You will have to pry my Video Games out of my cold..

[earthside]

42. Well, you are correct.

We are talking about the impact of violent video games on U.S. culture --- not the cultures of Japan or Korea.

The U.S. has its own unique cultural pedigree that may predispose us to violence, i.e., the 'frontier' aka the 'wild west' ... since World War II and especially since Vietnam, we have witnessed a marked increase in the violence in popular culture.

As has been noted in the past couple of days, something like 43 people are killed by guns everyday in this country ... does any other nation compare?

If we are going to ever dial back this rise in mass slaughter and the tragedy of gun violence, we've got to be willing to look at all aspects of culture that may contribute to destructive tendencies.

It is not rational or scientific to stubbornly wall-off the potential influences of violent video games and gratuitously violent movies and TV shows -- just as the gun nuts try to do about their object of obsession -- from further investigation and study.

Frankly, I am concerned that too much time in front of computer, TV screens by America's youth is having an effect on human-to-human socialization (not to mention our obesity problem as the First Lady has pointed out).

Nevertheless, I am all for using social and economic pressure on entertainment corporations that market violent game products to young people --- I would never support any kind of forced, governmental censorship or product bans.