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German Shooting Controversy

by Maarten Goldstein, Apr 28, 2002 9:05am PDT
Related Topics – Controversy

Here we go again..the German school shooting of last week is being connected with video games. Games are evil and should be banned is pretty much what they are saying again. The game of choice for shooter Robert Steinhauser? Counter-Strike. Thanks Lamar.

In a sign that the bloodbath may feature in the campaign for national elections this year, Edmund Stoiber, conservative challenger to Schroeder, said violent games should be banned. According to Der Spiegel news magazine, Steinhauser spent much of his time playing violent computer video games. His favourite was called "Counterstrike" in which anti-terror units wearing masks battle each other to death.
So that's two paragraphs on games, while a bad relationship with his parents gets a quote..
A former classmate, Isabell Hartung, told Reuters that Steinhauser was intelligent and well-liked by his peers. But she said he often fought with teachers and had "bad relations with his parents."


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Comments

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71 Threads | 227 Comments
  • #213
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    By: daler mehndi x
    Reply
    I've noticed a common theme throughout many of these comments. The solution being brought forth seems to be, "He used guns to kill, we should ban guns."
    Things wrong with that way of thinking:
    1)T-shirt quote: "Guns don't kill people, I kill people." A gun is just a tool. It is incapable of being evil, or carrying out its own desires for death and destruction.

    2)Enacting laws are very effective at controlling law abiding citizens, but not at controlling criminals. A person like this is going to get guns one way or another, legally or illegally.

    3)There will always be a source for his guns no matter what laws are enacted. Look at drugs: there's still plenty to go around, despite all our efforts to the contrary.

    Banning guns is not a solution. As a mattter of fact, there is no solution at all. There always has been and always will be bad, evil, and crazy people in this world. Not only that, this isn't even that big of a problem. It is an EXTREMELY rare occurence. I'm not saying we should ignore it, all I'm saying is that if there's no solution, there's no problem. It simply IS.
    Apr 28, 2002 10:33pm PDT
  • #210
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    By: bloodlustx0r x
    Reply
    You people are so stupid, this has everything to do with games and nothing to do with his social problems!

    And don't belive all them people saying that infact they is decide games have no connection to real violence, they are so being payed off by teh developers.

    LOL, the fact that they would mention the games before his social probalems, and whats more talk about them in somewhat more detail really shows there is a serious problem here. Why don't they want to face the truth and blame games, well its easy, and they can feel better about themself because the parents can just say, oh its nothing to do with me no no no, its all games, they made our nice little friendly boy a crazed killer!
    Apr 28, 2002 9:32pm PDT
  • #185
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    By: scrooge x
    Reply
    Most people like easy explanations to events like this that blame them on something they don't know anything about and something that is sufficiently "evil".

    What is the common denominator of every criminal? At some point, they have watched something violent on TV or in a videogame or wherever. That must of course be the reason, as anything else can't be (NOT).

    Also, even if indeed it should turn out that he was influenced by violent games/videos/newscasts etc., then I still wouldn't want there to be more censorship in Germany (as if that were possible :)) as this would make this POS country even more restricted.

    I'd rather live in a country where the odds are 1 in 100,000,000 that I'd get shot on any given day than in a hopeless police state. Censorship zealots should just move to Iraq or something (as that is on tv currently :)).
    Apr 28, 2002 4:18pm PDT