There are two sides to this.

It is proven videa-games, TV and even music influence people to do crazy stuff, but it's all in how much you are open to influence. It's clear that a lot of kids do immitate what they see, but I also see kids who play games and watch those TV programs, but they don't bother with it in RL. I do play FPS games as well but only when I need to vent out my aggression, so my idea is that games can be a pain in the *** as well as a relieve of stress for some people.

No offense taken what so ever.....I'll admit, video games can contribute to violent behaviors, but when people are trying to put all of the blame on video games, that's what I think is the messed up part

What a lot of people fail to realize is that video games ARE rated. And the highest rating that most stores sell is "Mature". While I'm not saying that 17 is a definable maturity level, its a start. By then, people should know the difference between right and wrong.
Personally, even as an avid gamer, I don't mind the laws in delaware stating you have to be carded for mature rated games or the store gets majorly fined. They've been doing it for R rated movies forever. Its about time that the laws start supporting the established rating system (ESRB).
Which brings me to another point. Games are rated for a reason, just like movies. In fact, games are much more violent than movies. And yes, you do have direct control over it. But the games are rated so people shouldn't play them until they're MATURE enough. Nobody is exempt from reading. Strong Sexual Content and Strong Language mean that it probably isn't good for a young impressionable mind. Hence the rating system.

I'm not saying that video games make people violent. The violence comes from irresponsible adults selling violent materials to minors. Never have I wanted to walk into a room full of people, whip out a BFG and clear out the room. Resident Evil 4 doesn't make me want to blow peoples heads off to see if they're infeted with a parasite so I can kill it too. GTA has never made me want to steal a car.
Because I am "mature" and understand the difference between right and wrong, fantasy and reality.

And why is GTA always blamed? You don't learn how to shoot a gun when a game has lock on targeting. Time Crisis is the game we should be blaming, if any.

I think the media is trying to find something to blame everything on. For instance the columbine shootings. Those kids already knew what they were doing they probably imagined that day since they were kids. We all have a brain so its not like we would let a video game influence us to kill people , some people just want to kill people. Its not the video game its the kids mind. Hes the one who knew it was wrong but just wanted to do it anyways. Violence is everywhere. Little kids learn violence in like 1st grade. Imagine some kid taking your peanut butter sandwich. Imagine how sad or mad you would get. Now imagine if the kid was big and kind of a bully. Then you try to get it back and he pushes you. Well if that were me i'd spush him back. We're human violence is somewhere in our nature.

Let me try to put this the way "THEY" believe it is:
Violent Video Games+Kids=Violent Kids

I and opposed to this belief 100%. Kids are naturally "violent" it is their way of establish where they are in the the anarchy that is childhood. Think about, back in the old day, children practiced with real weapons and had competitions with them. Are violent video games so different from this?

I had to do a talk on this a year ago (year 8) my opinion was that computer games do partially add to the cause of violent crimes by kids, if a parent let's their children have 18 rated games when they aren't that old is teaching them bad things. Admittadely my parents let me watch 18 movies and play 18 games but I don't go crazy and kill people, most of the cause is probably due to an earlier experience or something and this causes the child to react and do something so horrific. Computer games are only partially to blame for these crimes and you can lead that blame down to the government, think about Australia they have banned many games or have had games like GTA: San Andreas specially altered to contain less violence and such content. Australia has no violent crimes related to games as far as I know. America on the other hand has quite a few violent crimes somehow supposed to be related to computer games, and if you think about it America hasn't banned or had any games altered (as far as I know). So in my opinion computer games are partly to be blamed but most of the blame should be put on the personality of the person, if the person has a violent personality then they are more likely to be violent when shown these violent images in games. This is just my opinion so don't go shouting and moaning please.

They just came out with a 2nd edition of GTA:San Andreas...they took out the notorious sex scene that got it pulled off shelves to begin with and some of the other stuff that got the game changed from an "M" rating to an "Adult Only" rating.

I think a lot of this could be solved if parents took control over what there kid was renting. I work at a video rental chain, and there are a lot of parents that are totally oblivious to what it is that's in the games their kids rent. We have a policy where if a kid is trying to rent a mature rated title, they have to have their parents permission. If the kid is by themself, then they cannot rent the title. You would be amazed at how many dropped-jaw parents I see when I tell them why the game their children want to rent is mature rated. A lot of the kids beat around the bush, telling their parents "Well, there's just a little bit of shooting, but it's not that bad" when they're trying to rent something like Resident Evil 4. It's become a popularity contest with kids.....like they aren't cool to all of their friends unless they can rent the newest zombie-splattering, head-bashing game on the market. I had an 10-year old come up a while back, wanting to rent GTA:SA...and this was the origional version, not the newer one that just got put onto the market. When I told him that he had to have a parent here so that I could get their permission, he told me "Oh, it's ok, my mom already said I could rent this game".

Going back on topic, yes, violent personalities and violent video games won't make a good combination, but for those that are under the age of 17 who aren't, by law, allowed to purchase these games, the parents need to be more in control over what their kids play. Not to bring up a sore subject for anyone, and I apologize if I do, but do you really think the parents of the kids that commited the Columbine incodent had any idea as to what their kids were doing? And the blame for that whole thing was put on video games.

There was this article I read a few moths about about this issue. It tried to correlate the crime rate to releases in games, that have caused controversy. They couldn't find it, and in fact found that the crime rate for youth has actually gone DOWN. It concluded that the whole Video Games issue, didn't really exist, and that people were making it up.

I will try and find that article.

Ahh, It depends, really...

Back in the day, there were no video games, yet, there was violence. Obviously some other factors can influence it more...

Personally, I think that TV or some other environmental factor can have a greater influence over violence. Let's say the kid grew up in an initially violent neighborhood, wouldn't that be a greater factor? Another could be the mental state of the person. Is that person prone to crack, or not? Plus, people want to act like they see on TV, or some other thing. When you play video games, doesn't that already put you in the action? Why do you need to do it yourself, when you can make the one your controlling do it for you? It's all the matter of something to blame.

"Oh he's doing this, it must be because of this..."

Face it, it's human nature...

Oh, and by the way, n