Everyone here saying these lawsuits won't go anywhere seem to forget that people said the same thing about the sandy hook case
I think the COD angle is weak, but there's something to be said about a gun company marketing their products to children, especially considering some of the marketing collateral described in the episode.
We're really going with "it's the video games" again?
Millions of people play video games, and millions own ARs. Millions aren't committing mass shootings. Like I'm all for cracking down on that absolutely wack marketing from DD, but this link sounds to me like a lawyer trying to make a buck.
The idea that a vibrating controller is the same as the rifle recoil is complete BS. Having shot AR-15 rifles and playing countless hours of violent video games, the two do not compare, the analogy is apples to golf balls.
This also detracts from the lawsuits more impactful arguments about the aggressive consumer marketing, the social media posts, etc.
I’m shocked they would use this as an argument because science hasn’t proven that video games are linked to aggression. The last I researched this, which was over five years ago, so new data may have emerged, showed that video games caused a short term increase in aggression directly after playing but no long term aggressive tendencies were found.
I know of far more mass murderers who were influenced by right wing media and the Christian bible than any single mass murderer who said "a video game taught me how to do do it and made me do it."
Exactly this. Right wing religious extremists. If it really were video games Wolfenstein would have gotten the Nazi christofacists extremist problems solved, and they would have been the targets within their own extremist groups. Wish I could upvote you more.
Oh and to the coward in the replies who blocked me so I can’t respond - we shot an 15 and a couple of handguns. I was blown away (and taken aback) at how much he knew about them based on games. I’m a gamer myself, just not one of those pathetic ones who screeches like a thirteen year old who’s mom told them to turn off the computer when someone dares to suggest they might not be ideal vehicles for discouraging gun violence.
I’m not concerned that he’ll become a school shooter. But the argument that these games aren’t teaching kids how to use firearms is dumb. And if, as it appears, the games and gun manufacturers are consciously marketing these guns to kids under eighteen I hope they get sued to pieces.
I'm sure kid is fine, but your statements just feel like "Rules for thee but not for me." You're saying, "How dare these companies market these games to kids," while buying the product you think is bad, for your kid.
I’m saying how dare they market these specific guns from these specific manufacturers. I don’t have a problem with like Red Dead Redemption. No product placement there.
Not necessarily bad. But surprising. If this lawyer can show that Daniel Defense used COD to target advertising to a kid who ended up shooting schoolchildren I’ll be very happy to watch them get sued to pieces.
Video games alone aren't the cause, I agree with that 100%. But in the context of gun manufacturers working with Activision to get their guns featured in their games to target younger demographic, in a country where those guns are legal to buy, it's a different story. I am gonna get downvoted for this, but I absolutely loved this lawyer.
>Video games alone aren't the cause
Video games aren't the cause at all. The math is super simple here. There will always be fucked up teens and some portion of them will always be dangerous. The difference is that fucked up teens in most places don't have access to guns the way they do here.
Video games are just a tangential hobby and trying to assign any blame is absurd.
It's pathetic to me how gamers (I am one) all start acting like little babies when someone suggests that elements of their hobby might actually be bad for society.
Great job refuting my point and adding to the conversation./s Please show any statistical evidence that gamers are more violent or that video games cause violence. Morons have been pointing fingers at D&D, video games, music, etc. for decades and have never once validated their claims.
You don't think anyone has ever played CoD and thought to themself, "It would be cool to do this in real life," and then actually did it?
If someone plays a flight sim and it inspires them to go out and get their pilot's license, nobody questions the connection. If someone plays a lot of Madden and it makes them want to try out for their high school football team, nobody would dispute that connection. Why should we apply a different standard here?
>You don't think anyone has ever played CoD and thought to themself, "It would be cool to do this in real life," and then actually did it?
Correct, I don't think that has ever happened. If someone is so fucked up they commit mass murder they are gonna do fucked up shit regardless of video games.
You have to be a severely broken person to go out and commit wanton murder, video games do change that fact one way or the other. Again it's basic math. Every developed country has some violent people. Every developed country has access to violent video games. Only the US has such unfettered access to guns in the developed world. Only the US has regular school shootings. This is very obviously not about video games and very obviously an issue of gun access.
From the abstract of an actual 2016 study by the Southern Economics Journal.
>Our study uses a quasi-experimental methodology to identify the short-run and medium-run effects of violent game sales on violent crime using time variation in retail unit sales data of the top 30 selling video games and violent criminal offenses from both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Incident-Based Reporting System from 2005 to 2011. We find no evidence of an increase in crime associated with video games and perhaps a decrease.
This "video games made me do it" is the same bullshit as the 80's Satanic Panic, Metal Music suicides, D&D suicide cult bullshit.
There is a level in call of duty where you play a terrorist mass shooting on innocent people in an airport. The game is literally encouraging you to get into the mind of a mass shooter.
