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I think it´s safe to say that 2016 has become a very dark, evil and sad year when it comes to death and suffering. I mean, I have honestly lost count over all the terror attacks that´s been taking place as of lately (and that says quite a lot about the current state of our world). However, there are some specific terror attack cases which I won´t forget in the first place. You see. There has been some past shootings where the media have been very fast to put the blame on video games. Like in the case with the Orlando mass shooting , for example (which took place on the 13th of June this year). Because as you might remember there where some regressive journalists who toke advantage of the tragic situation and blamed the mass shooting on violent video games.

Well, guess what? It´s time to play the “Let´s blame everything on the video games” game again. Yes, you guessed it. The Munich (Germany) attack appears to have been blamed on violent video games. And this became clear after a tweet by Naomi Conrad (Naomi is a German-British journalist):

As if the German Gaming market wasn´t censored hard enough as it already is…

And it´s just about to get even better (worse), because I found the following text in Spiegel´s (Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine) article about the Munich attack (the article was posted on 23rd of July):

“De Maizière macht Gewaltvideos im Internet für Taten wie den Amoklauf in München mitverantwortlich. Das unerträgliche Ausmaß von gewaltverherrlichenden Spielen habe eine schädliche Wirkung auf die Entwicklung junger Menschen, sagte der Innenminister. Das sei auch in diesem Fall so gewesen.” – Spiegel

English translation (Google translate):
“De Maizière makes violent videos on the Internet for acts such as the massacre in Munich responsible. The intolerable degree of violence glorifying games have a detrimental effect on the development of young people, said the interior minister. This was also in this case like this.”

thomas de maiziere germa minister of interior

Thomas de Maizière (Germany´s federal minister of the Interior, CDU) have very low thoughts about violent video games…

Marsaffe ENG: Can you shed some light? Britta Kollenbroich (editor @SPIEGELONLINE) ENG: Did he loudly matching agency reports first in Berlin and later in Munich said at the scene. Britta then added “We got the info from identical news agency reports. He said it at the Berlin press conference and later at Munich.” (with “he”, Britta meant Thomas de Maizière).

And by the looks of Thomas de Maizière (Germany´s federal minister of the Interior, CDU) statement about violent video games in Germany. German Gamers might face an harsher and even further censored Gaming future. And to me, that´s beyond messed up. Because the hard truth is that Maizière (and other politicians, journalists and whatnot) have just used violent video games as a scapegoat for the Munich shooting. And truth be told, these shootings goes beyond the realms of games. And the journalists and politicians know this, but since most of them are political correct to the max. They don´t mention the REAL problem with the rise of terror attacks in Europe and the Western world in general. And that would be the rise of Muslim extremists (they hate us, the West and everything that we stand for. They want us infidels dead, no matter the price).

Nevertheless, politicians and journalists turn the blind eye to this problem. And I highly doubt that a ban of violent video games will solve the problem (or whatever solution Thomas de Maizière with friends comes up with). Especially not since terrorism has been around far longer than video games have. My point would be this, what other mediums will the German government try to police when the next attack hits them? (yes, there will be more attacks. Trust me on that one. This is just the very beginning of what´s to come). I mean, will they tone down (censor) violence even more in books, movies and TV-series?

Violent video games have been in the crosshair of the German politics since the 80´s (ID´s “Wolfenstein” series is a good example of this).

Well, then what? Because even if the German government ends up banning everything of violent nature from the German market, what will they do when the terror attacks still don´t stop? And more so, what more lies will they spoon feed the German public with once Germany gets hit by yet another terror attack? Because when they have run out of lies, what else is there left for them to do but to tell the obvious truth?

So, yeah. Go for it Mr. Thomas de Maizière. Start your crusade against violent video games in Germany, because it´s probably going to do wonders for your war against terrorism. Because as we all know, video games have always played a very crucial and “special” part in the terrorist mindset and execution of ideas (sarcasm). And oh, by the way Mr. Maizière. Just so you know, banning and censoring violent video games won´t change a single thing for you and Germany in terms of terror attacks.

No, what you instead need to do is to grow some balls and do what must be done. And doing crackdowns on the violent extremists groups in Germany is a good start for sure. You also need to have much stricter background checks on the people who you let into Germany. Furthermore, for over two decades researchers have been unable to find a link between violence and video games (the twitter hashtag #Killerspiele, speaks loudly about this matter as we speak). So in my opinion, Maizière (and the German government) is just using violent video games as a scapegoat to blame all of Germany´s recent terror attack problems on.

And with that said, what´s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:
CNN
#Killerspiele
Spiegel
man_from_lamancha
Naomi Conrad

Credit:
Lyle Yiannopoulos

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.