Lucas Nichols Article summaries

The article Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications, is about the history of video games themselves. But more focused on the violent ones, it talks about how these games created the rating system we have for games now a days. It also covers what game designers had been thinking when violent video games were new and how they experimented with what was popular and what would sell. The article questioned the vulnerability children may face when playing such violent video games. Research had proven that the effects of video games were stronger on children than adults. One great concern this article covered was when the public eye had noticed that all school shooters had a history of playing violent video games. However it was later stated that no game can make a child go to the extreme of shooting up a school, but that there were many other factors to put into account. All in all violent video games whether they do cause aggression or not are still very popular today.

In the article Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence. Harvey weinstein promises he will never make a violent movie ever again. But after stating this it goes on how he has shaped America cinema for over thirty years. He has made good and bad movies but he always believed in them. But after the introduction of Harvey, this article goes on about how America has the highest murder rate with guns and how we also have the highest citizen rate of firearm owners. The article states that it is not known whether or not guns cause violence. However we can not put the blame of violence on things like movies, TV shows, or video games. It also covered how gun sales in the U.S have exploded since Obama had been elected into office. But oddly enough our gun violence is at an all time low since 1981. Overall this article certainly does cover some interesting ideas and give some shocking statistics.

The article Columbine whose fault is it? Brings up the question who is to blame for the school shooting of Columbine? The article investigates the idea of the boys committing the act because of their love for Marilyn Manson's music.This later was ruled out and a question arose of why we give killers the same amount of fame as we do actors. It is questioned perhaps the fame we give these people are the reasons they do the things they do. It talks about how criminals now a days have become a folk tale hero almost. So with this in mind it was stated it was safe to assume things like video games and music weren't the cause for people committing such horrific acts. It also talks about how when somebody dies, unless it was someone you personally care about or loved nobody really cares about that person. But I think overall the question of who is to blame for Columbine or anything related to it in a violent sense is still and unanswered question.