If You Want Two-Thirds Of Americans To Agree That Violent Video Games Are More Dangerous Than Guns, All You Have To Do Is Ask The Right Americans
from the two-thirds-of-a-foregone-conclusion dept
If you need some handy numbers to argue that violent video games are more dangerous than guns, Public Policy Polling has just delivered a gift-wrapped poll result especially for you. In the middle of a long poll attempting to suss out potential front runners for the 2016 elections, PPP decided to toss in a question comparing violent video games and guns.
There you have it. Violent video games are a "bigger safety threat" than guns, according to two out of three respondents. Seems pretty open and shut. Everyone cross out the word "gun" on your pet piece of legislation and replace it with "video game!" The nation is saved!
Many of you may be reaching for your guns/lower jaw/commenting implement. Before we start firing off mouths/angry wall o' text screeds/bullets, let's have a look at the methodology.
PPP surveyed 800 voters nationally from January 31st to February 3rd. The margin of error for the survey is +/-3.5%. We oversampled 416 Democratic and 508 Republican primary voters with margins of error of +/-4.8% and +/-4.4% respectively. In Iowa between February 1st and 3rd we interviewed 313 Democratic and 326 Republican primary voters with margins of error of +/-5.5% and +/-5.4% respectively. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.This certainly seems above board. So, why do the results seem so surprising? Well, maybe it's the prevailing demographics of those surveyed. As pointed out in the comments at Kotaku, there are two factors that skew the results.
1. 72% of the respondents are older than 45.
2. The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
Now, this data pretty much agrees with the stereotypical view that older people and Republicans trust guns more than they trust violent video games. Sure, there are plenty of outliers along the way, but the Republican Party has generally fought gun control laws, and older people are generally more distrustful of recent technology. In fact, given a narrow enough demographic, you could probably get poll results that indicates that "most Americans" believe cellphones are a bigger safety threat than depleted uranium.
So, what PPP has actually done is gift-wrapped a set of numbers useful for preaching to the converted. All it does is add to noise that surrounds this heated topic. Considering there's nothing else resembling that question in the other several dozen pages, one wonders why the question appears at all. Truly bizarre.
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As usual, a loaded question...
If I was given this survey, I would have not answered the question, nor the question that followed it as both are so unbelievably loaded. If forced, I would have chosen not sure, not because I don't have an opinion, but because neither choice is correct. The favorable/unfavorable questions are a little vague, but at least they ask for an opinion not a "best of two evils and aren't really even evil" scenario.
A gun is not a threat, even loaded with the hammer cocked back, ready to fire. So long as it is not touched, there is little if any danger that it will do anything other than just sit there. A person who wields a gun is a threat, regardless to the condition of the gun, but how much of a threat depends on their intentions and their training.
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Re: As usual, a loaded question...
during the recent fake-election season, i was bombarded by the usual 'vote for me, not that other scumbag...' calls, plus a *bunch* of 'surveys'...
*some* of the 'surveys' were simply thinly-veiled 'vote for me...' calls, some were 'push polls' which -surprise!- gave false choices and 'funneled' you into answers along the lines of 'do you want to let moose-limb tourists gang rape your puppy, *OR* would you rather kongress burned the bill of rights on the whitehouse lawn ?'...
um, there's no other choice ? ? ?
(apparently not)
also -i recounted this earlier- had a number of polls where after you were finished, they got 'basic info' on the respondent: age, race, etc... one question -which i heard from 2-3 different polls, was along the lines of 'How often do you go to church/worship?', and the answers you had to choose from, were 'several times a week'; 'once a week'; 'once a month'; and the LAST 'choice' was 'less than once a month', there was NO CHOICE for 'never'...
in other words, EVERYONE who responded to that poll (including this agnostic/atheist) was COUNTED as going to church/worship AT LEAST SOME OF THE TIME...
that makes THEM liars...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
Heh... How about those who just go for the free food and don't actually believe the stuff? Or because if they don't, bad things (either real or imagined) will happen to them even if they don't believe the theology? Yup...a whole lot of lies/statistics.
