Argumentative Essay On Gun Control

The violent video game controversy never ends, and even if it does, the monster in the console will awaken and run amok swinging its pendulum to hypnotize and gain control over the minds of kids and teens alike to become aggressive, rabid animals. But you can tame it. There is a way to control the one that roams the box.

As a parent, have you ever dealt with trying to get your kid’s attention while he or she is playing on their phone, a PS4, Xbox One or any other console? As a child, have your parents complained so much about video games that you just couldn’t take it? According to one survey, 9 out of 10 U.S. households with children have rented or owned a video or computer game. That means about 90% of households with children in the US

have a certain game console with cartridges, CD’s, whatever, a computer with a computer game or even multiple consoles like most gamers have. That. Is. A. Lot. But, also it makes sense because today we’re living in the era of technology.

I love video games!(well, not so much) I have an Xbox 360(Barely play it anymore), a Wii U(same as the Xbox), a 3DS(Ehh.. Kind of...), and one of the newest consoles this year, the Nintendo Switch(JACKPOT. I play it almost every day, my new favorite console, I love it as much as I love food). Moreover, once I started researching this topic I saw online that video games are debated a lot about whether it’s good or bad, which shocked me. The reason why I chose this topic was because it was kind of a major topic and I thought that video games were good and I wanted to prove everyone the qualities, pros, everything good about video games and that they were created for entertainment, not harm. But as soon as I kept researching, the big elephant came in the room.

I found out that a shooting happened at a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas on March 24, 1998.

5 people died in the shooting, 10 were injured. The shooters were Mitchell Johnson, 13, and his friend Andrew Golden, 11. Once I found this out, I started to have a different mindset. I kept researching and found more information about the shooters. Both of the boys had been raised around guns. They belonged to gun clubs and even participated in practical shooting competitions, which involve firing at simulated moving human targets. Golden reportedly shot several dogs in preparation for the actual shooting(ANIMAL ABUSE!!!). When they got caught, in their possession were thirteen fully loaded firearms, including three semi-automatic rifles, and 200 rounds of ammunition. They also had a stolen van filled with ammunition, 3 semi-automatic rifles, a crossbow, and some hunting knives, which by the way all of the weapons were taken from the Golden family’s personal arsenal. Woah, wait a second, those guys are way too young to use guns, cause a school shooting and have a van filled with hunting weapons. These boys are downright crazy!!! But there needs to be a reason why they cause this monstrosity and what motivated them to do it, and only thing revealed was a possible motivation; a famous first-person shooter video game called Doom. In Doom, you control Doomguy (the main character of the game) and the crux of Doom is to complete missions by killing demonic monsters that lurk within dark corridors. If you’ve never seen or played the game or not, you should know it’s rather gory and violent. Now, back the shooters, why did they do it? They maybe wanted to mimic the game in real life or they just hated their school and wanted everyone dead. I don’t know, those are just theories of mine. The reason for the shooting is unknown. David Grossman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former professor of psychology at West Point is now an adjunct faculty member at Arkansas State University

in Jonesboro and a student of all sorts of killing. Grossman has become the point man in the war against violent video games. His main assertion is that violent video games such as Doom or Quake help break down the natural inhibitions we have against killing. In fact, the military has begun using Doom-like games to improve so-called fire rates, encouraging soldiers to pull the trigger in battle. Only about one-fifth of U.S. soldiers in combat in World War II fired their weapons, a rate that the military pushed up to 95% by the Vietnam War, in part through the use of simulations meant to make shooting at humans seem more routine and "normal." “Violent video games,” Grossman argues, “prepare kids to kill and even teach them to enjoy the experience. Of course, not everybody who plays these games will become a murderer," Grossman says. "Just as not everybody who smokes gets cancer. But they will all get sickened."

Video games can cause some physical and mental problems. The visible mental problem is aggressive behavior, but others include social phobias, anxiety, and depression(Which that’s unlikely to happen). Physical effects caused by video games include fatigue, migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain, carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer mouse, and poor personal hygiene. However, the bad effects are mostly caused by spending too much time on video games. So that means if you or your child spends less time on video games, there are clearly good effects. Video games increase coordination, improve problem-solving skills, enhances memory, and improves attention and concentration. It is a great source of learning, as it improves the brain's speed, enhances multitasking skills, and improves social skills. Patricia Greenfield, a psychology professor at UCLA, has studied the relationship between video games and intelligence and finds a positive correlation. Her research attributes an increase in worldwide "nonverbal IQ" (spatial skills, the use of icons for problem-solving and the ability to understand things from multiple viewpoints) to the spread of video games. Greenfield notes that this rise in IQ comes at the expense of potentially more important social skills. Which is to say that kids typically don't interact that well when they spend hours sitting in front of the computer or console. "It's unfortunate that in our society we are more concerned with raising IQ than with people having a social intelligence and responsibility," she said.

To conclude, video games are like medicine, if you take the right amount, you’ll be fine, but if taken too much there are bad symptoms. For parents, if you don’t put any limitations on your child’s games, I recommend that you put a time limit on how much time your child plays their video games. An equitable time limit is 1 to 3 hours per week. Also, I make rules for myself when I play video games, I make sure that when I buy a game, it’s the appropriate rating for me. For example, when I was younger I was only allowed to play games rated E and E10+. Now how I’m 13, I'm allowed to play rated T games. All video games are rated a certain class; E: Any age, E10+: Kids 10 or older, T: Teens 13 or older, M: Adults 18 and older and AO: Only adults 21 and over. They tell you which is more appropriate or inappropriate(E being most appropriate and AO being more inappropriate). It’s equally important that kids remember this rating system and that they make sure to buy an appropriate game for their own age. In addition, for the kid and teens, if you already have a limit of how much time you play video games or only allowed to play a certain video game rating, try to come up with stuff to do when you’re bored and not on the video games anymore. For example, if it’s a hot day, go outside and play some sports, take a walk, anything you can do outside that will buy some time. Before I close, to anyone who reads this article whether you’re a parent, child, a video game addict, or someone that has never played video games in their entire life. Remember, video games can either help or destroy you depending on how you use it.