Freepost #1

So for our class, we have to post writings that could be about anything. So I came up with this:

In the past decade, numerous school shootings have taken place. In each case, estranged kids come to school, wielding anything from pistols to assault rifles, and have killed their fellow classmates. Now of course the parents of these kids don't want to take the blame for allowing their kids to be so emotionally isolated and distraught that they would just break down and go on a killing spree, so they immediately try to pass on the blame. And when they do that, the easiest target is video games. Now I find this really annoying. How do these parents, who didn't notice that their kids were emotionally isolated, get the nerve to blame the actions of their children on a form of entertainment? I have been playing video games practically my entire life, and as a result, I know a lot about them. Video games come with ESRB ratings, which are similar to the rating for movies. A group of people goes through each game and will rate the game based on its content. And if a game is excessively violent, it will be rated M, which stands for mature. This means that the only way a high school kid can get their hands on a game like that is if they have almost graduated, or if their parents buy it for them. Now this system basically is designed to prevent impressionable youngsters from being influenced by this violence, so if a kid gets his hands on the game, it is because the parent bought the game for the kid, which completely defeats the purpose of the rating system. So I do admit, that video games probably desensitized the kids to violence, so that they didn't think that killing their classmates was that bad, but if a parent exercises just a little responsibility, there should be no way that video games should influence these kids. Games such as Grand Theft Auto are rated M, and because of the content of these games, it is really easy to say that the videos games had caused these kids to shoot their classmates. But there should be no way that a kid will ever play Grand Theft Auto, unless their parents buy the game for their kid. So you cannot blame video games without first blaming the person who bought it. It’s like buying a gun; you shouldn’t let your kids ever touch it because they might not now how to handle it, but having a gun can help you, since it has the ability to guard yourself from potential attackers.
Video games are entertainment, and most people view it as a way to relieve stress, allowing them to play outside the limits of the real world. I constantly enjoy playing video games to work out the stress I accumulated over the day in a safe manner. So in my opinion, if video games are used correctly, they can be therapeutic. From now on, instead of parents pointing the finger away from them, how about they just admit that they didn't exercise the proper amount of responsibility they should have.