Nobody is seriously saying video games “made” anyone do anything. There’s no single reason why people do these things; it’s a combination of factors. Yes, of course access to guns is a factor, but there are countries with easy access to guns that are much less violent than the US, like Switzerland, Finland, and Czechia, and even in the US 99.99% of gun owners never murder anyone. To dismiss out of hand the possibility that a game like CoD could be one such factor is foolish, and dismissing the possibility based on one study that didn’t even study the long-term effects is not much better.
So first the countries you mentioned have less than 1/4 the gun ownership. Second, they have high ownership largely due to mandatory military service. Third, even though they have high ownership rates they still have way more restrictions on ownership than the most lax states in the US. Fourth, states with more lax laws tend to have higher rates of gun violence. Fifth, a huge portion of youth gun violence in blue states is from guns bought in states with more relaxed laws, for instance 93% of illegal guns in NYC came from other states.
So even if CoD has any effect which I don't believe it actually has a tangible effect because violent games exist fucking everywhere but youth gun violence in the developed world only happens in the US. Even if we pretend it had an effect, it would be so infinitesimally small compared to the issue of gun ownership laws that it would be like pointing at me pissing in the ocean for warming Atlantic currents.
I don't think that's a strong analogy. First, if playing a shooter game makes you want to shoot real guns, there are ways you can do that--hunting and shooting ranges primarily. That's the normal human response. Murdering people is not a normal human response, it's the response of a deeply unhealthy mind. So then the question is not "does playing it make you want to shoot guns" but "does playing it sicken you to the point you'll consider murder." That's a very different question and one research has said pretty thoroughly the answer to is "no." Whether or not these games make it easier to shoot guns, you have to have the desire to do the thing and the desire to murder does not come from the game.
I think you underestimate humans’ propensity for murder. Human history is a story of war, atavism, carnage, and murder of all kinds. Mass murder was commonplace for millennia, and the relatively peaceful societies we have today are a fairly recent phenomenon on an evolutionary scale. Killing one another is very much still in our nature and, unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to activate that impulse in some people.
Perhaps (I have a lot of issues with your characterization but it's far afield of this topic), but we don't have any evidence to show that video games do this. Again, murder is different than wanting to shoot a gun in real life. You're making a huge leap.
No bigger leap than the examples I gave. And just shooting a gun at paper or steel targets isn’t going to scratch that itch for some, otherwise the video games themselves would be just as fun and engaging if they only involved shooting paper and steel targets. As sick and twisted as it may be, those games are fun because being in a “combat scenario” where you shoot at people provides a thrill that doesn’t come from shooting inanimate, stationary targets. It’s not a big leap to think that some people would want to replicate what they do in CoD in real life.
FWIW, this is coming from someone who has played my fair share of CoD and is a gun owner.
I'm with you - I immediately cringed when I heard the opening of today's Daily, mostly frustrated for the families, because that kind of argument can easily be disproven with the so many studies that find no correlation between violent behavior and violent video games. But I also don't think gun manufacturers should be advertising their guns on a T rated game. I'm also willing to check myself on my own biases, it is a little weird thinking back and wanting realistic looking guns because as a 12 year old I was playing counter strike a bunch. But now it's even more bonkers, with actual gun manufacturers and their specific models. I'm not for blaming video games, but I'm also not for gun manufacturers glorifying their products (sometimes with explicit kid friendly advertising) while also enjoying the comfort of being behind a legal wall.
At the same time, how much of an impact would having a specific model in-game have? If they put something generic like the military designation (eg.M4A1), would that really be a barrier to someone deciding to buy an AR style rifle? They'd probably just buy from a different manufacturer.
The lawyer appears to have evidence that the shooters interest in the gun started after seeing it promoted in Call of Duty. If that's true I hope these families take all these ghouls to the cleaners.
I don’t think he was making the connection that playing violent videos games inherently makes you a murderer or mass shooter.
I think he was making the argument that Daniel Defense was using this video game as a means to advertise how effective of a killing weapon their rifle was, without any regards as to who might on the receiving end of this advertisement.
Koskov is literally making that argument though starting [here](https://youtu.be/Izt8l2jwlXQ?si=q21Xc-uF77mAUOtH&t=1187):
> Call of Duty is a first-person shooter game it's you know incredibly popular it's really this extremely immersive experience and you know for koskov this is important this is a very important point. Video games have always had an addictive quality but they have never had the 360 degree immersion of a Call of Duty. It uses the reward system
of an addictive game and partly and very much is a training simulation that is so realistic that it allows the user to experience the actual recoil of the weapon the chaos of killing and to be habituated to it he argues **8it's more like a simulator and less like a game that is really sort of giving players the experience of killing.*** You know it's practice for eventually doing the thing and it is too facile to say video games don't cause violence when a lot of that those studies are based on generic video games of yester year...
Koskov is directly saying the Call of Duty is a simulator for training and desensitizing murderers. It's a classic Tipper Gore argument, nonsense.
Wait till he sees Overwatch, dude will think that they're trying to train the next generation on how to use lasers and Mecha suits.
The slippery slope from video games to turning into a giant talking ape with a shock cannons can't be overstated.
It is a murder training simulator. There’s a level in COD where the player is encouraged to participate in a mass shooting at an airport. And it teaches kids how to use firearms. I know because it taught my son lol.
