backtop

Print 45 comment(s) - last by MZperX.. on Jan 2 at 12:33 PM

  (Source: EA)
Recent shootings were the cause for removing the links

Electronic Arts, better known as EA, has pulled the links to real weapon sales sites from its "Medal of Honor" Web page. EA's "Medal of Honor" site has traditionally partnered with weapons companies, since the game features these real weapons available for purchase.

The reason behind this is pretty obvious if you've heard about recent shootings in the U.S. The most recent occurred in a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school where 26 children and school staff were killed by gunfire. Before that, a man shot and killed many people in an Aurora, Colorado theater.

Due to these recent tragedies, the National Rifle Association pointed the finger at movies and video games for adding to the culture of violence in the U.S.

"There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people," said NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre.

"Medal of Honor" was originally published by EA Games in 1999, where much of the series takes place in World War II. The newer versions mainly focus on modern warfare.

Back in 2010, the "Medal of Honor" was banned from the military due to multiplayer Taliban characters featured in the game. Just last month, seven Navy SEALs were charged and punished for releasing confidential information to EA during the making of "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." The seven Navy SEALs consist of two Senior Chief Special Operators and five Chief Special Operators, which all received letters of reprimand and a cut of half their pay for two months.

Sources: BBC News, SeattlePI


Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Ridiculous...
By FlyBri on 12/27/2012 4:49:00 PM , Rating: 2
I think it's actually pretty nearsighted to say that some people who want gun reform have no sense of scale. While it's true many people in the U.S. die almost every other second from something, looking just at gun violence and gun homicide statistics, they clearly show that we have a much larger problem with it here in the U.S. compared to other developed nations.

And your comment about there being no outrage for people dying of car accidents, electrical shock, old age, heart disease, aneurysm, etc. is just IGNORANT. Why is there not as much outrage at those compared to what happened in CT? Because what happened in CT was a deliberate act of aggravated violence on other innocent human beings -- big difference there you are completely failing to acknowledge.

And the only thing in your list that you can make any kind of argument for (if you wanted to) is the example is car accidents. But even with that, constant new regulations and advances in car safety have helped reduce fatalities.

And many people aren't failing to understand the concept of outliers -- it's actually you who fails to understand the concept. As I said, look at the statistics -- and not just overall numbers (as you so simply suggested that people are looking at), but how many gun homicides per 100,000, for example. That way, you are looking at things proportionately -- comparing apples to apples. Looking at those statistics, you can see there is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with.

So, while I believe there are arguments that can be made on both sides of this issue, your argument just falls flat.


RE: Ridiculous...
By Asetha on 12/28/2012 9:04:00 AM , Rating: 2
The statistics are heavily skewed by a concentration of gun murders in several small areas of key cities. 78% of all murders occur in 3% of the counties, all of which have been struggling with drug gang wars. Areas in which gun ownership is the highest (# of guns pp) have the lowest gun murder rates, 75% of which are zero. Gun ownership rates are not correlated to gun murder rates. An easy figure of gun murders/100k are meaningless unless you break that data down.


RE: Ridiculous...
By Just Tom on 12/30/2012 1:00:21 PM , Rating: 1
The highest murder rate in the nation is Louisiana followed by Mississippi followed by New Mexico followed South Carolina followed by Alabama. With the possible exception of New Mexico and drug gangs none of these states are known for rampant gang violence. None have robust gun laws.

There is in fact a positive correlation. From wiki, the data is easy to find if you don't trust wiki,

quote:
States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[81] Non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership


There has been no causal link established between gun ownership and homicides. But to say that areas with more guns have lower murder rates is just plain wrong.


RE: Ridiculous...
By WinstonSmith on 12/28/2012 9:37:14 AM , Rating: 3
"While it's true many people in the U.S. die almost every other second from something, looking just at gun violence and gun homicide statistics, they clearly show that we have a much larger problem with it here in the U.S. compared to other developed nations."

Worldwide in 2010, there were a total of five school murder rampages, all in China, all carried out with KNIVES and BATS. A total of 21 children were killed and 85 wounded. School rampages, as tragic as they are, are EXTREMELY rare events and with no ARMED security present, they can be horribly carried out successfully with only knives and bats.

There were 38,364 suicides in the US in 2010. The CDC states that suicide is the leading cause of violent death in the US. There have been 14,612 murders in the US in 2011 of which 9,903 involved firearms, about half of those involving African-American males between the age of 14 and 25.

So, unless you are an African-American male in that age group, you are nearly EIGHT TIMES more likely to intentionally KILL YOURSELF than you are to be killed by someone else using a firearm and the statistical odds that you or anyone else is going to be killed with an AR-15 "assault rifle" are absolutely MINUSCULE.


"If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." -- Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes











botimage
Copyright 2013 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki