geekosystem

This is why I no longer support the NRA.

Yah, I’m not really a gun supporter, but before I was going to link this at my Facebook I gave it a second read and really don’t see how the app is violent. Misleading subject is misleading. Don’t turn into Gizmodo, guys. :/

There is not a 1:1 correlation to shooting a target and shooting a person, but neither is there one to shooting a digital person and shooting a real person. The argument here is that it’s in bad taste to claim video games lead to real world violence and then release a video game that simulates firing guns, which is a violent act.

Shooting a gun at an inamimate target does not equal violence. Fail.

Re-read the definition of violence.

I would hardly call a target practice game violent. Resident Evil I would call violent.

You are equivocating.

We get what you were going for, but it is kind of dishonest. The irony would have been there had it been a Terrorist Shoot-em-up or Liberal Shoot-em-up, but it isn’t.

Fact; I still enjoy your articles a lot. You do a good job regardless.

I certainly don’t want to be “that guy,” but I can tell the difference between shooting people and shooting targets in exactly the same way I can tell the difference between shooting something in a video game and shooting something in real life. The hypocrisy is in saying video games cause gun violence, and then releasing a video game based around firing guns.

That’s not dishonest.

Given the choice, I’ll pick wuss. Regarding my hat, merci.

You fail to actually make this assertion in your article. You instead infer it.

If you are going to claim that this is a “violent act”, then you need to explain your definition of that phrase and how shooting a target is violent.

At best you are making a semantic argument. Certainly the NRA does not agree that every video game featuring a gun is violent, so your claim of hypocrisy based on the NRA’s assertions is pretty weak. I feel that the NRA is complaining about Street Fighter and other brawling games equally with Modern Warfare.

By the way, I looked up the definition for “violence”. Shooting targets does not seem to count unless the targets are exploding or showing other signs of damage and the damage to the targets is the point of the exercise:

Violence (noun)

1. Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

2. Strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.

So, you are saying that 17 Olympic disciplines are violent? Not to mention many other, national-level sports?

As opposed to, say ice hockey or football?

What I think is that it is in bad taste to publicly decry video games for causing gun violence, and then release a video game where you fire guns. It doesn’t matter what you’re firing them at.

By definition swift and intense force is violence. So hitting a nail with a hammer is violence. It is not the definition most want to use in this case but it is still violence.

This headline is a prime example of why I stopped reading this site long ago… couldn’t resist commenting when I saw the headline on Google though ;)

I agree with Raiden because he agrees with me. Firing a gun is a violent act, so is hitting a nail with a hammer, but I also agree with you Kane, that it’s not violence in the same definition as violence against people. But the fact that there’s a difference between shooting a target and shooting a person doesn’t negate the fact that shooting a target is still violent.

The irony stems from the ideological push to conflate “guns” with “violence”, which are in reality two entirely different things.

Guns are inanimate objects and can have many uses, most of them perfectly legitimate (hunting, sports, defense)

Violence, on the other hand, as defined by the World Health Organization, is “intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”

That’s where you’re losing the audience: that claim isn’t true… unless you’re using that force with the intention to cause harm or malice. We don’t want to be “that guy” either, but I think the reaction here (and simple textbook definition of “violence”) speaks for itself.

So all these kids across the country who just watched their peers get slaughtered are developed enough to logically understand the complexity of guns in our world? Umm I think not. The problem isn’t the NRA releasing a video game about guns, the pathetic thing is the NRA blames video games for violence when in essence, they could really care less. ANY interest in guns by anyone is a plus for them.

Oh, I understood your line of thought and agreed with it. I was jsut trying to expand on it, that’s all.

I do not see it as a single opinion, though, but as a very concerted propaganda push to demonize guns by identifying them with violence and thus presenting them as a THE problem.

In my opinion, the problem is VIOLENCE as a behavior, not the object(s) used to inflict it, because the very same objects can also effectively confront and defend against violence.

And I see the NRA’s game as an attempt to demonstrate that kind of distinction.

this is not fair yarr..