So while doing research for my final paper, I found this article:
http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/washington-navy-yard-shooting-caused-by-violent-video-games/#comments

Reading this just made me so mad, because it holistically represents the ignorance and hypocrisy of people who claim that violent video games directly cause violence in real life. I figured enough was enough, so I wrote a response that actually turned out to be 170 words longer than my paper is supposed to be:




Rebecca Savastio, I apologize for what I'm about to do to your credibility.

wordswithfriends: "Video games are very popular and has major influence on human life. For example violent video games can directly cause violent behavior. Video games in the hands of a mentally ill person can create a perfect storm of danger."

And in the hands of a perfectly sane person? Absolutely nothing comes of it. This article complains about the bias of people against the thought that video games cause bias without providing any legitimate justification for the contrary other than the fallacious syllogism of, "He did something bad. He played video games. Therefore, video games caused him to do something bad," (Not a direct quote of course). The author seems to be completely oblivious of the obvious bias she presents by saying that video games definitely DO cause these acts.

While it may be true that the video games had some sort of influence on what type of crime he committed, the fact of the matter is that the video games themselves did not cause the shooting; his mental illness did. If the shooter did not play FPS games, he would have simply committed some other type of crime rather than a mass shooting. If you look across the board, all these mass-shooters have one thing in common that seems to be overlooked by the anti-video-game crusaders: some sort of major mental illness. These diseases are known to have serious behavior-altering effects which can clearly be seen to have the potential to lead to mass-killings, but for some reason, every time one of these disasters happen, people's confirmation bias (the tendency to see the parts of a situation that prove what you already believe) gets in the way and causes people to completely overlook the answer that is staring them right in the face just so they can blame a horrible event on something they don't like.

Additionally, the second paragraph under the heading "Why do people deny that violent video games cause aggression?" does more harm to itself than it does good. I was very tempted to not write anything about this paragraph because there was just too much complete bullshit to cover, but I feel like someone would try to tell me I was just stumped at the author's flawless logic or something. Anyway, here I go. Let's start with the first sentence: "Another reason people have so much trouble accepting the facts...". The first thing I have to say here is: what facts? What is that supposed to mean? What this phrase tells me is that the author has accepted that, despite the overwhelming evidence that mental illness has played a much larger role in crime than the presence of video games, video games themselves are 100% proven to be the primary causes of shootings. Continuing, the author states that people denying the effects of violent video games do so because they themselves have not experienced such effects and compares this to smokers without lung cancer saying that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer due to their own experiences. Unfortunately for Savastio, this comparison does more to disprove her point and destroy her credibility than it does to advance and argue what she is trying to say. On one hand you have someone representing the normal population of a group of people: the average gamer. He plays a lot of video games but does not experience severe negative consequences from his actions. On the other side of this comparison, we have someone who represents a clearly delusional minority of a different population of people: a smoker who denies its effects. There is really no legitimate comparison between these two. The smoker strawman set up by the author represents a very small minority of the group he is set up to represent, while the gamer side of the comparison represents all but a statistically insignificant portion of people who actually go out and commit crimes that people can supposedly link to gaming.

This paragraph seems even more ridiculous when one analyzes its relationship with the paragraph following it. "Violent video game deniers share many characteristics with global warming deniers and evolution deniers. They look away from the large, established bodies of evidence and toward anecdotal or fringe evidence to solidify their belief systems." First, I will point out that you claimed that the (highly generalized, mind you) group of "violent video game deniers" shares MANY characteristics with people who deny global warming and evolution, but you only listed one; however, that isn't the important issue with this section. The real problem that I, and anyone who can actually recognize a good argument, have with this paragraph is that the author claims that "[people who deny the effects of violent video games] look away from the large, established bodies of evidence and toward anecdotal or fringe evidence to solidify their belief systems," but that is EXACTLY what the author and those who agree are doing. I will put this next part in caps so people can easily pick it out of this huge wall of text. THE ONLY EVIDENCE PEOPLE USE TO SUPPORT THE IDEA THAT VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES CAUSE VIOLENCE ARE THE ~~RARE OCCURRENCES~~ OF MASS-MURDERS IN WHICH THE MURDERER HAD A HISTORY OF PLAYING VIDEO GAMES. THIS ISSUE DOES NOT EVEN COME UP WHEN SUCH AN EVENT HAS NOT OCCURRED. This means that saying people who deny the effects of violent video games only use fringe evidence is quite possibly the most hypocritical statement I have ever seen. This statement also reiterates that the author is riding on the fallacy established earlier that the point has already been proven in order to construct her entire argument.
This section alone is enough to turn any intelligent reader off from whatever the author is trying to say for the rest of the article, simply because it demonstrates her complete inability to logically argue a point to anyone who hasn't already bought-in to everything she has to say before she says it.

I could keep going and tear apart the rest of the article section-by-section, but I have actual work to get back to, so I'll leave you with this:

Unfortunately, the saddest part about this article isn't its hypocritical nature, its poorly-argued claims, or its use of logical fallacies. It's that there are people who will buy into it and go on accepting what the author stated in here as fact. They will go on and advocate an end or restriction to violent video games and amass into a large group without having a single idea what they are talking about. It pains me to read these things, because it reminds me how ignorant people can be with their vocal opinions and how quickly and effectively those opinions can spread. Sometimes I fear for the future of this country.

tl;dr: The author has no idea how to argue and made herself look like an idiot in the eyes of anyone who knows what they're talking about.