Connecticut town holding drive to collect and destroy violent video games
By Tim Colwill on January 3, 2013 at 3:13 pm
A small town in Connecticut is planning a collection drive to allow parents and families to return violent video games to a community group, where they will be snapped and incinerated.
The town of Southington, about 30 miles away from the site of the recent school shootings in Newtown, is holding the event which is being organised by SouthingtonSOS, a collection of community representatives from organisations such as the YMCA, the Chamber of Commerce, the fire department, local government and others.
The press release about the event explains that “The group’s action is not intended to be construed as statement declaring that violent video games were the cause of the shocking violence in Newtown on December 14th.”
“Rather, SouthingtonSOS is saying is that there is ample evidence that violent video games, along with violent media of all kinds, including TV and Movies portraying story after story showing a continuous stream of violence and killing, has contributed to increasing aggressiveness, fear, anxiety and is desensitizing our children to acts of violence including bullying. Social and political commentators, as well as elected officials including the president, are attributing violent crime to many factors including inadequate gun control laws, a culture of violence and a recreational culture of violence.”
Southington’s Video Game Return Program will kick off on January 12.
Source: Polygon (thanks, PalZer0)
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I support this.
haha, just messing with you. Could you imagine?
What they should have done:
Collect the games and resell them, then give the money to affected family’s or to charity or use the money to improve education.
Breaking them and incinerating them is just a waste either way, Incinerating just wastes time and adds pollution, especially after they have had the discs broken which rendered them useless anyway.
However they sugar coat it, it is a Statement, hence the incinerating part.
definitely a turn for the bizzaro.
“The group’s action is not intended to be construed as statement declaring that violent video games were the cause of the shocking violence in Newtown on December 14th.”
This comment cracks me up though. What else are they implying by choosing to go this direction then? We’ll break the violent video games because we think TV is the problem?
Knee Jerk reactions amuse me.
Why don’t they have a drive to return all the guns that enable people to perform violent crime??
Oh, I forgot, guns don’t kill people, violent video games kill people….
this seems a little silly to me. If you destroy your kids game because its to violent, why did you buy it in the first place? Destroying guns would be far better then destroying games.
I hope we get a follow up story on this, will be amusing to see how little people turn up/how much faith in humanity I will lose.
In before Godwin’s law gets invoked.
Let this be a lesson to kids everywhere! the lesson of course will be how to illegally download video games.
Thanks palzer0, I’ve learned something new today. Godwin’s law.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous scenarios unfolding that I have heard of in a long time.
Waste of time, money and resources. I wonder how many of the people in the community who organized this shindig were gamers.
Those evil game burning nazi’s !
While it would be horrible and I would hate myself for laughing at it, how funny would it be if some kid went on a rampage because he lost his favorite past time to his absurdly under educated parents.
Also guns aren’t the issue being bat-shit insane and having no conflict resolution skills is the issue.
Haha was about to respond to palzer with a “It’s comments like this that remind me of Nazis you evil man!” but somebody beat me. lol First I’d ever heard of Godwin’s Law.
The strangest thing about the shooting was a conversation involving my near-deaf grandfather which somehow went from the recent Three Stooges movie to the shootings. Somehow the conversation missed several steps and left everybody else dazed and confused.
So there you have it folks. Don’t bother with violent computer games, bring out and burn all your Three Stooges paraphernalia, they cause violence.
WOAH WOAH WOAH!
I posted this in the GoN lounge two hours ago! Not only does PalZer0 get the credit for the article but MY original post gets delete‽
What the fuck is going on?
Well, they’ll probably score a few thousand copies of War Z to burn, you know if you could buy it on shelves lol . Maybe some blank dvd’s with IOU written on them or something in lieu.
Of course addressing the proliferation of assault weapons and youth with poor levels of education, self esteem and coping ability is a lot harder to approach.
I have a copy of MoO3 I might give them to burn lol, yeah I bought that game because I thought, “it’s MoO what can go wrong”?!
You posted after Pal had already posted, additionally it wasn’t deleted but merged into an existing topic (you would know this if you looked at your post history.
