Of course - the most sane, safe, and logical answer
 

Comes from the NRA :P

They want to volunteer their 11,000 trainers to prep an entirely volunteer police force with the goal of putting an armed "police officer" in every school in the country.

But somehow, all this altruism requires that Congress immediately ”appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school in this nation.”

Aside from being every shade of red over the stupidity this clown for continuing to blame video games for mass shootings, color me utterly confused over the need for appropriations to support an all-volunteer "police force" patrolling our schools.

That and terrified at the prospect of giving anything that even hints at a nod towards legitimizing a free-range militia tasked with determining what is and isn't a threat.

Getcher new-age militia plan here!

So you don't believe that the super violent video games that this shooter reportedly spent a lot of time with are a factor in his crime?

No more a factor than spending time at a gun range with his mother was.

Both are perfectly normal, safe, healthy activities. When participated in by normal, sane, healthy humans.

Banning violent video games makes no more sense than banning guns.

I would bet that this NRA-trained police force would be responsible for more schoolchildren deaths per year through gun accidents and intentional shootings than the mass murderers that they would be employed to deter.

how about better restrictions on both?

Better age restrictions on certain games maybe?

It seems silly to me that games could have an effect, but on the other hand, the last time I played a video game closely and for extended periods, was super mariokart on a super nintendo. I did have several mariokart dreams related to it.

That was a long time ago, and the technological improvement in game realism and intensity is amazing.

Age restrictions are a joke - for guns or video games. Parents, friends, etc - are going to make games/guns available to "underage" people based on their own values/beliefs/levels of actual parenting/etc.

I am not "pro-gun" any more than I am "anti-gun" or pro/anti video games. What I am is saddened by the fact that everybody keeps trying to find whys to legislate their way into controlling behavior rather than deal with what is, in my humble opinion, a failure of our society to recognize and effectively deal with the root causes associated with antisocial behavior.

Exactly. The 3 or so threads on this event have all devolved into "your solution sucks, only MINE will work", and fall into two categories - armed presence on school grounds, or more restrictions on guns - IMHO simplisitic feel good quick fixes that will do NOTHING to prevent this from happening AGAIN - perhaps only reduce the body count.

Well, you have no argument from me on this. However, i feel there could definitely be a connection between anti-social behavior, entertainment glorification of violence, ready access to weapons, and failure to alter either of the second and third factors in recognition of the first that could be leading to these mass shootings.

Well stated. I agree that behavior is the root cause, and would like to see resources tasked towards getting assistance to those that need it.

However, this hydra is many headed, and I don't believe a single answer is available. Some of the move to legislate against certain weapons I believe to be long overdue, and that the answer is going to have to be federally mandated. Some states just will not allow any commonsense in their gun laws, which completely undermines the neighboring states which do.
The posts regarding DC and NYC are excellent examples of laws being circumvented with a short drive.

The video games is a little more murky.... Last one I played for any length of time was GTA3. That is definitely a violent game, and I think it has the ability to get into the players head and assist on the road to antisocial behavior.
The answer is to not play so much, but there is no way to do that. I know kids who spend hours every day playing their x-boxes and PS3
How do you reach these parents and get them to take an active role in their children's lives?
If they are too lazy or preoccupied to bother teaching their kids, they will never attend parenting classes or parent meetings at school.

I gotta say, the NRA is an organ of the gun industry so it should be no surprise that their solution to every problem is to provide more people with guns.

Ironically, this was not always true-

The Secret History of Guns - Adam Winkler - The Atlantic

"In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control. The organization’s president at the time was Karl T. Frederick, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer known as “the best shot in America”—a title he earned by winning three gold medals in pistol-shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. (Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order—and, in most cases, far more restrictions.)
Frederick’s model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a “suitable” person with a “proper reason for carrying” a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.
The NRA today condemns every one of these provisions as a burdensome and ineffective infringement on the right to bear arms. Frederick, however, said in 1934 that he did “not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” The NRA’s executive vice president at the time, Milton A. Reckord, told a congressional committee that his organization was “absolutely favorable to reasonable legislation.” According to Frederick, the NRA “sponsored” the Uniform Firearms Act and promoted it nationwide. Highlighting the political strength of the NRA even back then, a 1932 Virginia Law Review article reported that laws requiring a license to carry a concealed weapon were already “in effect in practically every jurisdiction.”

Agreed - in their quest to protect their interpretation of the 2nd, the NRA is willing to write-off the 1st amendment. Compromise does not exist in the NRA's vocab.

Video games have nothing to do with the first amendment.

- Peter.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. I am REALLY not. That said, I would recommend that you read a little of what Lt. Col. David Grossman has to say about it. Should be able to google him up very easily.

I don't like video games and consider them a waste of daylight, but the research on whether they cause these sorts of events is inconclusive at best.
As for the NRA, no surprise at their response. Buncha nutballs in charge of that little club.