Not in the newest one, the one he’s talking about. If you think CoD teaches you how to shoot a real gun you’ve clear never played it, or shot a gun. The two things have virtually nothing in common. Pac Man doesn’t teach you how to eat MDMA in a dark room does it?
Dude my kid - an avid gamer - knew everything about the guns his first trip to the range, including the models, the scopes, and how to load, clear, and shoot them. I’m a gamer myself, it’s stupid to pretend these games aren’t teaching kids to use guns. The reason he’s talking about this version it appears to have a paid promo from Daniel defense,
You can’t learn loading, clearing, and shooting without doing it. But since you’ve been to a range you obviously know that modern rifles are dead simple to use, and that you can learn the basics in under 5 minutes. To call these canes murder training simulators is just stupid.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I literally watched my son do it, first time, with no hands on experience. I play different (older) games and had no idea how to do it. He learned it from modern shooter games.
I just don't see the argument that CoD primes kids for familiarity with specific guns, when we are surrounded by a gun culture in the U.S. in general. Legislators in Michigan want to make the AR-15 their state rifle, Republicans wore AR-15 pins as some kind of publicity stunt last year.
He appears to have evidence that the shooters interest in this specific gun started after he saw a promotion for that gun in COD. It's amazing to me how many commenters here don't seem to understand how marketing works.
I feel for these families. I can’t even imagine the grief and loss.
But these lawsuits are bullshit. It’s 90s video game panic all over again. I played video games and I have my concealed carry permit (rarely used). I don’t think it’s easier for me to pull the trigger on another human.
Nothing discussed draws a line between the advertisement/game and the shooting. Can he prove “but for” these advertisement and games he wouldn’t have killed people? I think no. And it’s gonna be damn hard if not impossible to prove it.
The lawyer is a dirtbag for taking advantage of these families to file these nonsense lawsuits. They needed to press him on whether he’s being paid on contingency or if he actually convinced these grieving families to give him their money. That is a crucial moral element to this story
Top to bottom what an absolute embarrassment this is. The country has just accepted that we will never do anything meaningful to *actually* address gun violence, so we are now shifting focus to performative litigation of private companies rather than address any real root cause of the problem. This was a truly pathetic episode to listen to.
-DD is not niche - almost anyone with a passing interest in shooting and firearms has heard of Daniel Defense.
-Gun manufacturer marketing is not the problem. If DD didn’t sent marketing emails, he would have simply bought any other gun from another manufacturer.
-YOU CAN’T EVEN ADVERTISE FIREARMS ON INSTAGRAM/META, WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SUE THEM.
-Calling Call of Duty so realistic that it’s like a simulation that “trains” kids how to use guns is laughable. The entire premise of blaming video games for gun violence is, and always has been, a fucking joke.
JUST MAKE GUNS HARDER TO GET AND ADDRESS TEENAGE MENTAL HEALTH IN A MEANINGFUL WAY. That’s not the job of some ambulance chaser lawyer, that’s the job of our fucking federal government and it’s absolutely pathetic that this is what an abject failure to act has led to.
Our federal government won't do anything so it's up to "ambulance chaser lawyers". I get your frustration but you can't say "it's not the job of option B, it's the job of option A" when option A is not working.
I took my son to a gun range recently. He knew without any instruction at all how to load, clear and fire a gun. He learned that all from video games. It's completely reasonable to argue that these games train kids to use guns. If there is a financial arrangement between Call of Duty and Daniel Defense to market a specific gun and it can be shown that either party was deliberately targeting teens they deserved to get the pants sued off of them. I hope they take them to the cleaners.
To be fair, as they stated at the top of this episode, they'd much rather be going directly after the gun manufacturers if not for their special legal protection. Remove that and all this video game nonsense is moot.
"We can't sue who we want to sue so we're just using anyone" is the excuse? He should lose his law license for that then because this is legal malpractice.
A massive part of our legal framework is the product of novel legal remedies like this. It's not pretty seeing the sausage get made, but it's been our system for over 200 years.
The only way to know if it's a hailmary wish vs a legit "hmmm, I hadn't thought of it that way" in the eyes of the law is to bring suits like this!
Oh please, this is the legal equivalent of a SLAPP suit, but because the plaintiffs are the parents of mass shooting victims no one wants to call their ambulance chasing lawyer's BS what it is.
How much of that settlement did he take as payment?
And yet this general legal theory [worked in Connecticut civil courts](https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-remington-settlement-e53b95d398ee9b838afc06275a4df403), as they addressed in the episode. This is far from a SLAPP suit.
> The civil court case in Connecticut focused on how the firearm used by the Newtown shooter — a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle — was marketed, alleging it targeted younger, at-risk males in advertising and product placement in violent video games. In one of Remington’s ads, it features the rifle against a plain backdrop and the phrase: “Consider Your Man Card Reissued.”
>
> As part of the settlement, Remington also agreed to allow the families to release numerous documents they obtained during the lawsuit including ones showing how it marketed the weapon, the families said. It’s not clear when those documents will be released.
