No, Grand Theft Auto did not cause Columbine

No, I don't believe video games caused Columbine, but violent video games certainly DO exacerbate the situation with the mentally ill.

The chief psychiatrist for the U.S. Army said that they used the game "Duke Nukem" to desensitize troops to killing, so it's easy to extrapolate that a person with a mental illness and hate on for the world isn't going to be helped by living in the basement killing millions of creatures via video games.

I'm sure someone has done a "study".

But, we always look for simple, "one-cause" solutions to damned near everything,mainly because it's easier. From alcohol to drug prohibition, to global warming,to gun control,to homeless people,the shallow thinkers want to ban something.

I believe they're more interested in salving their conscience than in really solving a problem.

The pair at Columbine were apparently a psychopath and his "follower",and they originally set out to bomb the school and kill even more people but were inept at bomb making.

I blame their mentality on environmental extremism,based on the same BS as blaming it on easy availability of guns,or video games.

Hey,there ARE folks in the environmental movement who want a massive kill off of people,maybe Kleibold and his buddy were agents of Greenpeace.

Michael Moore should do a documentary on it.

What caused Columbine was surrender, surrender to animal nature. Worship of the created rather than the Creator.

Some go to extremes, but Columbine was a logical extension of the 'this life is all there is' crowd.

This wouldn't happen in a Biblical based society because all murderers are sent off to the Judge, making the next one who contemplates murder more cautious. Like Islamists, they want to be the ones who make the decision when they depart...

Grand Theft Auto may not have caused Columbine but it sure seems to have caused a lot of really crazy driving on our highways.

I swear that a lot of young people, often found wearing baseball caps, think they're in a video game when they're actually in a multi-ton, potential killing machine as they weave in and out of traffic on the 401 doing 150 kms/hr.

I've nearly been one of their casualties. The idiot missed my car by a hair. In addition to taking my passenger and me out if he'd grazed my bumper, how many others just in front or behind, as well?

I'm seeing a lot more really wacky driving than just ten years ago and am pretty sure it has to do with the so-called "virtual reality" so many people inhabit these days translated onto our roads.

I avoid four-lane highways as often as I can.

but Columbine was a logical extension of the 'this life is all there is' crowd.

Um. What?

The idea that guns music bullying or video games caused Colombine is all BS. It was 2 psychos and their fantasy end of story.

Video games are definitely good for society. Aside from paintball it's my only source of armed combat skills.

Video games...my only source of armed combat skills.

Heh, should help if that's the only source of your opponent's skills.

For those interested in a drawn-out examination of what motivated the Columbine killers, the best I've found is by Dave Cullen (who also authored a book on the subject).

The link is here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.html

That article is mostly an examination of the FBI's conclusion on the matter. It's three pages and well worth the read, but I think it can be summed up best by a paragraph found on the first page:

"Harris and Klebold would have been dismayed that Columbine was dubbed the 'worst school shooting in American history.' They set their sights on eclipsing the world's greatest mass murderers, but the media never saw past the choice of venue. The school setting drove analysis in precisely the wrong direction."

Well....ya know.....I recall a number of years past...the local drive-in was showing "The French Connection".....

The OPP would literally block traffic at closing time on what later became #2 highway because the patrons came out spinning wheels and generally going tar-paper....

I parked at an adjacent business to observe the phenomina.....

I maybe mistaken but IMHO this is objective evidence that other-wise normal folk can be negatively affected by audio-visual means.

As far as Columbine.....

All these "school shootings" (Columbine, Virgina Tech, Ecole de Politechnique, Dawson etc.) have a common feature.... besides armed whachos.....they were ALL GUN FREE ZONES.

Harris and Klebold were neglected kids. They had two high-end cars in their driveways and two moms and two dads in high-end jobs; 'no one home; 'no one paying any attention to them.

One of their moms -- the one in whose basement these guys were collecting their guns and ammo -- said that she thought, because they told her, that they were doing a science project.

The fact that "they set their sights on eclipsing the world's greatest mass murderers" would seem to confirm my theory. They were angry that their parents paid no attention to them and figured that they'd get mega-attention: "Hey, if our parents won't pay attention to us, we'll get the world to."

Every psychiatrist/psychologist/thinking person knows that neglected kids will get attention any way they can, either by being really good, really talented, or really bad.

