[Deutschmania]

From what I have read in this article , which was among those I get sent from The Guardian , to my email inbox , the motive appears to have been financial https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/27/florida-shooting-survivors-recall-chaos-no-one-deserves-to-die-over-a-videogame

Survivors of a shooting at a video gamers’ competition in Florida in which three people died have told of chaotic scenes as those caught up in the violence trampled over others in panic as they tried to escape.

The dead included the gunman, David Katz, 24, a player on the gaming circuit who is believed to have been angry because he lost Sunday’s tournament

“No one deserves to die over playing a video game, you know?” said Derek Jones, 30, a competitor from Santa Fe, New Mexico. “We’re just out here trying to win some money for our families.”

Coverage of Katz, from Baltimore, competing in the past showed him with headphones on and a poker face as commentators remarked on his attitude.

 “He’s not here to make friends. He’s all business. He’s focused and to even get him to open up to talk about anything it’s like pulling teeth man,” said one.

Like with any crime that is not simply due to insanity , or driven by sexual lust , the motive involves money . Not much different than with poker , I think . https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/09/poker-shootings-one-killed-two-take-plea-deal-25832.htm To cite the Bible , https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+6+%3A9-10&version=ERV . So in answer to the original poster's question , it's even more so the drive to succeed financially than simply the yearning to win a all costs , which can corrupt the minds of self centered Americans .

[maz]

From what I have read in this article , which was among those I get sent from The Guardian , to my email inbox , the motive appears to have been financial

So in answer to the original poster's question , it's even more so the drive to succeed financially than simply the yearning to win a all costs , which can corrupt the minds of self centered Americans .

It sounds like it is time to for common sense gaming control legislation.

Aren't gamers into "swatting" too?

Calling swat teams on other gamers? Can you believe that the people who run police departments are so retarded that they send out armed thugs and shoot people dead in their homes over "just a prank bro?"

[skinster]

I think a lot of our mass shooting issues would be solved by sensible gun laws: virgins should be denied firearms. We could keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the first 3 people to respond to this post at least.

[Igor Antunov]

Oh look it was a mentally unstable (history of mental illness), pseudo-leftist with trump derangement syndrome. How shocking.

[Zagadka]

Yea, good of you to skip over the "mental illness" and go with "anti-Trump", because so many anti-Trump people are pro-guns. owait.

But I agree with you, there should be a process of background checks for mental illness in gun purchases. Good point!

[maz]

Yea, good of you to skip over the "mental illness" and go with "anti-Trump", because so many anti-Trump people are pro-guns. owait.

But I agree with you, there should be a process of background checks for mental illness in gun purchases. Good point!

Florida already has had such a law on the books since 2013.

Florida Mental Illness Gun Control Bill Passes

Plus, after the Parkland shooting hysteria, Florida recently passed a knee-jerk "red flag" bill that allows police to show up and confiscate guns from people who pose a danger to themselves or others.

How did this Florida mass shooter fall through the cracks?

How many more laws do we need to stop mass shootings?

[colliric]

Oh look it was a mentally unstable (history of mental illness), pseudo-leftist with trump derangement syndrome. How shocking.

He was also obviously an obsessed gamer too. I'm thinking he lost to his opponent one too many times.

[Red_Army]

@Igor Antunov fell for reddit detectives and the idiots who support them in the crackpot/conservative media.

Not like I even care if this was a Trump hater as I'm sure that politics are far removed from this incident, but it is funny when you guys fall for nonsense.

[maz]

Here is the splash you get on the Huffington Post home page. The coverage is already fading away because the shooter had the wrong race/heritage, and apparently did use the right weapon (AR-15), not because of the low body count.

Coming 2 Days Before Primary, Jacksonville Shooting Certain To Change... Nothing

The death toll is significantly lower than the 17 who were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, early this year and the 49 who were murdered at the Pulse night club in Orlando in 2016.