I pretty much ignore surveys and survey calls now. If I happen to pick up the phone when they call, I tell them nicely (and some times not so nicely, when they are particularly annoying) that I don't participate in surveys.
They aren't really interested in what I think, so much as they are interested in using me as part of their constructed weapon to get the government to relent to their lobbying efforts. The few surveys that did get me to respond, usually I wait until they spring a loaded question on me and then ask them politely why they are so unsure of their position that they have to use loaded questions to get the results they want. Usually they hang up though I've had a few intelligent discussions and an interviewer that was honestly (or maybe not) unaware that their question was unloaded. Only got through one survey so far where I didn't have to ask the question, but that may have just been me not paying attention.
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Re: Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
oh, absolutely, they are looking to use the 'push polls' to confirm the evil they already are intent on doing; HOWEVER, i *DO* like to put just a teeny little outlier in their data, and so answer the OPPOSITE (if possible within the constraints of the poll), *just* to skew their results a *little*...
yes, poking my tiny febrile appendage in the eye of sauron is all that is left to me in order to express outrage at the system...
(paraphrasing kennedy: when you eliminate all means of non-violent dissent, WTF do you think that leaves, mr politician...)
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: As usual, a loaded question...
If a gun poses "little danger" then it you can't say it's not a threat. It is a weapon and as such comes with a certain amount of danger, and I'd argue that a loaded gun sitting by itself is innately more dangerous than a video game sitting by itself.
Of course without any human interaction nothing is dangerous (if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to get hurt, is it still dangerous?) so comparing just the items doesn't really get us anywhere. What we're really asking is if video games have a corrupting effect that makes a person more dangerous than a person with a gun. I'm sure there are many responsible and safe gun owners out there, but I'm going to assume the injury and death stats are heavily weighted towards the firearms side of the scale.
This is, of course only assessing the dangers of each, not taking into account their benefits and ramifications. Which is why it's a stupid question. What's more dangerous bricks or canals? Children or cacti? Free speech or nationalism?
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Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
Well, I guess the semantics weren't right on this one, good catch. I'd say that in 99.9% of the time, I'd be correct, but there is always the gun with a delicate trigger, that could go off with a change in air pressure or earth movement. However, as to whether that is a threat to me, or anyone else, depends on how close they are to the barrel of the gun.
I'd argue that a loaded gun sitting by itself is innately more dangerous than a video game sitting by itself.
And I'd agree. Though neither is a threat. Guns are dangerous, don't get me wrong. You should always treat guns as though they were loaded, and never point one at anything you don't want to shoot. I'd never say the same about a video game...though I'd probably not give Postal to a twelve year old boy, I don't see it as inherently dangerous (unlike a gun.)
What we're really asking is if video games have a corrupting effect that makes a person more dangerous than a person with a gun.
But that isn't what is asked. At no point did the question ask whether the corrupting influence of a person playing a video game was more dangerous than a person with a gun. I play a ton of video games, some of them violent, and often times (when you don't cheat,) those violent games depict real consequences of gun violence. If you asked me the question above, instead of what they asked, I'd answer yes...a person with a gun is more dangerous than the corrupting influence of a video game.
The only reason I was comparing objects is because that is exactly what they did...when they said "What do you think is a bigger safety threat in America: guns or violent video games?" When asked that way, neither would be my answer.
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Re: Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
[looks at poll results]
Aw crappers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
Heh... I like your version far better and would have not even hesitated in answering it truthfully. Guns are dangerous. Far more so then video games will ever be whether or not they are violent. I don't think anyone with training in and understanding of firearms would honestly disagree.
I wish there were more folks who would ask the question they wanted an answer on, not one that they can use to influence others. Art Guerrilla is dead on (as is Tim, though it was hard to see through the sarcasm)...the survey game is not about getting the answers, so much as influencing minds and determining illogical patterns based on bad input.
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Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
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Re: Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
As usual, John, it takes me a bunch of paragraphs to say what you say in two sentences. I bow to your succinct articulation.
