Parental guidance is something that is suggested when watching television shows, movies, and especially playing video games. Video games (specifically) are given ratings that have suggested ages that they are intended for. Video games with mature ratings are meant for young adults, ages 17+, and we need to start enforcing this because I don't think people understand that the ratings are placed there for a reason. It has been proven that eight year-old children and younger struggle to decipher between fantasy and reality. When a young child is playing a gruesome violent game–such as Dead Space–they can easily get confused with what actions occur in the video games, and those that are okay in the real world. Many mass murderers have been linked to spending many hours playing violent video games as a young child up through their young adult lives. Just how many of these known killings have been affiliated with video games? Too many.
1. Anders Breivik: Responsible for the murder of 77 people, and injuring 300+ others in his attacks on Norway in 2011. He used the video game Call of Duty to train for his massacre.
2. Adam Lanza: Responsible for the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. He was a lover of violent first-person shooter video games. Some reports even say that Lanza saw Breivik as a rival.
3. James Holmes: Went on a rampage in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 at a movie theatre showing The Dark Knight Rises. He was a player of violent video games, including a popular role-playing game, World of Warcraft.
4. Jared Lee Loughner: Killed 6 people and injured 13 others at a safe-way shopping mall in Tucson, AZ, where congresswoman Gabby Giffords was speaking and was among those shot. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and he was an avid video gamer.
5. Jacob Tyler Roberts-Clackamas: Town Center shooter who killed two people, and severely injured one. Enacted a scene from the video game, Grand Theft Auto.
6. Jose Reyes: A 12 year-old middle schooler that opened fire at his school in Nevada, shot and killed a 45 year-old teacher, and shot two other students before turning the gun on himself. It is said that he played violent video games for months.
7. Michael Carneal: A 14 year-old who killed three students and injured five more in a prayer group at Heath High School in 1997. In video games, you increase your score only by shooting once at each target. It is said that he never shot too far to either side, but instead only fired once at each target that appeared, which would "increase his score" as if he was playing the game.
8. Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right): 18 and 17 year-old Colombine high school students in 1999 who killed 13 people and wounded more than 20. This was the worst high school shooting in U.S. history at that time. Both were reportedly obsessed with a violent video game called Doom.
9. Seung-Hui Cho: Responsible for the deaths of 32 people and the injuries of 17 others at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007. The attack is the second deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history. Cho was also a big fan of violent video games, specifically Counterstrike.
10. Evan Ramsey: Snuck a shotgun into his high school in Bethel, Alaska, where he shot a student and his principal, and wounded two others. His violent act was also associated with the video game Doom.
"I did not understand that if I pull out a gun and shoot you... you're not getting back up. You shoot a guy in Doom, and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in Doom eight or nine times before it dies." -Evan Ramsey
It may throw you for a loop that somebody can shoot and believe it won't kill the person, but this just goes to show you how distorted video games can make your sense of reality.
