The Violent 90’s: More Then Video Games

Calling everyone whose parents wouldn’t let them play violent video games growing up!! I understand the frustration of wanting to play a game and being told no by a parent because they are “too violent” for us to play. Which at the time seems reasonable but after aging a few more years we realize that this wasn’t really the case. A piece published in 2010 by the Critical Gaming Project stated that a number of authorities, including the U.S. Surgeon General, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and several U.S. District Courts have examined the scientific record and found that it does not correlate to violent behavior. This whole idea started in the 1990’s when the first realistic/violent video games started to become popular. You might ask why this is this an issue? Well, at the time these games were growing in popularity, violence also started to grow in the United States. Video games were given the honor or being the reason behind the surge, and that’s where the idea that violence in games created real life violence. What social issues were influencing the people of the United States so that there was an uptick in violence when mass media was booming?

The 1990’s was an era that offered lots of influence in society and may even be responsible for how we dress or the music we listen to today. The decade also witnessed a huge uprising in the United States economy. The citizens were making more money and spending even more which further grew the economy. An AEI report said that the economy went up roughly 4% four years in a row in the 90’s. An interesting point I’d like to make you aware of is that from 1990–1999 recorded a record number of gun sales. The AFT released data that showed that during this decade an astonishing 40,000,000 guns were sold to the public (not including Gov weapons). I associate this occurrence with people making more money. This statement doesn’t mean that everyone is using these new guns for violence. Guns are a popular past time/hobby for a portion of Americans. Did the people buy guns because of the spike in violence over the few years? If the citizens felt that they needed protection of their own, because of all the violence around them, then maybe people became trigger happy with all their new weapons.

This is one idea that possibly should be accused of the violence in the 90’s not video games. Systematically one would assume that more guns would equate to more gun violence. Which makes sense. Although, it should be noted that its quite difficult to pick one specific event that causes a change. At the time some Americans thought that the video games were behind the causation. In reality though a number of social changes could pertain as to why the early 90’s was so violent. We live in a world where everything we do correlates to something else, its all part of a bigger picture. Hopefully, in the future as a whole nation we can understand that we shouldn’t just pick one reason for somethings occurrence but further investigate the topic and see how everything ties together. For instance, how a changing economy can relate to the number of guns being sold, which could put weapons in the wrong hands easier then ever before.