“Our culture seems to have taken a road that glorifies violence,” James Lubker writes at wcfcourier.com. “Television and computer-video games provide an endless source of violence . . .
Consider that we now have games people “play” by pointing guns at each other and shooting a variety of projectiles at other human beings. We live in a culture where on the one hand we consider it a game to shoot one another, and yet on the other hand we are appalled at the actual shooting of people with real bullets.
The problem being?
I have no idea. Gun-heavy TV shows are, in the main, lessons in Judeo-Christian morality. Promoting those values is a good thing, not a bad thing. By the same token, simulated gunplay is a safe outlet for 99.99 percent of testosterone-crazed males, all of whom are genetically wired to shoot bad guys.
But what do I know? That I don’t like the sound of this: “A closer monitoring of all those ‘games’ and who ‘plays’ them would help [reduce “gun violence’].”
The Second Amendment protects the First, and vice versa. But there is a case to be made that entertainment glorifying gangland violence stimulates gangland violence. I’m not going to make it, but it is there. As is an interesting fact: America’s violent crime rate has been falling for decades. So . . .
Does American culture glorify “gun violence”? If so, is that a problem? In fact, is zero tolerance America becoming too soft?
“Does American culture glorify “gun violence”? NO
“If so, is that a problem?” If it was, it would not be.
“is zero tolerance America becoming too soft?” Yes (anyway).
Wow Joe, you played all sides with one comment. Consider every base covered.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of distinct and different “cultures” in America. Nobody has the “right” to judge any of them except the people who live them. Every culture includes aggression, often as a high point of pride.
And nobody has any legitimate “authority” to change or control anyone’s culture, except their own, as individuals.
And the foolishness of this claim is made clear by the idea that “guns” are the center of any culture, let alone the cause of violence.
Ever watch two and three year old children fight? They sure don’t need guns and they have not yet seen much in the way of TV or video games. Conflict is a part of human nature. It is in our own best interest to understand and direct this toward voluntary cooperation and productivity in our children and ourselves. Nobody can do it for us.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands of distinct and different “cultures” in America. Nobody has the “right” to judge any of them”
I’m sorry, Mama, I love you but I have to disagree with you there: not all cultures are equal, some are definitely inferior to the rest and they absolutely choose to be. The Progressive culture that has taken over our colleges and universities. The Elitist culture found in our nation’s capital and many state capitals. The Hollywood culture that believes biology is a false construct of Judeo-christian prejudice. The bigotry of all racist groups of every stripe and the rhetoric they spread… the list goes on and on of groups and demographics who do need to be shown for what they are and judged accordingly.
It is not just proper but necessary that we judge and shame those who, by their own choices, live in inferior cultures of their own making. 🤠
I didn’t say that all cultures were equal. Of course, every person considers their own culture to be superior… otherwise, they’d change it or find another.
That’s not the question. I said nobody had any right to dictate the culture of others, or change them. Very different idea.
And, most important, no tool or single item makes a “culture.” That’s why this whole “culture of guns” idea is so bogus.
You also said, “Nobody has the “right” to judge any of them except the people who live them.”
That’s wrong. We all not only have a right to judge them, we have a duty to do so. How else would we know whether to join them or not?
I have judged many ‘cultures’ in the US, and have decided to join very few of them. For example, I don’t want to join the skinheads. Or the Neo-Nazis. I did join the gun owners, and the protectors of the Second Amendment.
I made those decisions after judging those cultures.
How do you decide which cultures to join?
very well said mate. without judging there is not decisions made period and nothing would ever get done. even deciding what to have for dinner requires judgment eg what you feel like is still a judgment decision as is what is going to be good for you
American entertainment glorifies violence. The American entertainment industry is mostly run by leftist pedophiles who are largely supporters of leftist politicians. Maybe leftist ideology is the real problem…
^^^THIS, SO MUCH THIS^^^
During the rule of several emperors, the Romans glorified violence in public entertainment venues… did they have a sword-violence crisis that rivaled what today’s media insists is a gun-violence crisis?
