Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

I understand your point. My perspective on having easily accessible firearms for self defense is different indeed, and is also related to the law where I live : weapons must be stored in an approved safe that is bolted to the house.

I think the main issue with firearms and suicide is the easyness and effectiveness. For sure someone very sick and determined may find other methods. I don't know if it's easy to compare suicide rates and weapons usage among various countries. Perhaps with fewer guns USA would get a lower suicide rate among males. Perhaps not.

So yes it's your choice. From my perspective, having a easily accessible gun is not worth the risk for me and my family considering the data and the likelyhood of needing a gun for self defense.

Ah that is sad to see.

And given the relatively low occurence of situations that would require a gun if you don't use it for sport, your choice seems rational and reasonable. I think you're also right about the sick people comment. The two people I know who committed suicide were elderly and started experiencing alzheimer's. Their decisions seemed quite final. I suppose if I were in a similar situation, I would probably find it a rational decision, but I'm not sure if it would be reasonable.

I've heard the argument before (temporary idea and effective means), which probably is true of the non-terminally ill. I haven't seen any data supporting it so far. I've also haven't seen any definitive evidence against it, only suggestive stuff.

There are some states with restrictive gun laws that show a slight decrease, but others seem to be unaffected (continue to increase). Just as there were less restrictive states that show the same mixed behavior. (CDC data referenced by both sides)

One thing that I saw in the CDC data was that suicide rates have risen over the past 30 or so years for all states. Non-firearm suicides are 27% more common since the 80s, but it didn't look at why firearms are decreasing as a percentage. RAND says the number of homes with at least one firearm has stayed fairly consistent over that time (40% -/+ 5%). So it seems that there isn't a substantial reduction in suicides based solely on gun control laws, but it seems it's also impossible to say if the number would have been higher without those restrictions. The fact the ownership has stayed the same, but firearms are a lower percentage of suicide cases could just be demographic or preference issue, but we don't know.

One interesting thing I observed which I didn't see studies about (because both sides are focused on just confirming their positions on pro/anti gun policies) is the correlation between mental healthcare service ratings and suicide. This is just rough, but I found these two maps appearing to be more correlated than the gun ownership and suicide maps/studies. Just something I found interesting and would need an actual study to look into it.

https://www.mhanational.org/issues/ranking-states

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/...

If the question is whether or not there is a high chance of someone committing a violent crime caused by playing video games, then you are correct. If the question is whether there is any causation link between violent video games and committing real life violence, then you need more data than what you are using.

We have roughly 380 violent crimes per 100k people each year in the US. Just to keep it simple, let's assume they are committed by unique people. Half of adults play video games and about half of those play violent video games. (Very rough numbers but the right ballpark.) So in 100k people, you have 25,000 who play violent games of some sort. Of those violent video games, if only a certain type can create violence, you may be looking at only 10,000 people or fewer (per 100k people) who are playing the games that could cause violence. It also seems likely that the ability to cause violence would be tied to genetic and environmental issues in the person playing the video games. On top of that, for the violence to manifest itself, the person would need to find themselves in a circumstance where it could manifest. (Being bullied at school, etc.)

It seems very likely that by the time everything that might have an impact on violence is considered, you might be only dealing with 1,000 people out of every 100k who would be in the at risk group. If the effect for the at risk group is very high, say 1 out of 1,000, you are talking about one more violent crime per 100,000 people.

It would seem that an increase like this could easily be hidden due to other programs to reduce crime like cleaning up lead pollution, or better training teachers to to identify at risk students.

(And please understand, I'm not saying that there is a link. Just pointing out how it would be likely to show up if there was.)

Here on the HackerNews, we have a lot of fretting about facebook manipulating the moods of people, the control of people by targeted social networking ads, and many other mind manipulations as a result of our media and (mis)information firehose society.

Yet we get to the effect of ultraviolent gun-worship games, and the reaction is swift to absolve them of any role in our society.

Still smells like "the preciousssss" undercurrent on pot legalization. Which I'm in favor of only because of the failures of the drug war, especially in destabilizing Mexico and Central America into narco mafia states.

America has radicalized around guns and gun violence, to the point they are religions. Sure, go ahead and say there are no effects from violent gun games, then go talk to your kids about the school shooting drills. Sure we can argue that gun manufacturers and partisan wedge politics have elevated gun worship and not 25 years of shooter games.

I get there aren't smoking gun game studies. But we are way far from the days of cartoon Doom.