A Connecticut town going Salem on “violent” video games has no problem with the even more violent movies showing in its theater.
The video game amnesty will take place on 12 January in Southington, a 30-minute drive east from Newtown. The town of Southington has provided a dumpster, organisers said, where violent video games, CDs or DVDs will be collected.
“As people arrive in their cars to turn in their games of violence, they will be offered a gift certificate donated by a member of the Greater Southington Chamber of Commerce as a token of appreciation for their action of responsible citizenship,” the group said in a statement.
“Violent games turned in will be destroyed and placed in the town dumpster for appropriate permanent disposal.”
A quick Google search reveals several theaters in the vicinity, one approximately nine minutes away from the Greater Southington Chamber of Commerce (31 minutes closer than Newtown), where the video game trade-for-burning is set to take place.
Top showings at this theater include “Django Unchained,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Bullet To The Head.”
Why have not Southington’s leaders confiscated the “violent” movies in their local theater? Why this double standard?
A study by Texas A&M university last year found that exposure to violent games “had neither short-term nor long-term predictive influences on either positive or negative outcomes”. Christopher J Ferguson, one of the report authors, wrote in Time magazine in December that “there is no good evidence that video games or other media contributes, even in a small way, to mass homicides or any other violence among youth”.
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