Negative attention is attention -- and that's what they were looking for.

when in teen years and early adult years a person is going through chqanges, both physical, and psychological (chemical)and are prone to abnormal behaviour and thinking. Throw in an external stimulas, and weird things happen

@batb

The motivations of Harris and Klebold were quite different. Harris was the instigator, while Klebold followed his lead. As I said, the full article is well worth the read, but here's a couple of pertinent paragraphs:

"(FBI special agent) Fuselier and (Michigan University psychiatrist) Ochberg say that if you want to understand "the killers," quit asking what drove them. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were radically different individuals, with vastly different motives and opposite mental conditions. Klebold is easier to comprehend, a more familiar type. He was hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal. He blamed himself for his problems.

Harris is the challenge. He was sweet-faced and well-spoken. Adults, and even some other kids, described him as "nice." But Harris was cold, calculating, and homicidal. "Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people," Fuselier says. Harris was not merely a troubled kid, the psychiatrists say, he was a psychopath."

Note that they are using the literal, clinical definition of psychopath here. The conclusion of the FBI (noted near the end of the article) is that while Klebold - freed of Harris' influence - might have been saved, Harris was always heading for disaster. Considering his fascination with serial killers and mass murder, his death at Columbine might very well have kept him from creating an even greater death toll later.

You are correct in saying they wanted 'attention', although that might be too mild a term for it - again, from the article:

"...They bragged about dwarfing the carnage of the Oklahoma City bombing and originally scheduled their bloody performance for its anniversary. Klebold boasted on video about inflicting "the most deaths in U.S. history." Columbine was intended not primarily as a shooting at all, but as a bombing on a massive scale. If they hadn't been so bad at wiring the timers, the propane bombs they set in the cafeteria would have wiped out 600 people. After those bombs went off, they planned to gun down fleeing survivors. An explosive third act would follow, when their cars, packed with still more bombs, would rip through still more crowds, presumably of survivors, rescue workers, and reporters. The climax would be captured on live television. It wasn't just "fame" they were after—Agent Fuselier bristles at that trivializing term—they were gunning for devastating infamy on the historical scale of an Attila the Hun. Their vision was to create a nightmare so devastating and apocalyptic that the entire world would shudder at their power."

Even for people seeking negative attention, they were... on the extreme end.

Alyric hotheaded, suicidal, depressive, cold, calculating, homicidal, and psychopathic are the presenting problems. What are the underlying problems that brought these traits to the fore?

Perhaps they were born that way.

OTOH, environment does play a role in the way we turn out.

The fact that both of them had mothers and fathers who worked long hours outside the home, with no one home after school -- and a mom who thought the bomb/s they were building were part of a science project, because that's what they told her, has to get you wondering about the trajectory of their cunning.

If I'd been that mom, I think I might have noticed the materials they were using in their "science project." When I saw carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, and metal propane bottles, I suspect that a few alarm bells would have gone off and I probably would have called their science teacher to find out if all of the stuff I was seeing in my basement was, in fact, part of a science project.

These boys were neglected. Their parents were negligent. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an FBI investigation to figure this out. But we shy away from obvious answers because they might make all working parents feel guilty.

Working parents can be fine parents, most are, but it takes a lot more intentionality, organization, and time given to your kids after work to ensure that your kids aren't neglected. The more time spent with your kids, the more you're likely to notice when something's awry.

Nothing "Causes" shootings.
Well, not in the way that many people perceive.
There isn't a social disease that has emerged within the last 100 years that "Causes" killers or criminals. It's the same as people who believe that Elvis causes Sexual promiscuity and that Metal makes people murder.
There has been killing, sex, recklessness, and many other things for as long as we've existed. People believe the past was more pure than the present, and that belief breeds this brand of nanny-ism.
There was no trigger for Columbine, or V. Tech, or any other similar situation; none that could be avoided, atleast. And any trigger that exists today existed in one form or another in the distant past. Blame the individual, not society.

One would be foolish and naive not to realize that violent video games contribute to violent outbursts in young people; it's mostly young males acting like they've been 'taught'.

I agree, north_of_60.

It's not rocket science.

Before we had all these young men playing violent video games, did we have violence in epidemic proportions in that demographic?

The answer is clearly no. They may have driven fast after having had a few drinks but they usually killed only themselves, not others in cataclysmic scenarios planned ahead of time.

'Time for us to wake up and smell the coffee and notice how violent video games are affecting our young males.

Before we had all these young men playing violent video games, did we have violence in epidemic proportions in that demographic?

No, we didn't then...and we don't now. The idea that video games make people violent is laughable.

The idea that video games make people violent is laughable.

People who isolate themselves from children who play violent video games would likely have that opinion. Also try to grasp the significant difference between 'contribute' and 'make'. If English isn't your primary language then I apologize for noting your misunderstanding.

Ah, 'contribute'. A weasel word for someone with no evidence to back up their assertion. I understand completely.

