Cosmoline
Member
I, for one, would support a tiered addition of semi-automatic firearms with detachable magazines onto the NFA registry, in exchange for constitutionally-guaranteed carry, ammunition, and acquisition protections for all firearms on a federal level.
You're falling into the trap of blaming the tool. If you're shooting up a grade school you can use any firearm. They can't fight back. You can use an axe. And while some psycho killers like to use one type of weapon, others like to try different things. Trying to craft nationwide policy based on their preferences is fruitless. They can be inspired to kill by their breakfast cereal's noises. That's not a sound basis for public policy.
How appropriate that these words, written in 1998, have come to pass
? Actually he was way off the mark. We didn't create a generation of killers. Violent crime rates have continued to drop since 98, with a small recent uptick since the recession. The big danger to video games is they lead to eating too many snacks. Grossman's science was off and his conclusions were bogus. Also there is no such thing as "killology".
The OP is correct that the video game debate was over long ago. Grossman and Tipper Gore lost. My condolences. To revive it NOW, using rhetoric at least 20 years old, has struck me as extremely ill-advised. But it may be that the NRA has some scheme here to throw in something so bizarre that it distracts the antis. They are easily distracted. And indeed this past week they seem to have lost much of their momentum.
So heck, if it helps get things off rails then I'll retract my claim that Wayne needs a halibut slap. But we definitely need to remember that the video game wars are long over. There's no real point in arguing anymore. The games won! They won in the legislatures, they won in the courts and they won in the marketplace. Not a bad model for us to follow, come to think of it.
Last edited: