Games “destigmatize” violence, says Conneticut governor

Monday, 21st January 2013 01:37 GMT By Brenna Hillier


Malloy made the comment during the US Conference of Mayors this weekend, as reported by CTPost.


The politician made mention of the December tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in his home state of Connecticut, saying that “there were games available that actually allowed people to go into a school in the game and shoot ‘em up” on the day the massacre occurred.

“Why do we do that? When we’re willing to destigmatize violence and willing to bring it home to your living room or your den and put it on a 50-inch screen [and play games that award points for] when you hit someone with your semiautomatic and more points depending on how many times you hit someone with your semiautomatic, where is the social value in that? Is this the kind of thing we want to be involved in as a nation?”

Malloy’s comments come in the wake of US vice president Joe Biden’s recommendations to the White House for the reduction of violent gun crime. Biden’s proposals made no mention of video games; he had met with industry representatives to discuss claims regarding games and violence and apparently came away satisfied with the oft-repeated fact that no scientific study has credibly linked the two.

Thanks, Gamespot.

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  1. Brenna Hillier

    It’s unfortunate that Malloy’s comments about games are likely to overshadow his message regarding the need for better and more visible mental health care.

    #1 1 year ago
  2. NeoSquall

    @1 A good politician should point his speech toward his objective, rather than circling around it, raising the ire of other people.

    Why talk about “games that let you go in a school to shoot people” and “get more points for the more bullets you put in the bodies”, when your point is destigmatizing mental health care?

    #2 1 year ago
  3. DSB

    Violence in entertainment really isn’t a taboo anymore, and I don’t know that it really has been since the 60′s and 70′s exploitation films. I don’t really see games seeking the same extremes.

    On the other hand, if letting people access and even own military arms isn’t a much more physical destigmatization of violence, I really don’t know what is. Those weapons were designed to kill people, and now a major argument for keeping them in circulation is either that they’re “fun”, or that we should all be able to overthrow our governments through violence.

    Why doesn’t that seem to bother anyone on the right?

    #3 1 year ago
  4. GwynbleiddiuM

    Brenna you realize that you yourself picked the headline and lead right? And we always aim to put the most important bit of the covered news in the headline, so if you think that the massage is ill spread, I think you’re partly responsible for it. You had the chance to pick a better headline and lead, helping the procedure of spreading the right message, and you didn’t. I can see from his first quote that the lead is in fact a mislead.

    #4 1 year ago
  5. viralshag

    @3, I’m with you on that. Maybe it’s just my British/European way of thinking but I can’t help but link all this ‘gun violence’ to the availability and freedom almost anyone in the US has to actually buy guns.

    #5 1 year ago