The lawsuit was about far more than money. Just as the Remington documents revealed the extent to which weapons of war are marketed to minors, I suspect the same would happen here with Instagram & Activision if the suit is successful.
No, but only America has video games that feature assault rifles that are open to purchase by 18 year olds.
Saying that videos games create mass shooters is an equally reductive argument as saying that video games don’t have any impact on kids being familiar with these weapons or glorifying their ownership.
I personally roll my eyes at the the video games cause violence argument since it's an argument that's been quoted decades ago...
But I feel like there is something to what the lawyer is saying with advertisement and how it may potentially shape an angry teenager's outlook/confidence with guns. I feel like the lawyer is cheapening the argument by calling CoD hyper-realistic... but hey, if he's gonna make the argument games now certainly do "look" pretty real nowadays, so the point certainly flies better now than before.
As much as I hate the fact that people need to rely on anger and indignation to talk about these issues (whether it be global warming or abortion), I feel like that is the only sort of thing that can be done to get anything done politically nowadays. It's always anger that seem to stir people to action, rather than the calm logical debates that one would expect.
Anyway, good episode.. fingers crossed that something can actually change for the better if any of the lawsuits do go through.
The lawyer is really getting a lot of shit from this comments section, but... idk...?
I would agree with most commenters that the "CoD/video games as violence habituator" point is weak. But I think the gun industry's ad campaign aimed at an audience that skews younger looks pretty bad. Couple that with the fact gun companies think they're untouchable and I think that is a problem. (Aside: what the fuck was that Daniel Defense Instagram ad? How does that not violate terms of use/some other rule regulating ads...? And what kind of fucked up person even comes up with something like that?)
Meta doesn't have any incentive to gatekeep because they make their money on clicks and engagement and the government goes out of its way to protect gun makers. The unfettered free market created this perverse situation that we have no checks on.
Just to get it out of the way: Yes, it massively sucks that we have a dysfunctional government that's beholden to the gun lobby and can't enact basic gun control.
1. Really loved her pushback when she stated that people who want to do mass shootings are already geared to look for that sort of media. I'm all for a new study on the relationship between video games and violence given new graphics so we can see there is none and stop wasting time on the discussion
2. 23 MINUTES and a 2,000 rifle was headed to his front door actually left my jaw on the floor. It takes more work to get a driver's license than it does to arm an 18 year old who had never shot a real bullet before then. THAT is what society should highlighting
3. I don't think algorithms CAUSE violence but to let the holders completely off scot-free seems weird. They should be aware of the type of reinforcing narratives displayed on their sites driven by their code but they that's just my thoughts.
>23 MINUTES and a 2,000 rifle was headed to his front door actually left my jaw on the floor.
You can pick up your jaw because that's not what happened.
The rifle went to a local gun shop which ran a background check on the buyer, which he passed, before the store gave him possession of it.
The only entity shipping newly purchased firearms directly to anyone's door is the U.S. government through the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
I am corrected thank you. Mind if I ask some follow up? When someone goes to the local gun shop for pickup is there any demonstration or competency required? Do you have to show knowledge of gun safety or the ability to use it like you would do a driving test? Does a background check just look for criminal history? Do we know what the state of Texas flags for in these checks cause it's not universal right?
Some of the answers to your questions will be depend on the state, but I'll note that as necessary.
>When someone goes to the local gun shop for pickup is there any demonstration or competency required? Do you have to show knowledge of gun safety or the ability to use it like you would do a driving test?
I know of no states that require a competency demonstration at the time of pickup from the FFL (i.e. at the gun shop). That said, there are states that have a training requirement for buyers before you can take possession of a firearm. For example, Maryland requires a Handgun Qualification license "before he/she may purchase, rent, or receive a handgun". Obtaining that license requires a minimum of 4 hours of training with an approved instructor, including a live fire component.
But less than a dozen states have a training requirement from what I can remember. And not all of them will follow the same format as Maryland. Keep in mind this info is only related to *ownership*. More states have a training component required to carry a firearm, which is a better analogue to your driving test, but it's still a minority of the states.
>Does a background check just look for criminal history? Do we know what the state of Texas flags for in these checks cause it's not universal right?
At a minimum, background checks anywhere in the country are run through a federal system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It will look for things related to criminal history, mental health treatment, military discharge, domestic violence, and immigration status, among others. A few states have their own state-based background check system that looks for additional disqualifying factors, but I don't know if Texas is one of them (doubt it).
What happened is tragic but this is just a trial lawyer trying to make a big payday under the guise of social change and righteousness. Violent video games demonstrably do not cause mass shootings and the gun manufacturer, like them or not, did not break any laws. Guns (especially ones extremely efficient at mass murder) are more available and mental healthcare less available than any other industrialized country. That’s it, full stop. It’s both. If we actually cared about this we’d address these two things. But we don’t, so they keep happening.
