14 DAY TRIAL // Following the shooting in Germany, which claimed the lives of several children and that of the gunman himself, a lot of voices have been clamoring for imposing a ban on the sales of videogames, which are seen as the catalyst in the transformation of a misunderstood teenager into a killer.
Initial reports related to the incident claimed that the shooter was a players who, it has been reported, had “trained” for his actions using (here reports differ) either Far Cry 2 or Counter Strike.
Now, it seems that even the President of Germany, Horst Kohler, is in favor of banning videogames. He recently said that access to “the innumerable films and videogames of extreme violence, with their display of dead bodies” imply that they are a main source of violent imagery for children and they tend to lead them to mimic the behaviors that they see depicted in videogames and in movies. It's not clear how the ban would work and how mature gamers would be able to get their hands on the videogames that they want to play.
The families of five of the victims of the shooting also sent the President and the chancellor, Angela Merkel, a letter in which they asked that teenager should be denied access to guns, while also saying that access to violent media content should be restricted.
While the reaction is to be understood in the light of the tragedy that hit Germany, banning violent videogames is a bad idea. After all, the perpetrator of the shooting did not use a videogame to shoot anyone. Easy access to weapons was the catalyst for violent behavior, not easy access to videogames. If there was no gun present, there would have been no shooting. Let's hope that as the pain subsides, the calls for banning videogames and other violent media will also disappear.