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Re: As usual, a loaded question...
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Re: Re: As usual, a loaded question...
I agree, but that isn't the question they asked, was it? I am arguing that this should have been the question they asked if they wanted a logical and well reasoned answer. They didn't. They chose the loaded question. What if the question asked the following: "What do you think is a bigger security threat in America: cameras or violent video games?" Would your answer change? Why?
Anyone who leaves a cocked and loaded gun where a child of any age can access it, should be locked away and never allowed to have a gun or children ever again. Period. Nobody is arguing against that here.
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The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
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Re: The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/11/06/black-panther-philadelphia-polling-place -201/
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Re: Re: The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
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Re: Re: Re: The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
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Re: The "violent video games" question was only posed to Republican primary voters.
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Misunderstanding the poll...
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Re: Misunderstanding the poll...
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Re: Re: Misunderstanding the poll...
PPP never said "two-thirds of Americans". Anywhere.
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Re: Re: Misunderstanding the poll...
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Re: Re: Re: Misunderstanding the poll...
I would also add that you have to read the original report with a sharp eye and be paying attention in order to see the fact you are observing. There was no failure to disclose here, but the sections of the poll which were segregated by party were not identified in the title, or even the body of the summary pages which dealt with those poll segregates. It was only present in the fine print at the bottom of page 44. You would think that if a summary page was created for questions that were only asked of people from a certain party, that the party would appear prominently in the summary.
The careful reader sees it; the casual reader does not. I consider that to be obscure.
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Re: Misunderstanding the poll...
BTW, I don't buy the video games are dangerous argument either.
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small issue
Your post implies that cell phones are clearly more safe than depleted uranium. However, depleted uranium is solely uranium 238 without the fissile uranium 235. U238 is only dangerous as a radioactive substance if inhaled. Your skin blocks the radiation (alphas) emitted by U238 very well. I've heard some information about its use as bullets, which creates an inhalation hazard, but other than the inhalation hazard it is relatively harmless.
Your post seems to use the misunderstanding of radiation as an "easy win" for your point.
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Re: small issue
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Re: Re: small issue
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Re: small issue
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Re: Re: small issue
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Re: Re: Re: small issue
When the engineers who design radar systems or cell phone towers, or the contractors who build these things, start showing a statistically significant increase in cancer exposure from hanging around kW transmitters relative to individuals who did not spend time around these kW transmitters, I will entertain the idea that it's possible for mW transmitters to harm the body.
This isn't like smoking. You can see a statistically significant increase in lung cancer among smokers. Being scared of cancer from cell phones is a lot like being scared of aliens. Sure, we can't *prove* 100% that cell phones can't cause cancer - but we can't prove 100% that there aren't aliens coming to kill us all, either.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
Look, if you want to be cautious and avoid cellphones that's your choice, but in an argument you'll have to provide proof that they cause cancer if you want to be taken seriously. "Maybe we just don't know", particularly after it's been studied so much, is not enough.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
I must be misinterpreting you, because that just doesn't make sense. The transmitter with 1,000,000 times the power has to be closer to you for an equivalent effect?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
When it comes to dealing with the really big transmitters, there's strong correlation that if you deal with RF regularly, you'll have 3 girls for every boy when you have kids. As someone who deals with RF regularly, that's the only effect of it that I know of, assuming you aren't an idiot and standing in front of a transmitter like an idiot. Then you get fun things like microwaved organs. Mmm...cooked liver :)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
Heavy metal toxicity issues:
– Occupational exposure limit: 3 mg
uranium/g kidney;
– Kidney failure/dysfunction with a few days
if large intake of DU (>50 mg uranium/g
kidney);
– The estimated DU intake for most soldiers
on the battlefield: 0.1 mg uranium/g kidney
– No reported case of acute kidney failure
among soldiers, but long-term effect is
unknown (The Royal Society Report, March
2002).
" Being scared of cancer from cell phones is a lot like being scared of aliens." - Give us a break.