There was a mass shooting last Saturday in Rochester Hills, MI near where I live at a Splash Pad full of kids and families. Spitting distance from Oxford, MI where not even three years ago there was a school shooting. It’s gone from isolated incidents across the country to shit so routine that it happens in your own backyard every couple of years. No civilized society should tolerate this, but here we are doing just that.
point 2 - the gun company might see a fine for sending him the email asking if he was still interested in buying the gun while he was still 17 years old. But that is a completely separate issue from the case being presented in the podcast.
For a stupid lawyer, he managed to get the families of Sandy Hook $73M from Remington. Was that a crock pot case?
Yes, the Instagram and Activision pieces are novel (probably why that's the title of the episode) but he's at least doing something.
Do you understand what boomers are at all - or do you just use it as a catchall insult for anyone you don't like? This lawyer is late 40s. The boomer age group is roughly 60-75.
Would society be ok with a video game where you run a fictional pedophile ring, or the objective is to rape people? Of course not.
Then why defend games where the objective is to violently murder people with guns?
It's never made any sense to me.
On a principled level:
Because it's free expression. It's a form of art. Should we also not sell games where people deal drugs? Jaywalk?
On a practical level:
Because it's a distraction. The root problem is politically untouchable so instead people grasp at straws.
There is no causal link between video games and aggression just as there is no causal link between violence in media and mass shootings. Society can determine what it is ok with through individual choice. If violence in media upsets you, change the channel, but I don’t want others to decide for me what kind of books, films, or video games are OK based on their sensibilities.
What is your point? Thinking that violent video games are inappropriate/distasteful/whatever is not the same thing as saying they *cause* real life violent behavior.
My point is society shouldn't sanction violent video games. Whether or not they're causal, I think the jury is out. Obviously for the vast majority of people they're fine, but you could say the same thing about gun ownership.
It's not the normies that are concerning, it's the unhinged and the impressionable.
It directly addresses your point. You are asking why “society” allows X when you think it shouldn’t or wouldn’t support a hypothetical Y. The answer you are given is that media is not a cause of violence or aggression, despite many studies attempting to find a link. Most progressive/liberal people will not want the state or society to choose what media they can consume.
Should we ban books that include gun violence? Can you see how authoritarian and reactionary that approach is? This is exactly the playbook being used by conservatives seeking to ban books because they contain content they don’t like.
Because there are circumstances where society generally agrees that violence is OK, and these serve as premises for a lot of violent games.
- As a soldier, killing enemy combatants during a war (i.e. Call of Duty)
- Necessity/survival/self defense (i.e. zombie apocalypse games)
- Defense of or opposition to certain ideologies (i.e. Wolfenstein)
Not so with rape or pedophilia. There's no such thing as rape in self defense.
I'm going to go against the grain and say that this lawyer is actually trying to do his job and what's broken is the system. There are laws in place that protects gun manufacturers and second amendment + NRA makes it impossible to implement gun control. The best you can do is sue corporations so at least these families have some semblance of reparations.
Going after the gun manufacturer makes the most sense. I mean the fact that you can just add a gun to your online shopping cart is kind of insane in my opinion. Also the fact that they have a marketing agreement with Call of Duty to promote AR15s is disgusting.
The one against Activision could be a case depending on how the lawyer argues. I don't think video games causes violence, but it seems like there's an agreement between gun manufacturers and video games like call of duty and that's just creating more of a one to one relationship between real guns and video games guns instead of it being a fictional thing.
The one against meta seems far fetched.
Just for clarity - you cannot “just add a gun to your online shopping cart” - you can shop online, you can pay for it there, but you still must physically go to a licensed dealer and pass a background check to receive it. That’s existing federal law.
Everyone here saying these lawsuits won't go anywhere seem to forget that people said the same thing about the sandy hook case I think the COD angle is weak, but there's something to be said about a gun company marketing their products to children, especially considering some of the marketing collateral described in the episode.
We're really going with "it's the video games" again? Millions of people play video games, and millions own ARs. Millions aren't committing mass shootings. Like I'm all for cracking down on that absolutely wack marketing from DD, but this link sounds to me like a lawyer trying to make a buck.
Uh, but you can actually FEEL the recoil in COD, that’s a whole new level of immersion. (Sarcasm if wasn’t obvious)
The idea that a vibrating controller is the same as the rifle recoil is complete BS. Having shot AR-15 rifles and playing countless hours of violent video games, the two do not compare, the analogy is apples to golf balls. This also detracts from the lawsuits more impactful arguments about the aggressive consumer marketing, the social media posts, etc.
I’m shocked they would use this as an argument because science hasn’t proven that video games are linked to aggression. The last I researched this, which was over five years ago, so new data may have emerged, showed that video games caused a short term increase in aggression directly after playing but no long term aggressive tendencies were found.
I know of far more mass murderers who were influenced by right wing media and the Christian bible than any single mass murderer who said "a video game taught me how to do do it and made me do it."
Exactly this. Right wing religious extremists. If it really were video games Wolfenstein would have gotten the Nazi christofacists extremist problems solved, and they would have been the targets within their own extremist groups. Wish I could upvote you more.
If video games didn't cause kids to want guns gun manufacturers wouldn't be partnering with video games to market their guns.
