Games Revolution has an article up by Duke Ferris in regards to the recent up-surge in news items and proposed legislation to fight the so-called epidemic of youth violence in America being caused by violent video games.
The core point of the article, however, is: “There is no epidemic of youth violence in America.”
Despite the increasing number of hyped news articles and opinion pieces over the “worth” of video games that contain violence, the statistics coming in from the federal government is that violence, and crime in general, is down among young people. In fact, it’s at it’s lowest point in twenty years, as many independent studies have shown.
Something to keep in mind the next time you see a breathless television journalist keeping their ratings high by interviewing yet another politician who talks long and hard about how they’re going to “protect the children” with proposed laws that never make it out of congressional sub-committees, all while the hard decisions are conveniently never made.