We Are Training Our Kids to be Killers

[CSN NewsBot]

Update: Apparently, the video in the original news post was just part one of two! Part two is after the break and features an interview between Beck and Jack Thompson. How could I have possibly missed this comedy gold mine? Counter-Strike also receives a special mention in the second segment.



Original with new video after the break: Won't somebody please think of the children? Well, thanks to Glenn Beck, conservative radio and tv show host, you don't have to! On one of his more recent TV shows, he goes on a bit of a rant on how videogames, Grand Theft Auto in particular, are training our children to kill and our sons to treat women as whores.

The government, he claims, is responsible for a horrific outbreak of violence that is apparently caused by videogames. Let's just try to ignore the fact that he apparently hints that there were no murders before World War I and the creation of the training program set up by the government. In the end, young children should not be playing this game in the first place. A person with proper upbringing, that is of legal age to play the game, and isn't already unbalanced to begin with should be the only ones allowed to play the game, not someone who has a predisposition to commit horrific crimes.



To be fair, he does claim that it's all of pop culture that caused an increase in violence, but his main target is still Grand Theft Auto. I suppose even conservative TV hosts need to jump on the bandwagon once in a blue moon to increase their ratings, right? It's amazing the sort of garbage some people will lap up.



I believe the most important part of all his rant is the fact he says there's a chainsaw in Grand Theft Auto IV! Dude, way to not share the secret on how you managed to find one in the game![break="jack thompson on the glenn beck show"]

[Threeboy]

To be fair I treated women like whores before GTA existed.

[Ryosuke T]

To be fair I always treated women like dirt because their stupidity roams around them majority of the time.



I was waiting for something like this to pop up. Haha. GTA will forever carry this stigma for rest of it's future lineups.



So now husbands can't play this game now? Jesus give me a break.



M rating happened started years ago, why did they just brought this up?



As for Jack Thompson, Beck ask what is considered "Adult Only" and he said "we are filing lawsuit against Two-Take, Wal-Mart, Sony, Gamestop etc..." The fool didn't answer the question. Who thought obtaining a lawyer certificate would be so easy down in Flordia.

[magicalpoop]

I'd have to say I agree with the videos. Zip, banter all you want and berate them on how they're jumping on the GTA bandwagon but you miss the point.



The game

1) Trains you to be a killer in the game. You will have 0 rebuttal against this, you must become a more efficient killer in any GTA if you want to succeed in your missions.

Hey you may be fine playing GTA4 for hours and then go outside and volunteer at the homeless shelter and not beat them for a bat for some quick cash..but do you think you can represent the entire GTA4 fanbase mentality? No. Are the majority of GTA players poorly raised kids with "problems" , no. Are there some? Yeah.

That's the damn problem, the game is way too easy to obtain and bad parenting is the ROOT of the problems they talk about. I was working so I gave my 16 year old brother (he honestly looks younger than that) MY CREDIT CARD to go into a Best Buy (Here in Canada) and buy GTA4 Collectors edition. So he just walks out and gets away using MY credit card, I mean come on - if that can happen once , why not twice? Why can't my brother be the troubled Mr.Cho at V-Tech?



My bottom line is that there has to be much more stronger control on games with such subject matter. It says mature for a reason. Half the people on Gears of War and Halo3 on Live are high pitched minors. You know it.



2)Objectifying women.

Come on, if you had a daughter - would you want some punk ass kid in high school dating her , and thinking she's just another whore he can gang in his car in an alley and then push her out? No.

[elhef]

Yeah jack the ripper went sick becuase he played GTA for 2 weeks straight, I'm thinking violence existed before electricity let alone Violent games.



Whats a bigger problem, violent games, or a country with more guns than people?



Not to mention that pressing L2 X X X O O L2 L2 X X isn't insactly training to kill is it.

[rizzuh]

Glenn Beck is one of the stupidest people in media. Read an op-ed of his on CNN.com some time — it reads like a 15-year-old on a "use the word 'ought' a lot"-bender.

[jollesonn]

Glenn Beck isn't the sharpest tool on the rack, and he has a tendency to believe he's aligned with common sense. The issue with GTA isn't about training people to become murderers, increasing aggression or some other pop psychology non sequitur. The larger problem is no doubt the culture of today, the internet, tv, the constant devaluing of everything for entertainment and business purposes-- incidentally the things that lead to people talking gibberish internet language on discussion boards like this. But GTA is one of the problems that lends to this culture-- and they try to put it under the guise of "satire", thinking they're the intellectuals. Someone's got to draw the line, where will that line be? Are ethics actually not to be a part of entertainment?



More imminent, and something all should agree with and be concerned, is children and teenagers playing it. This site and people like Mr. Thompson might be able to put away some animosity if you can agree to strengthening restrictions and awareness. I for one can't believe the game only received a "Mature" rating.