"DU can be deposited in bone causing DNA damage
by the effects of the alpha particles;"
DU is radioactive and
produces:
Alpha particle,
Beta particle,
Gamma ray (small).
The naturally occurring uranium
consists primarily of three nuclides
according to the following
percentages (by weight):
·238U (99.283%),
·235U (0.711%),
·234U (0.005%).
"This isn't like smoking." - Yeah Ill take smoking.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
And cigarettes are causally linked to incidence of lung cancer. There isn't even a correlation, let alone a causal link, between cell phones - or any microwave radiation - and cancer. After decades of people working around transmitters pumping out one million times the power that your cell phone does, if there were any other negative effects besides heating, we would have seen them by now.
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Re: Re: small issue
Granite (like many rocks) emits ionising radiation. However it is not dangerous usually when used for worktops, floors or as a building material. You can make it dangerous by sealing the building up so tight that the radon it emits becomes dangerous.
Similarly depleted uranium has a number of uses that are quite harmless. The odds are that you have flown in an airliner that used depleted uranium as ballast. It can also be used as a shield against stronger radiation sources - so it is, in practice, more likely to prevent radiation induced cancer than to cause it! You can make is dangerous by misusing it - but the same is true of water. More people drown every year than are killed by depleted uranium.
Cellphones are also not particularly dangerous - but then if you drop one in the sea and jump in after it...
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Re: Re: Re: small issue
Granite has a specific activity of about 0.00005–0.0005 Bq per mg.
Excluding decay products, natural uranium has a specific activity of 25.4 Bq per mg.
Excluding decay products, depleted uranium has a specific activity of 15 Bq per mg. That's about five orders of magnitude more than granite and about 60% of natural uranium.
Holding a lump of depleted uranium in your bare hand would give you about 2.5 mSv per hour. Holding this lump for a mere 2 hours would exceed the annual recommended dose limit in place by the NRC in the US (5 mSv)
It's also not just about how many people it kills. You should ask the Iraqis how much they like our depleted uranium. Especially scary is the graph on Wikipedia showing a huge spike in birth defects within a decade of the Gulf War.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
More than they would if we had used natural Uranium.
The point I am really trying to make here is that "depleted" uranium sounds scarier than natural uranium - whilst it is actually somewhat less scary.
People who talk about it in the way the author of the post did are succumbing to this mistake. Therefore please do not use "depleted uranium" in rhetoric. That is probably the most dangerous way to use it!
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Re: Re: Re: small issue
It really is like comparing a car accident and a plane crash. If you're *IN* a plane crash(especially if the DU ballast starts burning...), you're far more likely to die than someone in a car crash. Overall however, you're more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash. So which is more dangerous, a car crash or plane crash? I don't know because I don't know the context you mean!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: small issue
Much like the poll question itself.
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Re: small issue
http://gulfwarvets.com/du.htm
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Re: small issue
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Someone please do this, because then we can either outlaw cellphones for peoples safety or allow widespread use of DU bullets, either result will be hilarious.
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Bad comparison. Unless someone has been hitting armored vehicles in your neighborhood with DU rounds, cellphones are FAR more dangerous. I don't remember the last time someone died because someone was driving while talking on their Depleted Uranium, but that happens all the time with people talking on their cellphones :)
Depleted Uranium is really just a localized threat, and has killed far FAR fewer people than cellphones. It's more dangerous than cellphones in the same way that aircraft crashes are more dangerous than car crashes. You're less likely to survive a plane crash than a car crash, but you're far FAR FAR more likely to die in a car crash than plane crash.
I'm sorry, but DU fears are overblown for people OUTSIDE of a warzone (or in the vicinity of a warzone and downwind.) Cellphones truly are more dangerous than DU.
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The cellphone does not kill anyone. The distracted driver talking on the cellphone did.
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Re:
Just for fun...
The DU bullet does not kill anyone. The maniac with the gun shooting the DU bullets did.
(Though seriously, are there actually DU bullets? I've only heard of it being used in shells fired from tanks - in which case it was the tank gunner.)