“Unfortunately, the half-life on these incidents is getting shorter as time goes by,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic consultant who led former President Barack Obama’s two wins in the state and who is now an adviser to former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham’s gubernatorial campaign.

One political consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Jacksonville incident, in a high-profile tourist area where most of the tournament attendees were relatively well-off, is getting far more attention than most shootings in the state, in which the victims are black or Latino, such as the one two days earlier.

Yeah, so the city of Jacksonville had a high school football shooting just two days before the tournament shooting, but I don't remember any media news coverage. I couldn't find any coverage from the Huffington Post either, again probably because it was the wrong kind of shooter and the victims were just some minorities.

Schale agreed that the Jacksonville shooting would not affect either gubernatorial primary much, but said he did think the issue would help Democrats in the November general election. He pointed to the decision of both Putnam and DeSantis to cancel planned events in Jacksonville ― a major population center for both Republican and Democratic primary voters ― while several of the Democratic candidates, including Graham, kept their scheduled visits to the city. “The purpose of the visit obviously changed,” he said.

These people are sickening.

[Political Interest]

I'm really, really, tired of hearing of murderously insane people who cannot distinguish reality from it's diversionary simulacrum. This is another rotten aspect of modernity that absolutely has to go.

Goddamn people need to read a book, ride a bike, go hiking or tend a garden, anything put keep their heads firmly and securely up their asses via the games and all the other garbage that disconnects them from living a real life.

I write this anti-modern rant from my keyboard onto an online forum, but still....

Games can create a depressive state in people. Young men will play them for hours, sometimes even with the curtains closed. And I think games are a type of escapsim that does not end because they can be played for hours. A visit to the cinema does not last for hours, maybe two or three at absolute maximum. But games can be played all day, sometimes over multiple days.

[SolarCross]

Games can create a depressive state in people. Young men will play them for hours, sometimes even with the curtains closed. And I think games are a type of escapsim that does not end because they can be played for hours. A visit to the cinema does not last for hours, maybe two or three at absolute maximum. But games can be played all day, sometimes over multiple days.

You can read a book for hours and books are escapism too. Games allow blokes to play out their hunter-killer instincts in a way that doesn't involve actual bloodshed. People like games better than films or books because games are interactive, your input matters to what happens. With books and films you are just a passive inconsequential voyeur.

-----

Also closing the curtains is just for removing screen glare. The reason for closing the curtains is exactly the same reason cinemas don't have windows in the viewing area.

[Rancid]

virgins should be denied firearms.

This is so crazy, it might actually work!

[Red_Army]

It really could, @Rancid

Also I did not realize that @SolarCross was among the arch-philistines along with noted gullible rube @Igor Antunov.

[SolarCross]

Also I did not realize that @SolarCross was among the arch-philistines along with noted gullible rube @Igor Antunov.

I like a good film or book as much as anyone but active entertainments like games or sports have an edge over passive ones.

[Red_Army]

@SolarCross what sort of edge? You realize you are on the side of hordes of Gen Z children, right? Video games are fun, but there is no video game that conveys the human experience in any way close to great works of literature or film.

[Victoribus Spolia]

there is no video game that conveys the human experience in any way close to great works of literature or film.

I generally agree, video games approximate sports more in this regard, their value is more in participation, skill acquisition, and engaged-entertainment in a way not true of art in the traditional sense.

Art found its value either in its mere expression or as an object of contemplation, this is not true of sports and is similarly the case with video games.

This is not to say there is no art in gaming, the visual experience can be quite impressive and is definitely art, but not the same as with the Dutch Masters.

The fact that we have Esports on ESPN etc., confirms this.

Anyhoo.....

This thread is dumb, a debate about which object to blame for violence; video games or guns.....I feel we are having the same debate from 1994.

I still check the "Other" box on this one.

Like the Marxists would likely say (the consistent ones), the issue is alienation.