🤠
Well, the sword violence was a little more organized and purpose-driven (assassinations, rebellions, coups), but yes, there was plenty of it.
Actually, they did, in spite of strict sword laws. A diet of lead and wine makes for a rowdy people, who knew?
If it does it was doing it back in the late 60s and 70s too. I turned out just fine and we didn’t have regular reporting of mass shootings in the news. “Gun violence” is the symptom of a problem, not the problem and that problem has little to do with either word in the name.
The entire argument against ‘violence culture’ is nothing more than a smoke screen to distract the people from the real statically proven source of violence in the USA. Rampant urban crime in mostly Democrat run cities. The media will devote weeks of coverage each time some nut job picks up an AR-15 and uses it upon innocents, but they’ll literally suppress news about urban scum bags shooting up whole neighborhoods with an AR or a real sub-machine gun over some scratch of turf or a drug deal gone wrong.
Since TTAG doesn’t seem to want to cover it I’ll give you the link for GOA.
HR 4477 is really bad. It isn’t just some funding to make NICS better and shame on Nick for portraying it that way.
https://gunowners.org/alert12112017.htm
Bullshit. TTAG has run 4 articles as well as podcasts on this in just the last month alone.
TTAG has covered this a bit but i have to say that the article you posted a link to is by far the most accurate analysis i have seen of NICS legislation i have seen yet. personally i say do away with it all but you catch someone doing the wrong thing with a firearm…. fuck jail time….. noose. i am australian and i have seen all the same shit go on here. it is bullshit and completely anti liberty
A sane person understands that shooting another person in a video game is just play, and likewise appreciates that when people die in reality it is tragic. How is that a bad thing? Or are we going to start granting human rights to fictional characters because progressives have such a difficult time distinguishing fantasy from reality?
Human beings have been hard-wired for violence since our species first evolved. Read Desmond Morris’s “The Naked Ape” sometime to get the full explanation. Since humans had such poor natural weapons (no real teeth, no claws and a puny musculature, compared with other animals out there on the plain), they had to evolve their brains to develop weapons to make up for their natural deficiencies, and they had to be aggressive to drive off animals that wanted to eat them, as well as other humans who wanted to monopolize food sources, mates, and other resources. No matter how gentle a person claims to be, that hard-wiring is still there and, unless suppressed by civilizing notions, will come out when needed (as when one is attacked). Those that fail to resist (or can’t) die and “survival of the fittest” ensures that the survivors are the most robust members of our species. Today civilization neuters a lot of basic impulses in humans, but it’s all still there, violence-oriented games or not.
Dayyamm, you beat me to it. To your cogent observations, I’ll slip out from behind my lizard hind-brain and bring up the obvious fact guys like Lubker intentionally ignore. Our culture doesn’t glorify violence, but it does glorify bravery and—most important—it glorifies victory over evil. Looking only at violence in our cultural texts is like claiming that Beowulf is only about some guy having a big fight with someone named Grendel.
EXACTLY. It isn’t violence itself that is glorified in the American tradition, or in Western cultural in general, but the good/virtuous things violence might help to obtain. Violence is only a means, a frequent necessity — not the goal.
Man has killed Man since the beginning, and each new frontier has brought new places and new was to die. Why should the future be different?
Not just humans.
Cats can be violent.
Violence is part of the human condition. It’s one of the primary reasons we’re at the top of the food chain.
Our main stream media inherently plays both sides. It’s a matter of economic necessity. Violence sells news, movie tickets, sporting events, etc.
I personally don’t like to be violent. It’s got to be the last resort.
If it’s forced upon me, I aim to be THE most violent being in the immediate vicinity, for as long as necessary until the job is finished.
Typically it produces a huge relief, simultaneously with a healthy case of the shakes. It’s been many decades since my last confrontation. I hope it stays that way!