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Re: Re:
Vulcans spit out DU. However the rounds in those things are 20x102mm, which aren't necessarily what you'd find in a gun. They are usually mounted to helicopters and airplanes. I only know this because they talked about the use on Apache gunships. I am not aware of DU being used in personal weapons, and doubt they would because the rounds would be hazardous to the person using the weapon (you'd be amazed on how much gasses you breath in at a range with a normal weapon.) DU is also very heavy, and would add considerable weight to the weapon (more so then then lead that is currently used.)
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Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, that was my thinking in asking. Uranium is around 15% denser than lead, so that would change the trajectory of the bullet in a gun designed to shoot standard rounds. I suppose if you've got them as rounds for a Vulcan cannon or similar, the gun is designed to handle them.
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Re: Re:
Now, as far as a handgun or rifle round, there MIGHT be a use for DU in one of those massive anti-material rifles like the M2, but DU is a waste to use against personnel. It's not like he's going to be deader because of the bullet. Maybe to defeat body armor? But I'm not sure if you can get a heavier round up to a sufficient velocity to defeat armor, but at this point, I'm just guessing.
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biggest safety threat
personally, I think the biggest safety threat is unemployment.
I think (but have no study to cite) that the more people working, the less crime there will be on the street.
other likely things to pop up from the open text word cloud might be things like 'drugs' 'drunk drivers' 'politicians' etc.. :-P
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Oh wait, I do get it... MPAA and RIAA control those...
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Re:
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Feeding the Beast
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Nothing is dangerous until put in the hands of a psychotropic dis-inhibited adolescent/post adolescent young man.
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We are SO well trained...
It is so bad, it is impossible to tell if the hidden purpose behind this one and its release is pro or anti gun control. I doubt it is pro or anti game control, but I suppose that's possible. We are such easy targets.
If we weren't so well trained, we would recognize the question as manipulative as well as inane, but somehow we don't. We just fill in the blanks as though we were taking a No Child Left Behind test.
Which would you prefer, Twinkies or tap-dance lessons?
Or this: Would you vote for me if I presented this over simplified polar answer to a complex problem... or this other over simplified polar answer?
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As far as AMERICA is concerned, the only American's in danger from DU are those poor bastards that have to play with vehicles smacked with DU rounds. That's a far far smaller number than the number of American's negatively affected by Cellphones. Unless you're in a position to actually be affected by DU (Not likely at all), then it has no effect on your safety. Also, consider that DU is used for radiation SHIELDING as well, so it also protects you! (though if we're fair and consider the positive uses of cellphones, the phone will win hands down).
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The uranium is depleted so it has to be safe.
/smaartass
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Re:
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Re:
If he has no access to guns? Nothing much...
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Holy Crap!
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Hate
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Which is more dangerous?
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Re:
Yet in spite of all this graphic violence and sexual content, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board somehow overlooked all this and gave it a "Kids to Adults" rating (the 1990s' equivalent of the "Everyone" rating). I could imagine many children getting messed up by the violence and the sexual themes, and many parents trying to pull Brain Dead 13 off the shelves, or at least change its rating to "Teen"; yet somehow ReadySoft still got away with a "K-A" rating. It was just like: What was Dave Quesnelle thinking when he made this game?! In fact, WHAT WAS THE REST OF THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM AT READYSOFT THINKING?! However, as the years went on, and Brain Dead 13 would be revived for the iPhone and other iOS ports in October 2010, by then, the ReadySoft that is now Digital Leisure learned their lesson and started wising up, and they thankfully made the decision to give the game a 12+ rating, which can be the equivalent of a "Teen" or an "Everyone 10+" rating. Hopefully, Digital Leisure would try to bury the past and forget about the "K-A" incident. And besides, violent video games like Brain Dead 13 would NEVER make kids and/or teens more violent. People should learn a lesson from Nancy Pelosi and try not to jump to wrong conclusions. For me, they should have ReadySoft and Digital Leisure to thank for nearly 20 years ago.
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best pr submission service
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