the big industries are just looking for a new culprit to blame societies deficiencies on.

There's at least one death missing from that list...someone died playing Berserk in the arcades back in the 80's, but I don't think it was a big story of it's day.  But beyond that, games, like every new medium to arise in the last hundred years, is going through a stage of scapegoatism, where people who don't understand the medium see an easy explanation for all the worlds woes.  Someone got shot?  The player must have played video games?  The media likes to blame video games, because so much of the media-centric public are still unaware of what video games really are.  There's this public view that video games are a children's toy, but a study done by the ESA a few years back actually showed that 18-35 year old males make up the majority of video game players.

While you raise good points about how these other things are killing more people per year than video games, banning the things you list would be completely impractical.  But what does need to happen is that video games simply take their place next to film and music as another entertainment and artistic medium, and not treated as dangerous murder simulators.  For every GTA, there's a Shadow of the Colossus, and the world needs to see that.

I remember there was a article on pets and animals saying they should ban pets to little kids b/c they cause death by watching them do things like cats,dogs, hamster and more O.o I got no idea how can pets cause you to kill someone =/ anyways i agree with your article =P

I think every new media was going through this.

And who said to ban video games? If some people cry about it, then they mind the bloody ones (mainly FPS games). But there are many other kinds of games and those are mostly no problem for those people.

I think most adults are overwhelmed with that video game boom in the last few years. Since they're not rised with such stuff, they don't know it well or they fear/deny to deal with it. Just look at some grannies or grandpas, some of them barely can use a cell phone... the same happens with the adults today with video games.

Probably one or two generations more, and I guess the whole discussion about games will not be a problem anymore.

games don't kill cars don't kill guns don't kill drugs don't kill we kill theyr only items and were the ones that decide how to use them i agree with ur article games dosn't have the power or ability to kill any1 they can only push u in that direction not like guns or cars wich dose the direct damage good job 

You know for all the people criticizing the things he listed to ban instead of video games, I think half the point of the article is that banning these things would be impossible and or stupid and redundant, but they are far worse then video games which people DO seem to want to ban. Read between the lines a bit before you go crazy arguing the logistics behind why banning alchohol etc is dumb.

this was a pathetic attempt at make a pathetic artical in the direction of something that actually could have been a good artical.  way to fail buddy.  while you're at it, add "Blame canada" to the bottom of the list.

 Well its ppls own problem if there mentally weak or not, if they cannot handel a game well there problems not mine......

sorrry but i have to punch holes in this

Alcohol: was banned in the 1930s the prohabation act wich lead to a increase in crime and violence

cars: if cars where banned they would aslo have to bann public tranportaion slaughtering are economey so we cant get to work  all of us would be hobos

guns: k the bann of guns makes no sense lets bann knifes and bats and chains any other way your gonna die its the person that uses the gun is to blame

religon im not gonna touch that since that would maybe cause a all out war

smoking another example of person choice people choose to smoke its persons self choice if they cant smoke there gonna find a substituite

wars this would be kinda horrible without war there is no peace there is only death world war 2 if other countrys did not decide to take up arms hey look  no more jews  are if no more war a terriost group with knifes  could take a country over since guns have been banned

sorrry but i have to punch holes in this

Alcohol: was banned in the 1930s the prohabation act wich lead to a increase in crime and violence

cars: if cars where banned they would aslo have to bann public tranportaion slaughtering are economey so we cant get to work  all of us would be hobos

guns: k the bann of guns makes no sense lets bann knifes and bats and chains any other way your gonna die its the person that uses the gun is to blame

religon im not gonna touch that since that would maybe cause a all out war

smoking another example of person choice people choose to smoke its persons self choice if they cant smoke there gonna find a substituite

wars this would be kinda horrible without war there is no peace there is only death world war 2 if other countrys did not decide to take up arms hey look  no more jews  are if no more war a terriost group with knifes  could take a country over since guns have been banned

life sucks then you die get over it if you died today because someone needed money to pay for a game or you died in 40years of old age would make no difference death is an everyday thing ther way i see it is humans are ment to destroy this world and trying to stop that is just going to make it end faster.

my point - video games have nothing to do with death.

Did you know that 100^ % of people who lack air for more than 1 hour(thats being genrous) ..die? Its true, Air needs to be banned, it has obvious addictive qualities. I mean, just name a human you know who doesnt use it. .....horrible.

Hello,

its people actions not the games, guns or other shit. People should learn to control there own selfs and stop blaming other shit we are the one we should be blaming we are the ones thats fucking up your own world that we live in but no people still do it and you wander why everything sooo fuck up right now.