[Red_Army]

I think anyone who understands mental illness would agree with that assessment. The right wing on here love to search for some impotent political posting online to blame their never Trump opponents for mass murderers. If feverish online posting indicated violent pathology than that bodes badly for all of us

[anarchist23]

[center-img]http://i66.tinypic.com/se6lhw.jpg[/center-img]

A 24-year-old gunman who attacked a Florida video game tournament was so obsessed with his pastime he would refuse to bathe or go to school, according to court records.
David Katz had a history of mental illness, according to his parents' divorce filing in his home state.
His mother once confiscated his console and locked it in her room, and he punched a hole in the door, she said.
Katz killed two people on Sunday before fatally shooting himself, police say.
According to court papers in Maryland, he had a longstanding feud with his mother, and had twice been hospitalised for mental illness.
"His hair would very often go unwashed for days," his mother told a court during her 2007 divorce proceedings.
"When I took his gaming equipment controllers away so he couldn't play at three or four in the morning, I'd get up and find that he was just walking around the house in circles."
The documents obtained by the Associated Press show that his parents - Nasa engineer Richard Katz and government toxicologist Elizabeth Katz - disagreed over their youngest son's care.
The boy sometimes "curled up into a ball", refused to attend school and sobbed, Mrs Katz said.
The Maryland judge awarded custody to Katz's mother, and the father was allowed visitation rights.
The filing says the parents also argued over whether the boy should take antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed.
Eli Clayton, 21, and Taylor Robertson, 27, were shot dead in Sunday's attack in Jacksonville at an eSports tournament in Florida for players of Madden NFL, an American football game.
Eleven others were injured.
Fellow players spoke of Katz's erratic playing style and unwillingness to make friends.
"We've always known he was a little off and stuff just because he wasn't social at all," Shay Kivlen, 21, of Seattle, told CBS News on Monday.
Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams told the Baltimore Sun on Monday that no motive had yet been determined.
He said Katz had legally purchased the two handguns used in the shooting from a licensed dealer in the Baltimore area.

BBC

[SolarCross]

what sort of edge? You realize you are on the side of hordes of Gen Z children, right? Video games are fun, but there is no video game that conveys the human experience in any way close to great works of literature or film.

Video games are a sub-type within the fold of games in general: football, chess, hunting, card games or board games. Films, books are just sub-types of pre-crafted stories. Stories vs Games is an older dichotomy than "gen Z children" could ever know. Your grandpa who would rather play chess in the park against some other old codger than sit watching tv or read a novel is on the same side of the dichotomy as your "gen Z children" who'd rather play Left for Dead rather than watch 28 Days Later.

Stories even by the most skillful of crafters have these limitations:

- Fixed story path including endings which offers very limited re-playability. Even a complex story with many subtle elements which you might miss on a first pass only to notice on a later playing is still the same old story over and over and over.

- The consumer can't have any impact on how the story develops he is simply a passive voyeur.

You can think of games as dynamic stories, stories which are written as they are played with the consumer playing an active role in how events unfold, essentially as a co-author of the story alongside other players and the creators of the game, the ending is unknown until it happens. This is a much closer representation of the human experience than a static story because real life isn't laid down by an omnipotent puppetmaster standing in for the author with a pre-determined path, real life is a dynamic contest between competing self-interested agents, gamers essentially.

[maz]

He said Katz had legally purchased the two handguns used in the shooting from a licensed dealer in the Baltimore area.”

Oh, I see that he was not a Florida resident, but a resident of Maryland. Based on this guy's profile, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who is going to jump through hoops to get a handgun license, let alone even be able to function enough to get a license.

On April 4, 2013, the Maryland General Assembly approved legislation imposing significant new restrictions on gun ownership. The bills ban the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms that they define as assault weapons, limit magazine capacity to ten rounds, require that handgun purchasers be fingerprinted and pass a training class in order to obtain a handgun license, and bar persons who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health institution from possessing firearms. Martin O'Malley Governor at the time, signed the legislation into law on May 16, 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Maryland