Or refer: http://games.on.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2651656#p2651656
Guns are the issue. Maybe not intrinsically but ease of access combined with killing power and a poor social system.
Take away the gun and you vastly reduce the ability of cause harm.
Wow time for tin foil hats boys. These are the real logical people living in that there town…
Home made explosives and black market guns come immediatly to mind. If you are already insane enough to go on a spree killing. Limited legal access to guns is not going to stop you… Honestly a suicide bombing in an assembly could be far far worse than a shooting.
PinothyJ,
Pal got the drop on you buddy.
How does one set fire to a Steam library of games?
Heh, murricans.
I don’t nessicarily agree with this whole thing but
” there is ample evidence that violent video games, along with violent media of all kinds, including TV and Movies portraying story after story showing a continuous stream of violence and killing, has contributed to increasing aggressiveness, fear, anxiety and is desensitizing our children to acts of violence including bullying.”
Honestly I haven’t looked into it much but I’m sure constant exposure to violence even fantasy violence would play atlest some very tiny role in people going bat-shit crazy.
still seems silly to cause pollution for no good reason tho
What a Load of Crap! because the Americans follow a law that is 222 years old is why people use guns to kill people and they have been doing that for that whole 222 years killing one another because they “have the RIGHT to bear arms” what next they will use soft core and hardcore porn on the internet to explain why sicko’s rape women because they have been “desensitized ” by the material the have viewed, Just because some soft bold egg goes and kill’s people “oh its those violent video games and films let’s ban them because we have no other explanation” its a load of crap the violence in America is because every ma and pa has one and they are pretty much the norm, take those guns out of civilian homes and leave it to the crime’s and police and u will see less if not no “rampage” shootings. Hello America time to wake up and AMEND your second amendment its 222 years overdue!
““Rather, SouthingtonSOS is saying is that there is ample evidence that violent video games, along with violent media of all kinds, including TV and Movies portraying story after story showing a continuous stream of violence and killing, has contributed to increasing aggressiveness, fear, anxiety and is desensitizing our children to acts of violence including bullying.”
Bullcrap. Link us this evidence SOUTHINGTON (worst town name honestly) and I’ll gladly accept it after it is peer reviewed.
You know why they can’t? There is none. There has been a proven correlation between teenagers who commit suicide and those who listen to metal music, yes (our own government is looking into this to identify kids who may be at risk, but taking away the metal music simply means it’ll be harder to observe the high-risk kids instead of actually preventing it from occuring) but no causation.
‘”There are youngsters who appear to be consumed with violent video games,” he said. “I’m not certain if that’s a good thing. If this encourages one courageous conversation with a parent and their child, then it’s a success.
“We’re suggesting that for parents who have a child or children who play violent video games, to first of all view the games. We’re asking parents to better understand what their child is doing. Have a conversation about next steps. If parents are comfortable (with their child’s gaming habits), we’re comfortable.”
If parents aren’t, he said, then they can head to the local drive-in movie theater on Jan. 12 to turn in those video games in exchange for a $25 gift voucher intended to be used for other forms of entertainment, like perhaps, a local water park.’
Well well well, it looks like what they’re doing is placating incompetent parents who can’t educate their games properly, and instead of doing their job they can just get an easy solution out of it.
I believe the logic coincides with suicide prevention. Taking away easy access to different methods of suicide (hanging, pills, guns etc) doesn’t stop them from DOING it, but slows them down in the hopes that they may reconsider what they’re going to do.
I haven’t found any research that supports this theory though.
you can bet that if there where no guns in the homes of ordinary people “rampages” would not occur because the nut cases that commit the rampages would have zero access to any firearms, Guns are fast and easy and at hand killing devices, Bombs take planing and construction and rampages are not about planing or they would not be a rampage and also a bomb is less personal.We have gun restrictions in Australia and it seems to work just fine.
*Fixed
unitzero,
well they can either 1. set fire to Valve’s server rooms or 2. Ban Steam’s IP from all ISPs operating in their state. Option 2′s already on the table.