Good point. Why blame games instead of the more serious and reasonable stuff? Violent reactions from video games are severely rare and doesn't post a world problem, but it does kill a lot of the player's time in which could have been spent on something better. 

Um, cars, I know they have alot of accidents and such but, hey. I cant walk to california from south carolina in a week. Unless you want to learn how to ride a horse, or walk for a looooooooong time, I suggest you just drive, or use train tickets, and those crash also, and why dont you ban airplanes while your at it (911). But war and guns are pretty good ones, nothin we can do about it :p

And im just putting alchohol as a mabye, its only horrible in abusive use, should it be illegal to drink wine with ones wife? Or have a tipsy new years party? After a while, a known drunk should be baned from alchohol, because he cannot control himself, but damn takeing it from everyone is just lame.

But in all seriousness, video games do take some addictive property, known addicts (suicidal addicts) should be taken care off.

Ill admit this immidiately: I only read the religionpartofthe post asI have to go(alright, truth,I have no attention span) and all I want to say is that I think the truth behind the crusades was that religion was used as a cover-up for a political war. It wasnt religious. Besides that, christianity DID NOT start as a cult! Even if you do disagree with it, the Bible is a historical document as well, and Christianity (along with a few other religions) has some of the most widely followed belief's right? Like... treat your neighbor as you want to be treated...and...other stuff....

 

So, it's to bold a statement to say "all religions began as a cult" without research or backing. People in the bible existed Siddhartha Gautama of the buddhist religion (fat guy in sculptures) existed and spread teachings at some point.

Thats all... Im not exactly great at rants or counter rants or arguments, feel free to reply and shoot this down.

Digging this, good article. Ever see the FOX reports on the DS and PSP? When short on stories, they turn to video games and bash the hell out of them to appease their concerned mother viewers. Said the DS was a pedophile tool and the PSP was a porn machine, but they never get any good evidence to their claims, end up contradicting themselves often, ask a lot of WHAT IF questions, and/or link it to a freak accident or occurence caused by a stupid parent, that happened somewhere in the world over the past ten years and blow it way out of proportion.

Invasion if you think your up to it go ahead and try buddy :3

 Humans should be banned from this planet. They are the greatest cause of unnatural deaths of any kind of living thing, ever concievable by anyone. They are the only form of life who kill each other for no good reason ever known by anyone in this universe.

Nice post..Lets add a few more..Shall we ban forks because they made you fat?Oh you didnt know being fat causes heart trouble and other things because the Fork made you fat..Ban that fork I say..

Now lets see..Oh yes The knife.Well the game didnt kill that person but the knife that the person used did..Dam it! Ban that Knife and not the game..

The TV.. Do i need to say anymore? Ban the TV!

Lets pretend we live in a carebear world while the rest of the world is falling apart.Now its not the time to shelter young ones from reality or it going to come back and bite you in the a$$!

And the last thing is..You reap what you sow in life it dont matter what you do.Let it be good or bad..Either way its going to come back and get you!

There's hardly a considerable movement to ban video games versus something like guns.  Yes, the U.S. has a disproportionate amount of gun crime, but a) your interpretation of the second amendment is not at all universal.  The ability to keep and bear arms "and" (not "to") form a militia isn't so narrowly defined in the constitution, regardless of whether the writers of the document intended it that way.

Second amendment or not, gun ownership is widely considered one of the great freedoms in America, and as statistics show, guns purchased or obtained legally are used in an extremely small percentage of crimes.  Making gun ownership illegal simply leaves more law-abiding citizens without a means to defend themselves against criminals who could not care less whether they are allowed to have a gun.

Global gun bands in various areas have had mixed results on crime.  On a large enough scale (e.g. Britain) violent crime goes down immediately after a ban, but rather quickly returns to its original rate.  Historians and sociologists alike agree that a similar global ban in the U.S. would have a less beneficial effect given the size, diversity, and history of the nation.

Then there's the aspect of religion.  The crusades and the inquisition were both very bad times as far as Christian history is concerned.  Very few Christians today would support either of these events.  That said, "banning" religion would only cause things like this to be more likely.  If you actually look at the history behind the crusades or any of the other religion-based atrocities, they most often revolve around an attempt to remove religious freedoms in one capacity or another.  That's exactly what "banning" religion does.

I realize of course that you're not so much proposing that these other things be banned as you are that video games pale in destructive compari

I agree to those except the "banning" war part.Its nearly impossible to "ban" war.Leaders can just send out and army to destroy another nation.

 A few of the things on your list, realistically, cannot be banned. It just wouldn't work for a variety of reasons. But you made your point, I think. The media worries too much about the negative effects gaming has had on a select few people (sick, sick people). Honestly, it's pathetic to generalise gaming as a bad influence.

Good stuff. Keep writing.