[Gaerek]

The biggest reason why so many people discredit the claim that video games and movies contribute to violence in society is out of pure denial.

Anything to support this claim? Just because something seems reasonable does not make it so. Millions play violent video games every day. We are not talking about a small secluded sect of society. We are talking about video games that are played by pretty much every part of society, across economic, social, cultural, and racial lines. I personally know a well respected doctor and lawyer who both play games like Halo, Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto. Those who don't play video games have no idea how many people actually play. If video games had a measurable effect on violence, we would see mass murders occurring everyday. Yet they are still fairly rare, and constitute a very small percentage of total murders.

Just like a cigarette smoker will find any way possible to convince himself that smoking cigarettes will one day not lead to his death. My father also argued like that.. he died of lung cancer.

lcpiper did a good job dismantling this analogy, so I won't spend much time on it. There is a well known, and well documented increase in cancer for those who smoke. It's been studied for years, and the ONLY possible conclusion is that smoking will eventually kill you. People have been studying violent video games since the 90's, and with the exception of a few fringe studies (most of which have been discredited) there is no known increase in violent behavior between someone who plays violent video games, and those who do not.

If you are afraid to let your 3 year old watch the "Walking Dead" or watch you play "COD"... it should be proof positive that deep down you know that these things are not good to expose young people to.

Um, I don't let my 3 year old daughter watch Walking Dead or play CoD because those things are scary to her. She walked in once when we were watching an episode of Walking Dead after she had supposedly gone to sleep, and had watched a particularly violent scene. We didn't know she was there until she ran away crying. It took me 15 minutes to calm her down and get her back to sleep.

It's because her mind, and her perception of reality isn't ready to accept these things yet. She isn't old enough to realize there's a difference between real life and what she sees on TV. The problem with mass murderers is their mental state. Video games will not make someone who doesn't have violent tendencies violent. Instead, those type of people are attracted to them for whatever reason.

Again, Correlation is not Causation. We need to be very careful when we try to make those jumps in logic. If there's a correlation, we need to know why before we say it's a reason something happens. Saying that violent video games cause mass murder would be like me saying that the stink that accompanies my son's dirty diaper, causes it to be that way. There is a correlation between stink and dirty diaper, but the stink isn't the cause, it's simply an effect.