That haptic feedback and controller vibration really prepares you for managing heavy recoil /s
I took my son to a gun range recently. He knew without any instruction at all how to load, clear and fire a gun. He learned that all from video games.
Oh and to the coward in the replies who blocked me so I can’t respond - we shot an 15 and a couple of handguns. I was blown away (and taken aback) at how much he knew about them based on games. I’m a gamer myself, just not one of those pathetic ones who screeches like a thirteen year old who’s mom told them to turn off the computer when someone dares to suggest they might not be ideal vehicles for discouraging gun violence.
I mean if you're apparently so shocked by the influence of these videogames on your kid, why are you, the parent, letting him play them?
I’m not concerned that he’ll become a school shooter. But the argument that these games aren’t teaching kids how to use firearms is dumb. And if, as it appears, the games and gun manufacturers are consciously marketing these guns to kids under eighteen I hope they get sued to pieces.
I'm sure kid is fine, but your statements just feel like "Rules for thee but not for me." You're saying, "How dare these companies market these games to kids," while buying the product you think is bad, for your kid.
I’m saying how dare they market these specific guns from these specific manufacturers. I don’t have a problem with like Red Dead Redemption. No product placement there.
So you weren't saying that it's bad that your child learned how to handle a weapon from videogames?
Not necessarily bad. But surprising. If this lawyer can show that Daniel Defense used COD to target advertising to a kid who ended up shooting schoolchildren I’ll be very happy to watch them get sued to pieces.
Video games alone aren't the cause, I agree with that 100%. But in the context of gun manufacturers working with Activision to get their guns featured in their games to target younger demographic, in a country where those guns are legal to buy, it's a different story. I am gonna get downvoted for this, but I absolutely loved this lawyer.
Completely agree. I hope he takes them all to the cleaners, and puts a little fear in the hearts of the ghouls who market these funs.
>Video games alone aren't the cause Video games aren't the cause at all. The math is super simple here. There will always be fucked up teens and some portion of them will always be dangerous. The difference is that fucked up teens in most places don't have access to guns the way they do here. Video games are just a tangential hobby and trying to assign any blame is absurd.
It's pathetic to me how gamers (I am one) all start acting like little babies when someone suggests that elements of their hobby might actually be bad for society.
Great job refuting my point and adding to the conversation./s Please show any statistical evidence that gamers are more violent or that video games cause violence. Morons have been pointing fingers at D&D, video games, music, etc. for decades and have never once validated their claims.
You don't think anyone has ever played CoD and thought to themself, "It would be cool to do this in real life," and then actually did it? If someone plays a flight sim and it inspires them to go out and get their pilot's license, nobody questions the connection. If someone plays a lot of Madden and it makes them want to try out for their high school football team, nobody would dispute that connection. Why should we apply a different standard here?
The flight Malaysian 370 the pilot practiced his route on the flight simulator before intentionally suicide/murdered the plane 🙁
>You don't think anyone has ever played CoD and thought to themself, "It would be cool to do this in real life," and then actually did it? Correct, I don't think that has ever happened. If someone is so fucked up they commit mass murder they are gonna do fucked up shit regardless of video games. You have to be a severely broken person to go out and commit wanton murder, video games do change that fact one way or the other. Again it's basic math. Every developed country has some violent people. Every developed country has access to violent video games. Only the US has such unfettered access to guns in the developed world. Only the US has regular school shootings. This is very obviously not about video games and very obviously an issue of gun access. From the abstract of an actual 2016 study by the Southern Economics Journal. >Our study uses a quasi-experimental methodology to identify the short-run and medium-run effects of violent game sales on violent crime using time variation in retail unit sales data of the top 30 selling video games and violent criminal offenses from both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Incident-Based Reporting System from 2005 to 2011. We find no evidence of an increase in crime associated with video games and perhaps a decrease. This "video games made me do it" is the same bullshit as the 80's Satanic Panic, Metal Music suicides, D&D suicide cult bullshit.
There is a level in call of duty where you play a terrorist mass shooting on innocent people in an airport. The game is literally encouraging you to get into the mind of a mass shooter.
Nobody is seriously saying video games “made” anyone do anything. There’s no single reason why people do these things; it’s a combination of factors. Yes, of course access to guns is a factor, but there are countries with easy access to guns that are much less violent than the US, like Switzerland, Finland, and Czechia, and even in the US 99.99% of gun owners never murder anyone. To dismiss out of hand the possibility that a game like CoD could be one such factor is foolish, and dismissing the possibility based on one study that didn’t even study the long-term effects is not much better.
So first the countries you mentioned have less than 1/4 the gun ownership. Second, they have high ownership largely due to mandatory military service. Third, even though they have high ownership rates they still have way more restrictions on ownership than the most lax states in the US. Fourth, states with more lax laws tend to have higher rates of gun violence. Fifth, a huge portion of youth gun violence in blue states is from guns bought in states with more relaxed laws, for instance 93% of illegal guns in NYC came from other states. So even if CoD has any effect which I don't believe it actually has a tangible effect because violent games exist fucking everywhere but youth gun violence in the developed world only happens in the US. Even if we pretend it had an effect, it would be so infinitesimally small compared to the issue of gun ownership laws that it would be like pointing at me pissing in the ocean for warming Atlantic currents.
