The Impact of Violent Video Games on Society
Khadija Ali
Farmingdale State College
SOC 245
Professor David Reiff
December 3, 2018
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Over the past couple of years, mass shootings in America have gotten to be really
common. So common that schools have started to do safety drills and informing children what to
do if they are ever caught in such a situation. It seems as though every time a younger male takes
part in a mass shooting, government officials and certain news outlets are quick to blame video
games as the root of this problem. However, those same violent games are played in other
countries, but America is the only country that has an exponentially high rate of “gun-related
murders” (Fisher 2012). This may have to do with the fact that compared to other developed
countries, it is very easy to obtain a gun in America. There is a major difference of opinion
between ages when it comes to how violent video games impact society as “most gamers are
under 40, and most critics are non-games-playing over-40s" and likely see gamers as being
deviant (Kain 2012). With conflict theory in mind, you can assume that those “non-gamesplaying” adults over 40 are using their power to impose their norms on the youth and adults
under 40 who likely have little to no power in comparison.
It is important to know that America has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world.
America is double that of Yemen, a developing country, which is also the second country with
the highest rate of gun ownership (Fisher 2012). After mass shootings where the gunman is a
young male occur, the media and even government officials are very quick to blame violent
video games as the main issue. After the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School earlier this
year, President Trump suggested that the level of violence in video games and movies is really
shaping young people’s minds (Gilbert 2018). However, psychologist Christopher Ferguson
states that “recent research suggests that the releases of highly popular violent video games are
associated with immediate declines in violent crime, hinting that the releases may cause the
drop-off.” Even the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that research did not find a clear connection
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between violent video games and aggressive behavior back in 2011 (Ferguson 2018). Yet older
people in power still continue to blame video games for causing younger people to act violent
instead of how easy it is in America to be able to purchase a gun.
The nineteen year old who killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School earlier this
year purchased his gun legally (Arkin 2018). While it is true that he did play video games, how
can you explain all the other mass shooters who did not play video games. The same violent
video games that are played here are also played all over the world. For instance, the gaming
culture is huge in countries like Japan and South Korea, but they do not have anywhere near the
amount of gun related murders that America has. They even have places where people can come
and rent a computer and just play video games on it all day in both Japan and South Korea.
However, Japan has one of the strictest gun laws in the world. In 2017, the National Police
Agency in Japan reported that there were only 3 gun related deaths in Japan. On the other hand,
the Gun Violence Archive reports that in the U.S. there were 5,612 gun-related deaths in 2017.
South Korea also has laws in place that make it difficult for people to obtain a gun. If people do
legally obtain a gun for something like hunting in South Korea, the gun has to be stored and
locked up at the police station. I often like to watch South Korean dramas and one crime drama I
was watching had a knife involved, but they always blurred it out. After seeing that I searched it
up and since knives are easily obtainable in South Korea, they didn’t want to encourage killing
on the shows that are easily accessible by all ages so they blurred it out. While I don’t think such
censorship would work in America, but maybe if we adopted some of the more stricter rules that
exist in Korea and Japan there would be less gun related deaths here too.
It is really shocking to me that guns are still not banned or heavily regulated in America
yet since we have had so many mass shootings and gun related deaths occur. After 9/11, airport
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security checks and regulations have gotten much more strict to prevent such a tragedy from
happening again, but there have been little to no changes in gun laws. People tend to always
bring up that it is our Second Amendment right to bear arms so therefore it is our legal right to be
able to own guns. Personally, I believe context is very important too. When that amendment was
written, the guns that exist today didn't exist then so it would take a while to reload your gun
during that time and by then someone would have been able to stop you by then anyway. The
government officials that support our current gun laws are likely the ones that are also getting
support from the National Rifle Association (NRA), be it monetary or not, they don’t want it to
stop. Just from the little research I have done and videos I have seen, it seems to me that those
people in power would rather blame video games than actually try to reform the gun laws since
they end up benefiting from gun related organizations like the NRA. If the NRA wasn’t such a
big influence on government officials, I do think that we would have stricter gun laws like every
other developed country in the world by now. I don’t understand how video games are still
blamed for the cause of violence in the youth when many youths came out and voiced their want
for better gun control especially after the Parkland shooting, yet the older government officials
did not end up taking the youth seriously.
Looking at these examples through a conflict theory lens, it is clear that older adults tend
to use their power to impose their norms on younger adults and children who inevitably have less
power. Older adults including many government officials blame video games as the cause of
violence in younger adults and children since video games aren’t usually played by older adults.
These older adults see gamers as being deviant and would rather force them to change then
change what they are already used to even though research has shown that violent video games
do not lead to violent behavior..
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REFERENCES
Arkin, Daniel. 2018. "Here's What We Know About The Links Between Video Games And
Violence." NBC News. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/here-s-what-we-know-about-links-between-vi
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deo-games-n852776).
Ferguson, Christopher. 2018. “It’s time to end the debate about video games and violence.” The
Conversation. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-end-the-debate-about-video-games-and-violence91607)
Fisher, Max. 2012. “Ten-country comparison suggests there’s little or no link between video
games and gun murders.” Washington Post. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/ten-countrycomparison-suggests-theres-little-or-no-link-between-video-games-and-gunmurders/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e867014828ac).
Fisher, Max. 2012. “What makes America’s gun culture totally unique in the world, in four
charts.” Washington Post. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/15/what-makesamericas-gun-culture-totally-unique-in-the-world-as-demonstrated-in-fourcharts/?utm_term=.6508cf9de18e).
Gilbert, Ben. 2018. “ One glaring piece of evidence refutes the claim that playing violent video
games causes gun violence.” Business Insider. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://www.businessinsider.com/video-games-gun-violence-2018-3).
Kain, Erik. 2012. “As Video Game Sales Climb Year Over Year, Violent Crime Continues To
Fall.” Forbes. Retrieved December 1, 2018
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/19/as-video-game-sales-climb-year-overyear-violent-crime-continues-to-fall/#57a57e624507).
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