The NRA strikes again

[starlord]

So, you're going to say the NRA is wrong for saying that games cause violence. The NRA makes a violent game. You criticize the NRA for making a violent game.

exactly. they are doing what they said was wrong. its called hypocrisy. it means they dont believe in what they say. comprende?

[Kalyyn]

The purpose is not to show that the NRA's original argument is "right". Just to demonstrate that the NRA are hypocrites, for saying "video games teach you to shoot, and that's awful" followed shortly thereafter with "Here's our video game that teaches you to shoot, and that's good".

It's not OUR argument. It's THEIRS. Yes, it's contradictory. That's why they're hypocrites. That's the point.

The thing that you fully understand, but are ignoring for arguments sake (and it really is blatantly obvious that you're doing this) is that the NRA is not against games teaching you to shoot. They're against games letting you shoot people for fun. They don't like the idea of games rewarding you for killing humans. The NRA does, however, hold the stance that everyone should know how to shoot, and how to handle a gun safely.

Now, I disagree with them on the video game thing. I enjoy blowing a game character's face off as much as anyone else. But even though I disagree with them, it's not hard to see that the NRA is making no contradictory actions here.

[starlord]

The thing that you fully understand, but are ignoring for arguments sake (and it really is blatantly obvious that you're doing this) is that the NRA is not against games teaching you to shoot. They're against games letting you shoot people for fun. They don't like the idea of games rewarding you for killing humans. The NRA does, however, hold the stance that everyone should know how to shoot, and how to handle a gun safely.

when you to a gun range you shoot people shaped targets for fun.

---------- Post added 2013-01-15 at 06:10 PM ----------

I love freeware.

Liberal progun america= 1
Authoritarian anti gun america = 0

---------- Post added 2013-01-15 at 08:57 PM ----------



It is a large organization, chances are, not everybody agrees with these issues.

then they have a rather large message control issue.

[Endus]

And what I said makes perfect sense. In order for you to be able to have the moral high ground in criticizing me for eating a bacon double cheeseburger (make up an entirely unrelated analogy, good way to change the subject...) you yourself would also have to believe that eating bacon double cheeseburgers is wrong.

Nope. False. Utterly and completely irrelevant.

I'm not, in this case, attacking your prior claim. I am solely pointing out that your current actions and prior statement are at odds, which makes you a hypocrite. It doesn't matter which, or if, I agree with either statement. Your two statements are logically inconsistent all on their own, and all you're doing here is manufacturing an ad hominem fallacy, attacking my person rather than my argument.

So, you're going to say the NRA is wrong for saying that games cause violence. The NRA makes a violent game. You criticize the NRA for making a violent game.

No. I never criticized the NRA for making a "violent game". I pointed out that doing so violates their earlier statement of moral outrage about the culture of violence they supposedly believe "violent games" create.

You can't just make up stuff and pretend I said it, dude. Friendly, rational discussion does not work like that.

The thing that you fully understand, but are ignoring for arguments sake (and it really is blatantly obvious that you're doing this) is that the NRA is not against games teaching you to shoot. They're against games letting you shoot people for fun. They don't like the idea of games rewarding you for killing humans. The NRA does, however, hold the stance that everyone should know how to shoot, and how to handle a gun safely.

That wasn't in their prior statement. And the iTunes description of the app completely blows your argument out of the water;

"NRA: Practice Range also offers a 3D shooting game that instills safe and responsible ownership through fun challenges and realistic simulations."

Clearly, it's not "fun" that they had the issue with, since their own game was intended to involve shooting for fun.

[Kalyyn]

when you to a gun range you shoot people shaped targets for fun.

Indeed you do. Once again, I am actually an avid supporter of violence in entertainment. But in the eyes of the NRA, shooting a piece of paper vaguely shaped like something that could roughly be described as a human is different than shooting a more or less accurate simulation of a human. Especially in games where you don't shoot enemy combatants, but innocent civilians.

And if you're at the shooting range firing at a picture of an actual human being, you probably need a psych evaluation to make sure you're even fit to be firing that weapon.

[mvaliz]

I hope they're aware of the irony, but I doubt it.

It's a double-irony... being a video game AND a game for an elementary school kid. :P

[Twotonsteak]

(apologies if this is posted already, or elsewhere)

NRA releases free target-practice app - for ages 4 and up

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...151235393.html

From Yahoo news:



Thoughts?

My take - To be fair, there doesn't appear to be any human "targets," and it is trying to advocate gun safety... but on the heals of the NRA blatantly pointing the finger at the VG industry this smells like hypocrisy at its worse.