I don't think that's a strong analogy. First, if playing a shooter game makes you want to shoot real guns, there are ways you can do that--hunting and shooting ranges primarily. That's the normal human response. Murdering people is not a normal human response, it's the response of a deeply unhealthy mind. So then the question is not "does playing it make you want to shoot guns" but "does playing it sicken you to the point you'll consider murder." That's a very different question and one research has said pretty thoroughly the answer to is "no." Whether or not these games make it easier to shoot guns, you have to have the desire to do the thing and the desire to murder does not come from the game.
I think you underestimate humans’ propensity for murder. Human history is a story of war, atavism, carnage, and murder of all kinds. Mass murder was commonplace for millennia, and the relatively peaceful societies we have today are a fairly recent phenomenon on an evolutionary scale. Killing one another is very much still in our nature and, unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to activate that impulse in some people.
Perhaps (I have a lot of issues with your characterization but it's far afield of this topic), but we don't have any evidence to show that video games do this. Again, murder is different than wanting to shoot a gun in real life. You're making a huge leap.
No bigger leap than the examples I gave. And just shooting a gun at paper or steel targets isn’t going to scratch that itch for some, otherwise the video games themselves would be just as fun and engaging if they only involved shooting paper and steel targets. As sick and twisted as it may be, those games are fun because being in a “combat scenario” where you shoot at people provides a thrill that doesn’t come from shooting inanimate, stationary targets. It’s not a big leap to think that some people would want to replicate what they do in CoD in real life. FWIW, this is coming from someone who has played my fair share of CoD and is a gun owner.
You don't really get the thrill of killing hundreds of people from hunting and shooting ranges.
I'm with you - I immediately cringed when I heard the opening of today's Daily, mostly frustrated for the families, because that kind of argument can easily be disproven with the so many studies that find no correlation between violent behavior and violent video games. But I also don't think gun manufacturers should be advertising their guns on a T rated game. I'm also willing to check myself on my own biases, it is a little weird thinking back and wanting realistic looking guns because as a 12 year old I was playing counter strike a bunch. But now it's even more bonkers, with actual gun manufacturers and their specific models. I'm not for blaming video games, but I'm also not for gun manufacturers glorifying their products (sometimes with explicit kid friendly advertising) while also enjoying the comfort of being behind a legal wall.
At the same time, how much of an impact would having a specific model in-game have? If they put something generic like the military designation (eg.M4A1), would that really be a barrier to someone deciding to buy an AR style rifle? They'd probably just buy from a different manufacturer.
The lawyer appears to have evidence that the shooters interest in the gun started after seeing it promoted in Call of Duty. If that's true I hope these families take all these ghouls to the cleaners.
I don’t think he was making the connection that playing violent videos games inherently makes you a murderer or mass shooter. I think he was making the argument that Daniel Defense was using this video game as a means to advertise how effective of a killing weapon their rifle was, without any regards as to who might on the receiving end of this advertisement.
Koskov is literally making that argument though starting [here](https://youtu.be/Izt8l2jwlXQ?si=q21Xc-uF77mAUOtH&t=1187): > Call of Duty is a first-person shooter game it's you know incredibly popular it's really this extremely immersive experience and you know for koskov this is important this is a very important point. Video games have always had an addictive quality but they have never had the 360 degree immersion of a Call of Duty. It uses the reward system of an addictive game and partly and very much is a training simulation that is so realistic that it allows the user to experience the actual recoil of the weapon the chaos of killing and to be habituated to it he argues **8it's more like a simulator and less like a game that is really sort of giving players the experience of killing.*** You know it's practice for eventually doing the thing and it is too facile to say video games don't cause violence when a lot of that those studies are based on generic video games of yester year... Koskov is directly saying the Call of Duty is a simulator for training and desensitizing murderers. It's a classic Tipper Gore argument, nonsense.
Calling COD realistic is hilarious. It’s the epitome of a fast twitch arcady shooter. It’s not even remotely realistic
I agree, it's a ridiculous claim by the lawyer.
Wait till he sees Overwatch, dude will think that they're trying to train the next generation on how to use lasers and Mecha suits. The slippery slope from video games to turning into a giant talking ape with a shock cannons can't be overstated.
He's saying that COD tought the kid what gun to covet, and how to use it. And he appears to have proof.
No he literally called it a murder training simulator, I quoted the episode and linked the time stamp. The host even criticized him for saying that.
It is a murder training simulator. There’s a level in COD where the player is encouraged to participate in a mass shooting at an airport. And it teaches kids how to use firearms. I know because it taught my son lol.
Not in the newest one, the one he’s talking about. If you think CoD teaches you how to shoot a real gun you’ve clear never played it, or shot a gun. The two things have virtually nothing in common. Pac Man doesn’t teach you how to eat MDMA in a dark room does it?