All I know is Red Dead Redemption is on my top five favorite games of all time list
Red Dead Redemption is my favorite video game. I’m looking forward to the next game in the series. I have killed thousands in the game, yet I haven’t gone out in the real world and hurt anybody. I have no desire to either. The antis like to blame violent entertainment and law-abiding gun owners for the crimes committed by evil people. It’s nonsense!
+1 great game. Lot’s o revolvers and double barrels!!! Gotta love it. If you’ve never played the expansion Undead Nightmare it’s a blast.
Self-defense runs against the “narrative”.
The window licker left demands pathetic, sniveling submission to violent aggression.
It’s why they oppose women resisting rapists in ways which might harm the attacker.
Indeed It’s why they hate movies like “Defiance”. Jews fighting back instead of just getting on the trains to Sobibor and Treblinka? Unthinkable!
If women violently opposed their rapists, Harvey Weinstein would have been unmasked years ago. And others as well.
The newage progs overuse of what, perhaps, once was a useful descriptive word now puts “violence” in the same category on nonsense as “trigger”, “microagression”, “sexual assault”.
It’s all to dumb down the language to a point that ideas can no longer be conveyed, just emotional feelings
FFS, I played with toy guns (real guns too) all through the 80’s. I’ve never murdered anyone. I was watching violent R-Rated movies before I was 10. Maybe the problem is a subset of society that places no value on human life?
> Gun-heavy TV shows are, in the main, lessons in Judeo-Christian morality.
What?
“Gun-heavy TV shows are, in the main, lessons in Judeo-Christian morality.”
How about they are just lessons in morality? Good vs evil is pretty universal. I don’t see how religion is central to this. Most major religions come to the same moral conclusions on big issues to begin with and so do non-theistic moral philosophers.
“But there is a case to be made that entertainment glorifying gangland violence stimulates gangland violence.”
Got evidence to back that up? Video game popularity worldwide is at all time highs. Violent crime, including gang crime, is at the same time decreasing in most parts of the developed world.
‘“A closer monitoring of all those ‘games’ and who ‘plays’ them would help [reduce “gun violence’]”
I don’t know what they mean by monitoring. Conduct research? Perhaps. But if they mean keeping an eye on them…there are millions of people who play shooter games. They can’t even keep an eye on the few thousand people in the US with known links to terrorists. Leaving aside for a moment whether they should monitor people who like to play shooter games, how would they?
No real values is the root of the so-called violence problem. Everyone except the sissies played war when I was a lad in the 60’s and late 50’s. The only ones to get into trouble/prison were kids from the “wrong” side of the tracks. With an absent/alcoholic/violent parent. Now all that BS is rampant-and you hear about every freakin’ crime or incident. The lamestream media is a major culprit. Whatever…
You beat me to it. The first Christmas present I remember was a “Roy Rogers” cap gun. Every boy in school had at least one cap gun and most had BB guns when I was in sixth grade. When I was in high school a small group of us built a homemade mortar using a fence post driver. We also made our own blow guns, bows and arrows, spears, crossbows, and even a catapult.
Parents I know were delighted when guns that actually fired projectiles came along, because it ended one of the most common causes of actual violence: arguing over whether you “got” someone or not.
There are many cultures in America that involve guns and armed violence in some way. Yet somehow, the people playing Call of Duty, watching Die Hard, or competing in 3-gun matches don’t seem to be ending up in prison for murder. It’s only certain criminal subcultures, but we can’t talk about those so let’s all rant about video games and the NRA instead.
Maybe it’s just time to admit that we’re a territorial, bipedal primate with a penchant for violence when threatened or when our resources are threatened. Call it “The Human Condition” if you like.
In the absence of anything to fight over we sometimes create ban excuse, so an outlet for our violent nature seems like a healthy blowoff valve IMHO.
American culture glorifies sticking up for somebody getting abused. The righteous hero is never the lording superiority over lessers. It’s the guy who you didn’t realize was a badass until that’s called for, or finds a strength when needed, to stop some abuse.