@kato99 – the evidence to support that theory is also non-existent. There are many countries with high gun per population counts which are owned and operated by the people and have very little problem with gun violence. Others have lots of issues with it, but it’s not normally the fault of the gun. The people who are responsible with owning firearms are usually not the ones going on the rampages, it’s the people that are pushed by whatever mechanism needed over the edge who go on rampages. If it wasn’t a gun, it would be another method chosen.
The knee jerk reactions are things politicians love to be able to curtail peoples freedoms and especially the ability to defend themselves from harm. I’m not gun advocate, but I don’t hold with an armed underworld, armed police force and unarmed public. Mainly because the public are the ones who get caught in the crossfire.
so silly. While yes it was horrible what happened, this will change NOTHING. I can’t believe how stupid people become when stuff like this happens, blame the things that won’t stop these evil tragedies happening again…
Death to physical media!
So could stealing a Mack truck and crashing it into a bus….a lot of things can kill people en masse. People don’t do it though. A gun is simple, concealable, easy to get hold of, takes no real skill to use (especially in these school shooting cases), can cause large amounts of harm in a very short period and costs practically nothing.
Legal gun ownership is fine provided the guns are licenced and stored in an appropriate gun safe separate from the ammunition and the owner is made legally accountable for any subsequent use of that gun.
Gun control isn’t the solution – it simply a means to an end. Rapid101 is correct – making these things harder means people will take some other path. By making it harder you are providing more opportunity for people to be caught before the act and/or they simply will do something else/seek help/commit suicide.
Gun control won’t stop mental health crises but it will help reduce the impact on innocents.
Two points –
1.) That argument is an old chestnut and could be applied to anything – drugs, prostitution…name it and someone could make an argument that politicians are curtailing our freedoms.
2.) The whole ‘armed average joe’ prevents crime argument is bullshit. More guns = more gun fatalities. Arm everyone and it GUARANTEES that all criminals will be armed too. If you escalate the risk of someone committing a crime it won’t stop them doing it – they will just try and reduce the risk in their own way.
The Police have guns for two reasons – because criminals have them and because if a human being is trying to kill you there are only so many things you can do stop that without resorting to lethal force.
The Police response tree goes : Baton, Spray/(Taser if they have time to deploy), Gun. Someone is coming at you with a sword…the baton is out right away…..spray may or may not have any effect….so you’re left with a Taser (which may or may not deploy properly) or the gun. Guess which one smart Police who like living are going to use.
what the hell is ‘ample evidence’ – oh it’s out there but we don’t have anything specific..
Also, I actually pulled this from a News Suggestion pal sent through our contact forms, not by looking at the forums. So if you want to make sure we see something, that’s the best way to do it!
PS I will reply to your PM shortly
who the fuck cares? you seriously send a PM about it?
ha. sounds like a name out of a video game like pokemon or earthbound. “we need to name this new town. it’s south of where we are now”. “how about southington?”. “done”.
this is an important quote. this is right attitude, unfortunately they have paired it with the extreme attitude of burning shit. it seems like there’s a few reasonable people in the group.
as for the gun control debate going on… in Australia, due to gun laws, when you get mugged, or someone breaks into your home, chances are they DON’T have a gun, and neither do you. gun control basically boils down to the choice between both parties having a gun, or neither party having a gun. that is achievable in the USA in a few decades if they start legislating now.
as for the link between video games and violence.
of course there are other factors involved. but if I was using the logic and brain power these groups use I could claim that violent video games was making the population less violent.
His PM was actually about a Community Soapbox submission! Sorry for the confusion. Also, sweet graphs.
LETS DO IT, lets get rid of ALL games; Frankly i wanna see what they claim the next reason is for a shootout, im sure its not the fact that as everybody knows of their “social skills” over there is most definitely not the reason. probably blame it on movies next…
kinkykel,
They don’t amuse me, this one bloody annoys me.
They might notice that someone at the scene had a phone with Angry Birds installed…:P
“You see, we had to get rid of the violent games, it was warping our little kid’s mind. Now, let’s talk about our collection of 20 different firearms!”