In the Game of Life, There are No Continues Essay -- Argumentative Per

In the Game of Life, There are No Continues It was July when Charles Whitman, who was 24, killed both his wife and mother. He then took a â€Å"footlocker full of ammunition, shotguns, rifles, Spam sandwiches and water† to a clock tower at the University of Texas. In the next hour and half, he shot 46 people, killing 16 of them before finally being shot to death by police. Charles Starkweather was 19 when he led Caril Fugate, 14, on a â€Å"weeklong killing spree across Nebraska and Wyoming in which 11 people were shot, stabbed, and strangled to death.† Before this, however, Caril had shot her mother to death with a shotgun for threatening Charles (Lovinger 18,19). Are these the newest acts in a seemingly endless rash of teen violence? Were these teens influenced to kill by Marilyn Manson, violent video games, or R rated movies? The answer is a sound â€Å"No!† These acts occurred before the advent of violent media. According to Lovinger, Whitman killed all those people in the summer of 1966, while the killing spree of Starkweather and Fugate happened during the year of 1958 (18). Violence has always been among the population. Violent video games do not encourage nor induce our kids to commit acts of brutality. People have been killing each other since the dawn of time. Society cannot use violent video games as a scapegoat for its ills. Violent video games do not cause violent behavior in today’s youth, contrary to popular belief. One of the biggest arguments against the selling and creating of violent video games is that kids are not able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, that by picking up a fake gun and shooting at pixels and animation that flies across the screen, the game is teaching kids to k... ...lt;http://proquest.umi.com/>. â€Å"Press Start.† Electronic Gaming Monthly May 2001: 36 Quittner, Joshua. â€Å"Are Video Games Really So Bad?† Time 10 May 1999: 50-59. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 . Sandberg, Jared. â€Å"The Gamer: An Increasing Number of Teens Spend Their Days Pulverizing Each Other with Computerized Instruments of Destruction.† Wall Street Journal 8 Dec. 1997: R4. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 . â€Å"The Surgeon General’s Report.† Computer Gaming World May 2001: 30. Van Horn, Royal. â€Å"Violence and Video Games.† Phi Delta Kappan Oct. 1999: 173-174. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 . In the Game of Life, There are No Continues Essay -- Argumentative Per In the Game of Life, There are No Continues It was July when Charles Whitman, who was 24, killed both his wife and mother. He then took a â€Å"footlocker full of ammunition, shotguns, rifles, Spam sandwiches and water† to a clock tower at the University of Texas. In the next hour and half, he shot 46 people, killing 16 of them before finally being shot to death by police. Charles Starkweather was 19 when he led Caril Fugate, 14, on a â€Å"weeklong killing spree across Nebraska and Wyoming in which 11 people were shot, stabbed, and strangled to death.† Before this, however, Caril had shot her mother to death with a shotgun for threatening Charles (Lovinger 18,19). Are these the newest acts in a seemingly endless rash of teen violence? Were these teens influenced to kill by Marilyn Manson, violent video games, or R rated movies? The answer is a sound â€Å"No!† These acts occurred before the advent of violent media. According to Lovinger, Whitman killed all those people in the summer of 1966, while the killing spree of Starkweather and Fugate happened during the year of 1958 (18). Violence has always been among the population. Violent video games do not encourage nor induce our kids to commit acts of brutality. People have been killing each other since the dawn of time. Society cannot use violent video games as a scapegoat for its ills. Violent video games do not cause violent behavior in today’s youth, contrary to popular belief. One of the biggest arguments against the selling and creating of violent video games is that kids are not able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, that by picking up a fake gun and shooting at pixels and animation that flies across the screen, the game is teaching kids to k... ...lt;http://proquest.umi.com/>. â€Å"Press Start.† Electronic Gaming Monthly May 2001: 36 Quittner, Joshua. â€Å"Are Video Games Really So Bad?† Time 10 May 1999: 50-59. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 . Sandberg, Jared. â€Å"The Gamer: An Increasing Number of Teens Spend Their Days Pulverizing Each Other with Computerized Instruments of Destruction.† Wall Street Journal 8 Dec. 1997: R4. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 . â€Å"The Surgeon General’s Report.† Computer Gaming World May 2001: 30. Van Horn, Royal. â€Å"Violence and Video Games.† Phi Delta Kappan Oct. 1999: 173-174. ProQuest Direct. ProQuest. J.D. Messick Learning Resource Center, Tulsa. 26 March 2001 .