When people start worrying about the hypocrisy that radiates from BOTH parties in Washington I'll worry about the NRA's hypocrisy. That being said it's not video games, or movies, or music, or guns that are to blame for mass-shootings. It's the people that pull the trigger and the people around them that saw the warning signs and ignored them.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

I don't really get the irony. Shooting at practice targets isn't violence, so this doesn't really conflict with their stance that violent video games are to blame. Not that I think that they're right about that at all, just that it's not a conflict.

When people start worrying about the hypocrisy that radiates from BOTH parties in Washington I'll worry about the NRA's hypocrisy. That being said it's not video games, or movies, or music, or guns that are to blame for mass-shootings. It's the people that pull the trigger and the people around them that saw the warning signs and ignored them.

Let me know when you've ever dealt with somebody who was planning a mass shooting and could tell that they were planning to do something like that.

[starlord]

Indeed you do. Once again, I am actually an avid supporter of violence in entertainment. But in the eyes of the NRA, shooting a piece of paper vaguely shaped like something that could roughly be described as a human is different than shooting a more or less accurate simulation of a human. Especially in games where you don't shoot enemy combatants, but innocent civilians.

And if you're at the shooting range firing at a picture of an actual human being, you probably need a psych evaluation to make sure you're even fit to be firing that weapon.

i think the point youre missing is that video gamrs are not accurate simulations of guns, killing, war, or even martial arts in the case of mortal kombat.
but a shooting range is teaching how to shoot a real gun accurately to kill. thats the whole point. then when they release a video game of it after talking about how evil games are its just disgusting.

what they want people to do is go to real shooting ranges and fire real guns.

[Kalyyn]

That wasn't in their prior statement. And the iTunes description of the app completely blows your argument out of the water;

"NRA: Practice Range also offers a 3D shooting game that instills safe and responsible ownership through fun challenges and realistic simulations."

Clearly, it's not "fun" that they had the issue with, since their own game was intended to involve shooting for fun.

I still am not convinced that you actually believe what you're saying. You're too intelligent for that. But for the sake of humoring you,

Once again, the NRA has no problem with shooting being seen as fun. Most of them do it as a hobby, and they very much enjoy it. The issue is shooting people for fun. Now, full disclosure, I don't agree with them on this next point. The NRA considers shooting simulations of innocent civilians to be too close to actual humans. I personally feel that a paper target and a virtual human aren't all that different. But the NRA has made it clear that they perceive a distinction. And we're not arguing the ethics of one or the other. We're talking about this "hypocrisy" word that's being thrown every which way. The NRA's actions are perfectly in line with their professed ideology.

[Tikaru]

I don't really get the irony. Shooting at practice targets isn't violence, so this doesn't really conflict with their stance that violent video games are to blame. Not that I think that they're right about that at all, just that it's not a conflict.

It's that they claim violent video games are "training simulators" to turn kids into killers and then releasing a target practice video game, that's where the hypocrisy is coming into play.

[Kalyyn]

i think the point youre missing is that video gamrs are not accurate simulations of guns, killing, war, or even martial arts in the case of mortal kombat.
but a shooting range is teaching how to shoot a real gun accurately to kill. thats the whole point. then when they release a video game of it after talking about how evil games are its just disgusting.

what they want people to do is go to real shooting ranges and fire real guns.

When I'm doing my required time at the shooting range, I'm practicing to kill enemy combatants. There's no hidden agenda, no deeper meaning behind it. There's some guy out there that America needs dead, and I'm practicing for the unlikely event that I'll ever come face to face with him.

On the other hand, I'm currently playing saint's row 3 where I just beat the ever-living shit out of an old man with a dildo and then stole the money off his corpse. It was extremely satisfying. That is what the NRA wants to stop me from doing.

[starlord]

I still am not convinced that you actually believe what you're saying. You're too intelligent for that. But for the sake of humoring you,

Once again, the NRA has no problem with shooting being seen as fun. Most of them do it as a hobby, and they very much enjoy it. The issue is shooting people for fun. Now, full disclosure, I don't agree with them on this next point. The NRA considers shooting simulations of innocent civilians to be too close to actual humans. I personally feel that a paper target and a virtual human aren't all that different. But the NRA has made it clear that they perceive a distinction. And we're not arguing the ethics of one or the other. We're talking about this "hypocrisy" word that's being thrown every which way. The NRA's actions are perfectly in line with their professed ideology.

if you're going to call shooting range targets of people, with areas for the most lethality " simple paper targets" and pixels of people "lifelike simulations" and claim therein lies the violence potential i think you're being a little intellectually dishonest.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

It's that they claim violent video games are "training simulators" to turn kids into killers and then releasing a target practice video game, that's where the hypocrisy is coming into play.

