonder what he plays to have so much knowledge. Has anyone seen the handle Atty_Gnrl while playing Quake or UT?

Ashcroft is a real stick in the mud. He won't dance because it's against his religion. He and Clarence Thomas were both on the staff of John Danforth as young lawyers and Ashcroft was said to be appalled by off-color remarks that Thomas was given to making. Imagine that -- Clarence Thomas cursing up a storm and making jokes about sex. (BTW, my dad was a lawyer and he knew lawyers why worked with Thomas back in those days, and Thomas had a reputation as being quite lacking in talent.)

I don't like Ashcroft's politics, but he's pretty clean. He's not given to ethical lapses, and he was quite gracious in losing to Mel Carnahan's widow in the recent Senate race. Some Republicans wanted him to mount a vote fraud complaint about some funny business in the city of St. Louis polling places, but he declined.

"BTW, my dad was a lawyer and he knew lawyers why worked with Thomas back in those days, and Thomas had a reputation as being quite lacking in talent."

There was an article in the NY Times recently on a Supreme Court decision. It ran down the list for how each of the justices came down on the case and had a chilling line to the effect that "Clarence Thomas sat quietly by as he usually does with very little to contribute".

I remember during the whole Anita Hill thing thinking that Thomas' boorish behavior was far less objectionable than his lack of legal scholarship.

-Tom

I don't think any of us will ever know for sure, but I wonder if Ashcroft didn't make a stink about the vote fraud because he thought or was acutually told that he was being considered for Attorney General. It wouldn't surprise me very much. I have to say that I'm disappointed in him because of most of his comments about the violence in video games. He does have a few good things to say, but most of it is total BS to me (and hopefully to anyone else with common sense also).

Here's a link to a good editoral I just found on Gamespy. I wish it wasn't so short, but there are definitely some good thoughts in there.

---

Quote:

I wonder what he plays to have so much knowledge. Has anyone seen the handle Atty_Gnrl while playing Quake or UT?

---