[ALT+F4]

Anyone remember the video game the little kid was playing in the movie "Inside Man?" Beat to death and a grenade in the mouth for good measure; Spike Lee's prescient commentary on this whole thing.

[SlApNuTs]

Damn, oral and anal sex? Where I must be playing the wrong game, or Jack got the AO super secret edition.



Hook a brother up

[Admz]

It's people like this that make me want to kill... people like this.



GTA is fun and relaxes me. no killing.



shut up before i kill you old man.

[Zips]

magicalpoop wrote..

The game

1) Trains you to be a killer in the game.

No, it doesn't. The issue Beck and others in the media are trying to get is that the game teaches you, personally, how to become a killer. That is not the case.



If you want to take it from the standpoint in the game, it also doesn't teach your character how to be a killer. He came from a wartorn land, fought in a war, and this was made quite clear if you follow any of the story.

Hey you may be fine playing GTA4 for hours and then go outside and volunteer at the homeless shelter and not beat them for a bat for some quick cash..but do you think you can represent the entire GTA4 fanbase mentality? No. Are the majority of GTA players poorly raised kids with "problems" , no. Are there some? Yeah.

Yeah, and there are some mentally unstable people who also watch movies, or listen to music. Before games came along, music was apparently the devil that caused kids to do everything wrong (drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, etc.).



There will always be mentally unstable people doing every single thing in the world regardless of whether or not they should be doing it or not. You cannot stop them unless you're a parent of a child with such a tendency, and it's typically that a kid that has any sort of problem with telling right from wrong had a rather crap upbringing to begin with so you already know the parenting skills are also crap. I made that clear in my news that if they're unfit to play the game to begin with, they shouldn't be playing it period.

So he just walks out and gets away using MY credit card, I mean come on - if that can happen once , why not twice? Why can't my brother be the troubled Mr.Cho at V-Tech?

First off, that's the fault of the store there. They broke the law on more than one account, but then again so did your brother by impersonating you. Secondly, what does being able to buy a game have to do with someone being a mentally unstable killer? Nothing.

2)Objectifying women.

Come on, if you had a daughter - would you want some punk ass kid in high school dating her , and thinking she's just another whore he can gang in his car in an alley and then push her out? No.

What does this have to do with GTA or any other game? Again, read up on what I said multiple times about having a predisposition to doing wrong, or being mentally unable to determine right from wrong.

rizzuh wrote..

Glenn Beck is one of the stupidest people in media. Read an op-ed of his on CNN.com some time — it reads like a 15-year-old on a "use the word 'ought' a lot"-bender.

I don't even want to try and read his tripe. I hear enough of him and Limbaugh any time I'm near my father. He has them on the radio constantly, and what's worse is the fact that he buys into a lot of their propaganda.

[Linux]

Edited by [user="168813"] @ [time="1209760405"]

Well this was my highlight of my day watching those. I think I'll go play GTA4 now and run some people over and what not...

Seriously this stuff gets dumber and dumber every year, its kinda like MTV .

I'm waiting for Lewis Black's Root of all Evil to have Jack Thomas vs. CS\GTA4 lol.



EDIT: Anyone want to bet that Jack probably does the samethings in game as many of the other users and us do?

[Diamond Dust]

It just gets more and more clear that the people who come out against games like GTA in the media really just have no clue on what they are talking about, I find it offensive on how you can put up this whole offended argument when it's clear that you really haven't done any research on the subject matter. I love getting into this debates in person with people because I actually know facts. Like one lady I worked with commented "I don't like that game because you have to kill and rape women" Like wtf when could you ever rape somebody in the video game (besides custers revenge for the atari)?



It's amazing how much people don't know about video games, especially older people. Although we just have to wait because as the years pass the avg gamer age goes up because people who grow up playing video games don't just stop, in fact they play more because they now have more income and can afford to buy more. That is why the avg age of a gamer is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years, and that is a fact you can read for yourself at http://theesa.com/

[PENGUIN511]

GTA gives allows you to go into a stripclub, kill hookers, kill cops, run people down. but your the one that chooses to do it in game. gta is out there but your the one who decides what you do with it.

[ALT+F4]

Zips, as a former Games Apologist myself I understand your defensive stance but the fact is that this game IS vile, antisocial, perverse and offensive. But that's exactly what it's SUPPOSED to be.



In a perfect world with nothing but sane, rational and healthy people that's fine but with the ever increasing number of nutballs on the loose, not to mention their ever increasing levels of nuttiness, it does border on the irresponsible to even MAKE this kind of content, regardless of how it's marketed.



But, hey -- with the liars, cheats and thieves in political office and positions of public health, safety and faith, there really IS no safe zone here so, like, WTF.