I think that's the point though, that by getting out aggression in a (relatively) harmless manner, you're less aggressive in regular life.

Oh, no. What I was saying was meant to be far bleaker: first of all - it's about society, not simply "the state". As in - the gist of between-people interactions that our minds absorb over the course of a lifetime. The less we are implicitly coerced, the bigger the chance that someone will go postal. To but it bluntly: the more people are free to do what they desire, the bigger the chance that those who desire evil things will follow their plans through.

To quote Tasteless paraphrasing Confucius: "Man cannot play Starcraft with clenched fists" ;).

To follow his reasoning to its logical conclusion - there can hardly be one. As long as we all agree that being free from brainwashing and constant surveillance AS WELL as being able to enjoy an intellectual life of browsing the web, reading books and generally enjoying make-belief... as long as we want to keep all of this due to its positive aspects, we have to live with the side-effects of some people snapping.
The only thing we CAN do is to try and rid would-be killers of access to means of taking lives. We can't destroy their willingness to do so, since their delusions and our entertainment are fueled by the same sources.

I'm not sure what you mean... Care to explain? It seems to me that the more we are coerced or made to suffer, by the state or by each other, the more likely we are to feel justified in or at least numb to coercing or inflicting suffering on others.

Edit: Rolling it around my thoughts for a bit, I wonder if you mean something like "more freedom affords more opportunity for evil"? I first read your words to imply a causal link, but perhaps that is not what you meant.

AMEN!!! And on that note I'm off of my soapbox and onto something else so I can be happy! "I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"

I don't have any data to back this up, but I'm under the impression that those who live in strict or oppressive societies are more prone to suicide than harming others. I'm fairly sure suicide rate is much higher in, say, Japan than California, and going postal on random strangers is more of a west thing - mass shootings in particular are far more common in the USA than Europe. So while every case is of course different, cultural background seems to play a heavy role in these matters.

Can I please, PLEASE get the source of this?

wasn't just fox, saw either news12 cnn or nbc(dont know which was being flipped between those but never fox)

They said something about how the students would fail to properly adjust and deal with this traumatic experience because they play videogames and are both desensitized and already comfortable with fantasy worlds.

in that case he wasn't blaming video games for the shooting but saying it'd make the aftermath worse...I think he was somehow implying video games would make them more likely to deal with it by pretending it never happened but become Rambo on the inside? Didn't make sense whatever he was saying.

There are two kinds of coercion: explicit and implicit. Explicit is, say, holding someone at gunpoint and telling him what to do. Implicit is making him into a person who, held at gunpoint, would claim that this is what they want to do ;P.
Implicit coercion is sinister because people can't see it. They "internalize" values - will claim that what they've been taught is their own. That isn't to say that everything people will mindlessly follow has to be BAD... It's just that few of them will even question things they consider "obvious" (similarly to how only philosophers ask about things like the existence of the external world - blind faith that one simply IS THERE is not something to be ashamed of).

Indeed. Which means we're pretty screwed, since freedom is a nice thing (IMO), even though there are those who would misuse it.

You want to know what the real problem is with these shootings? The fucking media that has it on 24/7 and spins the story so much it becomes nothing but pure sensationalism and appealing to emotions. Even if the shooter played violent shooting video games you're not looking at the problem as a whole. People like Fox News and 'social scientists' like Jo Frost (who blamed most of the London riots in 2011 on video games) just use ALL video games as a scapegoat for the mental problems of these shooters because of social stigmas they still cling to thats been outdated for about 20-30 years now.

The real problem is how the media covers and sensationalizes these killings. I think this video, specifically the forensic scientist at the end, pretty much sums up the problem with news coverage of the killings and the link it has to a lot of recent mass shootings in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

Fox News will keep beating this dead horse until the shrivelled old creatures that actually think it creates "news" crawl off to their graves. Gotta get as much as you can out of ignorant old farts while they're still alive to spend.

His wording is interesting "... I guess you could add gaming to that".

Well, thanks for admitting that you forgot one of your buzzwords.

What's more interesting to me is that he seems to be pulling random popular pastimes out of his rear. I mean Facebook? Reality TV? I'm not fan of either one but they have to be the weirdest choices of things to blame that I could think of, that's even more of a stretch than violent videogames.

One of the other major problems is that the anti-gun lobby will use this as a field day to advance their political agenda. There are millions of responsible, law abiding firearm owners that would never in a million years do something like this. It is much, much, much easier to say that firearms need to be outlawed rather than getting to the root of what causes these things to happen.

Outlaw guns, but not address the societal problems and mental issues that some people have? You've still got the potential there for massive casualties, given the ease with which people can find ways of doing mass harm, especially with the internet. It is always easier to treat the symptoms rather than finding the cause of such problems.

What is it that is causing these young males (because it is, most of the time, young males) to go off like this? Is it stress? Lack of education? Lack of opportunities? Loss of feeling any sort of control over their lives? Abuse? There's a whole shitload of avenues that could lead to these events, but they would all take real effort to combat, rather than being able to pat yourself (generic "yourself" here) on the back that you got firearms outlawed on the back of a parent's grief and loss.

In a way, it is similar to the anti-abortion debate. People want to outlaw the symptom (abortion) but not address the underlying issues. By thinking that they outlaw the most obvious expression of it, the problem itself goes away.

/my.02cents

This is the REAL problem? Not that a guy killed 20 children(!), the problem is the media coverage?

Maybe starting to getting rid of some guns? I try to understand the American way of life and the whole second amendment stuff. But as a European the whole gun lobby point of view feels completely ridiculous.
To stop shootings and massacres get a gun to protect yourself and maybe kill the shooter. This was their point after Aurora and nothing changed - will they really hand out guns to five year olds or school teachers?

Of course you can do harm with a knife or many other sings, but what is the reason for half-automatic guns? Personal protection and safety? These kind of weapons have no use in a civil society, they are only good for killing people in a war. And why not stop using seatbelts or airbags - sometimes the driver still dies in a car accident...

It is really your bigges problem after such tradegy that someone wants to get rid of all the guns, which nearly everybody can buy as easy as coffee?