Video games don't make anyone violent.

What they do is open the imaginations of those who play them to possibilities they might never have thought of if they hadn't seen and participated in certain scenarios, many of which are incredibly violent.

We know that watching television can adversely affect young people and the way their brains are wired, so why would playing violent video games not affect the people who play them? Do you seriously think, LAS, that the violence, blood and guts in these games have no effect on the imaginations and actions of those who play them day after day?

It channels those 'active imaginations' into the virtual world and away from the real one.

For most generations passed, the struggle for survival would eclipse such thoughts. Life is easy enough now that some can consider video games a trigger. Nope. There have always been defective citizens. The difference is, now they are supported and can even be celebrated.

Our old friend the bell curve will help us understand what's at, you should excuse the term, play.

LAS is minimally correct in his assertion that violent video games don't cause anyone to go out and commit murder, in and of themselves. The fact that millions can and do play these games without murdering anyone is proof of that. Therefore, video games are not a sufficient cause of mass murder.

And, since Charles "Texas Tower" Whitman didn't have any exposure to video games before he went on his spree in 1962, it's also clear that video games are not a necessary cause of mass murder.

However, if you expose 100 million people to extremely violent video games, the bell curve suggests that 68% of them will mildly enjoy or dislike them. As you move farther away from the centre, you will find slightly fewer people who either really like these games, or really dislike them. When you get a little over 3 standard deviations from the centre, you find 100,000 people who really, really like their games. And when you get five or six sigma out, you find the 10 or so people, like Kleineballs and Hairless, who get completely subsumed by them. It's just the law of numbers.

And to those who say "well, we didn't have this in the past", first, yes we did (cf Whitman, above), and second, that's because interactive mass media is a relatively new phenomenon in human history - what, 30 out of 10,000 years? Because you couldn't expose 100, 200, 300 million people to a new thing more or less simultaneously, humanity had a chance to absorb and adapt on a slower basis.

It's no surprise to me that history shows a rapid rise in prosperity is usually accompanied by a rise in license (and what many would call deviance). From Athens to Rome to Louis XIV to the modern West, we've seen military victory followed by rise in prosperity, followed by rampant promiscuity, homosexuality, and drunkeness (and other sins of course, to which we've added an entire coterie of mind-altering drugs). In a world where personal morality has been cast aside in favour of civic busybodiness (you wanna shoot heroin? here's a clean needle, but don't you even think about smoking that cigarette in here, young man!), it's no wonder to me that we breed feckless wonders like the Columbine cow turds, who proceed to act out their fantasies because they've never been properly slapped into place.

At best, video games are the tinder that their evil spark sets alight. But without the vast underbrush of license that has not been cleaned out or thinned by religion or morality, that tinder would burn out. Once again, the value free leftie stance that "all moralities are equally valid" (which is like saying that no morality is valid) provides an environment which virtually ensures the production of more killers.

LAS; "It channels those 'active imaginations' into the virtual world and away from the real one."

Not when they're at the wheel of a car it doesn't.

Well-said, KevinB.

batb said: "Grand Theft Auto may not have caused Columbine but it sure seems to have caused a lot of really crazy driving on our highways."

If you're in Ontario I can tell you that the difference between how it used to be and how it is now ain't video games. Its safer -now- than it was when I was one of the street racers.

Lack of police presence is most of it. The rest is down to idiots talking on cell phones.

"The rest is down to idiots talking on cell phones."

Hey, Phantom!

First, g'day.

Second, can you substantiate that?

OK, a true story. A friend of mine, very responsbible, very accountable, decided to buy her son Grand Theft Auto because he was playing it all the time at his friends'.

She decided, like any good Mom would, to play it with him to see what it was all about. She was somewhat taken aback that you could get extra points by driving a police cruiser off a cliff and by the violence and blood.

But what surprised her even more, after two weeks of play with her son, was what she was attempting to do on the highway. She said she caught herself a few times trying to do some of the stuff she was able to do in "virtual reality."

If two weeks of playing Grand Theft Auto had this effect on a mature, 40-something mom, who'd been driving for over 25 years, I can only imagine, with some misgivings, what the effect is on young, immature drivers who have played this game and countless others for years and for hours on any given day.

Sure, lack of police presence encourages unlawful behaviour and cell phone use while driving adds to the craziness but you can't convince me that these "virtual reality" video games don't have a negative effect on the way people drive.

In addition to young, immature individuals not being experienced drivers, they tend to think they're immortal: Other people may die, but not me.

That attitude ups the ante on what you'll attempt to do behind the wheel.