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PM worried about game violence
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 16th January 2008
Gordon Brown has pointed to videogames as a major concern in the struggle against knife crime.
In the article Brown talks extensively about knife crime and attempts to tackle it.
“It is neither cool, nor does it make you safer, to carry a knife. We must ease people’s fears...I am very worried about video and computer games. No one wants censorship or an interfering State, but the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.”
The article singles out Manhunt as an example of extreme videogame violence involving knives.
The issue is certainly a complicated one and raises the question of whether videogames glorify violence and knife carrying to the younger audiences who undoubtedly play games which are not rated for their age group. If that is the case then does the blame fall on the developer, the government, the parent or the child? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Comments (45)Stats: 6.157 seconds
What next? The war on your kitchen utensils? "Oh my no, that child is flipping a hamburger in a rather disturbing way". Next thing you know you'll be using spoons as weapons in all your games! "Quick spoon'm, hes around the corner SPOON HIM!"
Crazy I tell ya...
I've heard tell that the government is thinking about banning katanas and hunting knives (for certain values of katana or hunting knife).
Now it's videogames getting the kneejerk treatment.
I think we're going to have an(other) interesting few years.
- H.
The industry already age rates their games, the next step in kids getting hold of these games is the responsibility of the parents and the retail outlets.
OT: The place to tackle knife-crime is in the minds of the perpatrators, not in video games. All you have to do is make it plain that in the real world, knife crime is totally unacceptable.
besides, maybe he should remember that both world wars happened before computers existed. (translate as: people killed each other before the computer was invented).
LOL
Dam stright!!!!
However, if everyone was inside playing games, be it games with knifes in or not, then there would be less/no people out on the streets stabbing or getting stabbed =]
The criminals who are carrying knives with the intent to use them in violent acts or who are even 'carrying them for defence' (as this makes any knife an offensive weapon when carried) are never going to hand them in just because Mr. Brown says so.
As far as the banning of hunting knifes, there is a LOT more evidence that ordinary kitchen knives are used in crime far more frequently than specialised fighting knives. You see this in the piles of handed in knives that the police love to parade after every amnesty they run, they have to search through to find the example they like to show as 'the evil pieces that our youths are carrying'
Thing is anyone ever seen him @ PMQs he seriously needs to box or maybe play computer games to get his anger out cause hes like a angry bear with a sore head lol
Gotta love the nanny state
*edit* Kieth Vaz just raised this during PMQ's asking for a more responsible games industry, new legislation and new classification laws
All jokes aside. I rather see people fight in games then on the IRL streets...
:) :)
If parents would get off their fat arses and start disciplining their kids or maybe even just stopping their 12 year old from watching / playing the R rated media.
something wrong with this?
anyway, this is rediculous, how athletic are video gamers that they would be out chasing people with knifes :-p j/k (about the athletic part, and the part about carrying knifes)
it is completely the consumers responsibility.
More awareness of classifications and the punishment for knife/gun crime is needed, not crippling the creativity of game designers.
Games don't kill real people, real people do. (or should that be "real knifes/guns do")
Playing computer games might not affect the way you and I think or act, but could there be a possibility that some people do get affected by violent games!
Could there be a possibility that people do try things because they want to know what it would feel like to do it in real life!
I think that the possibilities are always a reality.
But to blame Games or Movies or even Songs, well that I don’t know.
People have always killed / murdered people – that is human life.
From the first day Humans put foot on earth, we have killed and even bullied other people.
Animals do it, weather does it and even other unknown forces kill people.
Take away certain games and I really, really, really don’t think that things will get any better.
The only reason I see the government having to get involved is because parents don’t seem to be able to teach their own children.
If people can not control themselves, then rules and laws have to be introduced and unfortunately it affects us all.
I really don’t think that the government wants to get involved with everything, they have their own problems.
But in the UK, the government have no choice because they have to be seen as doing something, otherwise people will blame the government for doing nothing.
Its like the police, people generally don’t like them, unless they need their help.
but maybe they should take guns away from the police, I mean look at that ex officer that killed his wife then shot her mum then shot him self. I wonder how many violent computer games he played in his life. Which brings me onto another age discrimination snap decision the media and officials keep on making.
So a young person guns down people in a school, it must be violent video games and films.
A man in his late 40's ealry 50's guns down his wife, her mother then himself, does anyone check the viewing or game playing habbits of this individual???
The answer to this is more than likely no. People are just too sacred to think that sometimes the human mind can, not just like all of us think of evil things, actually go ahead and do evil things. Everyone has the common sense to know what their kids can watch and play. Also everyone has the right to choose what to watch or play.
the stupid thing is that people that want to kill another person with a samurai sword can easily get it underground.....
ban video games and violence will go up very fast, and as everyone says, the PM has more important subjects to think about.....
then the politicians will say: "see, we always told you, they are all criminals, lets plant some rfid chips in them".
I'm sixteen and I have the views of an 80year old man, kids aren't brought up correctly these days and a lot of the time I blame this on their parents practically being kids themselves. They have no discipline, no sense of right or wrong and the legal system also doesn't enforce this. I could go on for hours but I wont, instead I will say
QFT
I should think that a lot of people here carry knives for work/opening up computers. I know I do and I have a friend that had a visit to a police station having been caught carrying a small penknife for perfectly legitimate reasons.
Is the picture CS by the way?
Going by the letter of the law as it stands in the UK at the moment, you can carry a non locking folding knife with a blade length of less than 3" without a reason needed and as long as you have a valid reason for it you can carry just about anything. Unfortunately saying that you are carrying anything for personal defence turns that knife, no matter how tiny, into an offensive weapon and WILL get you in trouble.
The Spiderco UK penknife is a good example of a decent UK legal knife as that is what it was designed for. Non locking 2 15/16" blade.
You might want to brush up on your constitutional law, no one voted for Tony Blair either. This isn't the US you don't vote the man you vote the party the party can elect who ever they like to run the government, also why PARTIES put out manifestos not the various individuals. Sorry for the rant, pet hate of mine is people who can't be bothered to learn how the country works.
/off topic rant
I really wish parents would learn to look after their own children, i'm sick of having to do it for them (by proxy)
You sure you live in the UK mate? The vast majority of our coppers aren't armed, and don't want to be armed. The ARU are a neccesity, and the idea that we'd have police forces without even specialist armed response units is incredibly stupid, frankly.
Knife and gun law in this country does piss me off no end though. Especially the fact that if a policeman finds you with a leatherman or similar, they can give you a lot of poopoo if they want - just because they're having a bad day. The laws put far too much discretionary power in the hands of people who're going to make bad decisions that negatively impact upon functional and morally innocent members of society. For a great example, look no further than the man who got arrested at an airport, and recieved a massive fine (and was lucky to avoid jailtime) for having a knife in his handluggage. He said he'd been given it as a retirement gift that afternoon and had forgotten to remove it from his bag. They said that that didn't matter, he had a knife, so he was guilty. Who was he? Why he was a retiring police officer, of course.
until you slip and shove it into your chest.....
Of course, they're only having their collective arm twisted by stupid tabloid journalists and fanatical members of the public (PETA & their ilk, Mothers Against <everything>, religious establishments, etc), so really it's these few c***s who take themselves too seriously who are giving rise to the whole convoluted problem.
This always pisses me off. You dont have to be 18 to read dam violent books
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have you heard of death by tickle? torture + death in one simple package.....
Screw education, he should be putting more money into gulags for those who chose to piss away their educational opertunities.