Yes, and teaching somebody how to operate a gun or how to shoot accurately is not training them to be killers. The asserted 'training' is that of shooting simulations of human beings. They would have to be against teaching people how to accurately shoot a firearm entirely for them to be hypocritical, and given that they are the NRA they are never going to be against that. If you think that this is hypocrisy, you don't understand the stance people take on violent video games (which this game is not).

if you're going to call shooting range targets of people, with areas for the most lethality " simple paper targets" and pixels of people "lifelike simulations" and claim therein lies the violence potential i think you're being a little intellectually dishonest.

Except it's not. The idea is that it's allowing people to cope with the idea of ending another person's life, not that it's teaching them how best to kill them. It's almost always safer for somebody who is operating a firearm to be more accurate.

[Adam Jensen]

No, not really... the NRA is for people having guns, so a game that teaches people how to use guns is perfectly in line. What they don't like are games that have you killing people, so they made a game that you don't kill people in, and to teach weapons safety to reduce the chance of an accident using a real gun for sporting.

I don't agree with their stance on games but from their point of view it makes sense.

If you know the mechanics of aiming a gun and pulling a trigger, you know the mechanics of shooting people. The difference is only what you point at.

That shooting simulation they made trains people to be hardened killers just as much as call of duty does . . . in that it doesn't at all.

Just because I can aim and shoot at a computerized avatar does not mean I can do the same to a real human target.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

If you know the mechanics of aiming a gun and pulling a trigger, you know the mechanics of shooting people. The difference is only what you point at.

That shooting simulation they made trains people to be hardened killers just as much as call of duty does . . . in that it doesn't at all.

Let's assume that we take the stance that violent video games 'train' people to be killers. This game is not one of those games as it doesn't play any role in desensitizing people to violence in any way.

[Endus]

I still am not convinced that you actually believe what you're saying. You're too intelligent for that. But for the sake of humoring you,

Once again, the NRA has no problem with shooting being seen as fun. Most of them do it as a hobby, and they very much enjoy it. The issue is shooting people for fun.

See, again, every single target range target that has the outline of a person or the rough shape of a person, with scoring ranked on how close to center of mass your shots were (making them more deadly against an actual human target).

Unless you mean actual people, in which case, I'll remind you that nobody actually gets killed in video games. They're just video game avatars and characters. It's all pretend, as much so as Bugs Bunny shooting Daffy Duck and making his bill spin round.

And at the very least, even if I were to agree that there's a distinction (and I don't; if anything, target ranges would be significantly better at teaching you to handle actual weapons against a human target, since you're actually shooting real firearms, not clicking a mouse button), it would at least leave both activities so close that to decry one as a major influence that leads to school shootings while defending the other as perfectly right and good, that's inconsistent. If they'd been more even-tempered and uncertain about where the lines were drawn, people would be more willing to cut them some slack.

The reason I don't feel a need to do so is because I don't think either target ranges or video games encourage violence. There's plenty of other influences that lead to that, particularly issues like economic disparity and a mental health system that doesn't work all that well, when it works at all. I've yet to see even one whit of evidence that even suggests a connection. If I were to malign target ranges for teaching actual gun handling skills, while defending video games like Call of Duty as just harmless fantasy, I'd fully expect to be called out for similar hypocrisy.

[Adam Jensen]

Let's assume that we take the stance that violent video games 'train' people to be killers. This game is not one of those games as it doesn't play any role in desensitizing people to violence in any way.

I'm not desensitized to violence. I will hesitate before firing upon a human being, I know that. I know the difference between gunning down bad guys in a video game and people in real life.

[starlord]

Except it's not. The idea is that it's allowing people to cope with the idea of ending another person's life, not that it's teaching them how best to kill them. It's almost always safer for somebody who is operating a firearm to be more accurate.

this makes 0 sense. shooting a real gun at a person shaped target = simple safety training but shooting a fake gun via a game controller at a human shaped target = training for cold blooded killing. hmmm...

[Tikaru]

Let's assume that we take the stance that violent video games 'train' people to be killers. This game is not one of those games as it doesn't play any role in desensitizing people to violence in any way.

There's nothing to back up that claim though. The people who kill others are messed up, and not because of video games. The games are the same at the core when it comes to virtual guns: they reward you for your accuracy and try to make it fun. The difference is just a matter of scale, one has you shoot human shapes while the other has you shoot virtual people.