I noticed this one on last nights news, that the recent tragic shooting rampage in Germany in which 18 people were killed is yet another of these terrible incidents that the media is attempting to link to the fact that the person that committed it was a Counter-Strike player. The news last night headlined it as ‘Gameplayer kills 18 in Germany” and yet offered no mention of the fact that the guy played games throughout the whole story.

CNN have a mention of it here in which they say

According to Der Spiegel news magazine, Steinhauser spent much of his time playing violent computer video games. His favourite was called "Counterstrike" in which anti-terror units wearing masks battle each other to death.

My thoughts is that its inevitable that if it’s a fairly well educated kid that commits a crime like this that they will play games, almost all youth these days are playing games. How come the media aren’t pointing out other equally obvious things such as his Arnie Action DVD collection etc. b2 posted an interesting if not somewhat old article about the same subject in a different light here.

Sif my thread wasn't heaps better!

Anyway, I'm sick of hearing about it and don't care one way or the other any more. My opinion is the same, if these dicks couldn't get guns in the first place, these tragedies could probably be avoided (Homer: "I'd kill you if I had my gun!")

bulls*** trog, if they couldn't get guns in the first place, they would just use knives or blood filled syringes or f***ing bombs!

some people are f***heads, and will commit mass murder no matter what tools they have.

possession of guns don't force people into being homocidal maniacs, the only sad fact is that it is more convenient to kill people with a gun, than it is to strap C4 to your chest and get on a bus (for non-palistinians anyway).

or if everyone could have guns.. say one person pulled out a gun and started shooting people someone else who had a gun could shoot them, like in mexico they all carry guns arond there... when did mexico have its last huge massacre

true that acrylic, we should all get gunz :)

Insert terribly tasteless comment about someone not liking the 1.4 patch here

That article did have one redeeming aspect to it:

The one bright spot in a story of horor [sic] and bloodshed was the heroism of the 60-year-old teacher who stopped Steinhauser's gun rampage.

Police praised the bravery of Rainer Heise, who confronted the guman and said: "Go ahead and shoot me, but look me in the face."

Steinhauser let down his guard and Heise bundled him into a room and locked the door. Steinhauser shot himself shortly afterwards.

Now THAT'S heroism.

the guy was probably mentally unstable.

I don't blame society for making him that way, nor do i blame people who probably never let him feel part of the group.

I do blame his parents though because they *should* have seen this coming.

true that, if mums can tell when your lieing im sure they can tell when your on the edge and your about to go shoot up your school.

< Troll Alert>

SEE !!! We told you Counter Strike sucks and deserves to die !!!

How many more people must die before this atrocious game must be removed from our hardrives..

ARRGGHHH now where did I put my gun...

the thing is you can probably say that without access to those kinds of weapons he would of been unable to kill that many people, however you are certainly able to say that without the huge amount of ammunition he had, he definetly would not of killed that many people.

also id just like to point out that before video games, no muders ever took place.

Even just assume for one minute that they are right, and this shooting was linked to games (which I dont personally believe, but we'll assume its true for a minute).

How many millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of people in the world play games?

Now how many of those people crack and go out and go on shooting rampages?

Even assuming (and thats a BIG assuming) games are responsible, I dont see that it makes them some sort of horrible thing that is turning everyone into homocidal maniacs, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot of shootings going on. I dont see how games could be any more responsible for stuff like this than violent movies or television programs.

People shot each other before games were popular, and I'm sure people would still shoot each other if games weren't popular today. The only difference is the media would blame it on something else.

I would like to see an investigation conducted into how many victims of school shootings have played counter-strike.

I see no reason as to why we should point fingers and lay blame. If it serves to ease your mind that the nature of every human is in the best interest of those around him, and by blaming technological advances, like computer games, and weaponry on a person's destiny then it is an illusion in your mind only.

Perhaps the nature of man is in the best interests of people. You don't know what would have happened is those people didn't die. Perhaps one of them would have grown to become someone who killed even more humans, or even started a war. Easy to pass judgement based on a narrow view of possibilities, it is. Accepting the river that flows through eternity passes through bloody lakes is not.

Wonder if the people he shot were 'camping'..

maybe he liked to eat dim sims as well? the dim sims made him do it!

actually lets ban violent games, and while we're at it, lets ban violent movies, then lets ban books, cds with anti social lyrics, then lets ban violence!

the world will be much safer!

whats that you say?

15 years ago there werent really any computer games, and there werent really any school shootings were there? im not using this as an argument im just wondering.

you cant blame video games on these shootings, but u cant deny the fact that they would have _some_ suggestive impact to an already unstable mind either...

15 years ago there werent really any computer games, and there werent really any school shootings were there? im not using this as an argument im just wondering.

Yes there were school shooting and worse long before any computer games existed. Its the nature of todays society to find an easy scapegoat to blame and if possible sue. Rather than taking a look at the individuals themselves or things like their parenting etc that they were subjected to.

You guys think you have problems.. I play CS and I own firearms, both longarms and hand guns. I am in 3 x 'gun' clubs with my sons and we all shoot in competitions. It is not easy to get legitimate 'guns' in Australia. Additionally, statistics show that legitimate 'gun' owners and registered 'guns' play a very minor (if any) part in any violence in Australia. Each 'anti-something' group uses an incident like this to push their own agendas. FU Mr. Howard !!

im just going by what i heard, by one group said that a tonne of guns get stolen from legitimate owners...and then they are used in crime?

I blame it on the pop music our generation is listening to, it's enough to make anyone go on a murder spree.

Goes to show that what you hear is not necessarily correct!

Most competition level hand guns (including semi-autos) are manufactured purely for specific competitions and would would not be suitable for holding-up the local 7-11. The PM has created a very lucrative import business (for criminals).
Australian statistics have recently shown that a huge amount of hand guns had been imported (legitimately) - they fail to mention that nearly all of these were for use by each state's police force and not by 'civilians'. They also neglect to mention the CONTAINER LOAD (yes - a complete container) of police Glocks stolen from (I thank a QLD) wharf.

cheers
P.S. Look at www.ssaa.org.au for additional information