When the bully or thug can’t be reasoned with, won’t be bargained with, and absolutely will not stop, well, everybody should have the option of replying in kind, and even tiny people maybe should have an equalizer.
“Anti-gun” isn’t about violence, or even guns; it’s an objection to people showing competence, judgment, and autonomy to protect themselves. They object, ultimately to you choosing that your are worth defending; the opposite of what’s glorified in American cowboy movies, and heroes’ tales.
“can’t be reasoned with, won’t be bargained with, and absolutely will not stop – ”
“EVER – until you are DEAD!”
LOL, one of my favorite movie quotes.
Sure. Look at nearly any movie by anti-gun liberals like Liam Neeson. Look at rap music videos.
Guns are promoted as magical tailsmans by the most liberal of pop-culture media. That’s why they’re so scared of them- they endow a mechanical device with magical powers.
That’s a really good point, they fear them because they have imbued them with magical properties like knocking someone back ten feet and one shot kills from a pistol at 60 yards one handed, all the while having never handled a real gun in the real world. Of course they fear them. I never thought about it that way before, really well put.
Almost a decade after Jack Thompson got disbarred and we’re back to “video games cause violence”?
When I was in high school, this would’ve been 2002, I did a project on the belief that violent video games made people violent. What I found was that of the 5,000 or so studies done at that time only 200 of those indicated any correlation, and around half of those were a positive correlation, i.e. playing violent games reduced a propensity for violence. So, the ultimate conclusion, unless studies done since have had dramatically different results, is that there is little to no correlation between violent media and violent behavior. Of course antigunners never let facts get in the way.
Geez, is there nothing that doesn’t frighten Fudds? They have less testosterone than metrosexuals and none of the fashion sense.
culture of violence. are you fucking kidding me? then WTF do you call places like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, AFRICA, N KOREA, etc., were there is LITERALLY perputual violence??????? oh yeah, facts don’t matter to these people.
and besides, what violent movies and games was it that, Gengis Khan, Mao, Polpot, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler all watched and played????
“i do not know what weapons WWIII will be fought with, but i do know what weapons will be used in WWIV; rocks and sticks”-A. Einstein
There is no proven linkage. In the idyllic 50’s and 60’s, westerns were a popular genre, and there were many more shootings and killings than today’s entertainment. It was also more sanitary and less horrific with the baddie falling to the ground without a mark instead of blood and brains spraying everywhere.
You reminded me of the blood and brains in The Hateful Eight. Pretty hard core, compared to the stuff from the sixties and seventies.
…why is the picture a promotional display for a game that came out 7 years ago?
that’s edc at nite tio nevr knoe vvhen sum vido playi game movie watch get mad and start thoq popcorn and fountain drinl
The problem here, as usual with the control freaks, is the premise.
Their premise is: There is a huge ‘gun violence’ problem to be dealt with.
Their solution is: Whatever nonsense idea they have that day.
The reason they can’t make much headway is because their premise is false – there is not a huge gun violence problem. They always include suicides in their stats just to try to help make it look worse but, even then, 30,000 is not a big proportion of 330,000,000. Given that their premise is false, it doesn’t really matter what their proposed solution is – it won’t work to address what they claim is the problem.
violence is ingrained in our existence since Cain whacked Able! Problem is the control freaks want a Utopia for themselves so they can feel good even if it means killing you to get their way, sort of like the Inquisition where the Perverted Priests tried too convert the Heathen by a methodology of Sado Masochism.
Like all the other Assholes trying to change our history they don’t give a damn about personnel freedoms just power .
.
“Consider that we now have games people “play” by pointing guns at each other and shooting a variety of projectiles at other human beings.”
“Now”? We’ve had them since there have been guns. Crap, in my great-granddad’s diary as a kid he recorded “Cowboys and Injuns” and “Cops and Robbers” play!