The tragedy that happened in the school in Newtown, Connecticut, has brought back into the forefront the debate on gun control from the Left, and the attack against video games on the Right. Neither controls solve the root cause of the problem. Curing a symptom is useless, and can actually cause more complications.
As this site focuses on video games, let's look at that debate. The shooter in the Newtown massacre supposedly was a loner who played violent video games. But many people play violent video games and we have a few cases a year, not one a day, in the news. Let alone, we do not have multiple incidents daily where someone who has played video games goes crazy. These cases are high profile because of their rarity. Considering how many people in society are loners, this author is lumped into that category for example, a case can easily be made violent video games are giving these people an outlet so they do not go on murder rampages.
This same debate came up in the 1980s over paper and pencil role playing games. Dungeons and Dragons, Vampire the Masquarade, and even Top Secret, thanks to Geraldo Rivera, were targeted. Again, not only was the links tenuous, they were debunked by many psychiatrists as studies came in, showing the role playing games were actually were preventing damage. Similar studies have been coming out about video games, but ignored by the media who are looking for sensationalism to sell the news.
The problem is stress. Children are far more stressed these days than they were when I grew up, and not all of it is their fault. Society, in the information age, has grown fast paced. Information deluges us, causing our minds to spin out of control. Add to that the root causes for the shooter in Newtown going berserk: a bad divorce, inattentive parents, no one noticing cries for help in the shooter's actions. Video games becomes a symptom, because the shooter and those like him get a sense of accomplishment playing the games, taking out their aggressions from sources outside of any video console. However, in these people, the video games only can hold back the tide so long. Eventually, it spills over.
Peer pressure, bullying, information overload, parential disruption, and abandonment of morals teaching all contribute. Video games, fascination with guns, addiction to drugs, and extreme violence all derive from this. Cutting back or banning video games, guns, or even trying to stop drugs still do not resolve the core issues involved. They are band aids over gaping flesh wounds.
Until society addresses the real issue, any bans will cause more harm than good.