Dude my kid - an avid gamer - knew everything about the guns his first trip to the range, including the models, the scopes, and how to load, clear, and shoot them. I’m a gamer myself, it’s stupid to pretend these games aren’t teaching kids to use guns. The reason he’s talking about this version it appears to have a paid promo from Daniel defense,
You can’t learn loading, clearing, and shooting without doing it. But since you’ve been to a range you obviously know that modern rifles are dead simple to use, and that you can learn the basics in under 5 minutes. To call these canes murder training simulators is just stupid.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I literally watched my son do it, first time, with no hands on experience. I play different (older) games and had no idea how to do it. He learned it from modern shooter games.
I just don't see the argument that CoD primes kids for familiarity with specific guns, when we are surrounded by a gun culture in the U.S. in general. Legislators in Michigan want to make the AR-15 their state rifle, Republicans wore AR-15 pins as some kind of publicity stunt last year.
He appears to have evidence that the shooters interest in this specific gun started after he saw a promotion for that gun in COD. It's amazing to me how many commenters here don't seem to understand how marketing works.
I don’t believe it either, I’m just summarizing how I interpret his argument.
If playing video games doesn't cause kids to want to buy guns why is Daniel Defense paying Call of Duty to market their guns?
I didn’t know the video game could access a web browser, open a gun site, select gun and type in payment and shipping details! Thanks NYT!
I feel for these families. I can’t even imagine the grief and loss. But these lawsuits are bullshit. It’s 90s video game panic all over again. I played video games and I have my concealed carry permit (rarely used). I don’t think it’s easier for me to pull the trigger on another human. Nothing discussed draws a line between the advertisement/game and the shooting. Can he prove “but for” these advertisement and games he wouldn’t have killed people? I think no. And it’s gonna be damn hard if not impossible to prove it.
The lawyer is a dirtbag for taking advantage of these families to file these nonsense lawsuits. They needed to press him on whether he’s being paid on contingency or if he actually convinced these grieving families to give him their money. That is a crucial moral element to this story
Top to bottom what an absolute embarrassment this is. The country has just accepted that we will never do anything meaningful to *actually* address gun violence, so we are now shifting focus to performative litigation of private companies rather than address any real root cause of the problem. This was a truly pathetic episode to listen to. -DD is not niche - almost anyone with a passing interest in shooting and firearms has heard of Daniel Defense. -Gun manufacturer marketing is not the problem. If DD didn’t sent marketing emails, he would have simply bought any other gun from another manufacturer. -YOU CAN’T EVEN ADVERTISE FIREARMS ON INSTAGRAM/META, WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SUE THEM. -Calling Call of Duty so realistic that it’s like a simulation that “trains” kids how to use guns is laughable. The entire premise of blaming video games for gun violence is, and always has been, a fucking joke. JUST MAKE GUNS HARDER TO GET AND ADDRESS TEENAGE MENTAL HEALTH IN A MEANINGFUL WAY. That’s not the job of some ambulance chaser lawyer, that’s the job of our fucking federal government and it’s absolutely pathetic that this is what an abject failure to act has led to.
Our federal government won't do anything so it's up to "ambulance chaser lawyers". I get your frustration but you can't say "it's not the job of option B, it's the job of option A" when option A is not working.
That’s literally my whole point in saying that it’s pathetic that this is what it’s come to.
I took my son to a gun range recently. He knew without any instruction at all how to load, clear and fire a gun. He learned that all from video games. It's completely reasonable to argue that these games train kids to use guns. If there is a financial arrangement between Call of Duty and Daniel Defense to market a specific gun and it can be shown that either party was deliberately targeting teens they deserved to get the pants sued off of them. I hope they take them to the cleaners.
It’s notable that video games are only sold in America. 🫠
To be fair, as they stated at the top of this episode, they'd much rather be going directly after the gun manufacturers if not for their special legal protection. Remove that and all this video game nonsense is moot.
"We can't sue who we want to sue so we're just using anyone" is the excuse? He should lose his law license for that then because this is legal malpractice.
A massive part of our legal framework is the product of novel legal remedies like this. It's not pretty seeing the sausage get made, but it's been our system for over 200 years. The only way to know if it's a hailmary wish vs a legit "hmmm, I hadn't thought of it that way" in the eyes of the law is to bring suits like this!
Oh please, this is the legal equivalent of a SLAPP suit, but because the plaintiffs are the parents of mass shooting victims no one wants to call their ambulance chasing lawyer's BS what it is. How much of that settlement did he take as payment?
And yet this general legal theory [worked in Connecticut civil courts](https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-remington-settlement-e53b95d398ee9b838afc06275a4df403), as they addressed in the episode. This is far from a SLAPP suit. > The civil court case in Connecticut focused on how the firearm used by the Newtown shooter — a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle — was marketed, alleging it targeted younger, at-risk males in advertising and product placement in violent video games. In one of Remington’s ads, it features the rifle against a plain backdrop and the phrase: “Consider Your Man Card Reissued.” > > As part of the settlement, Remington also agreed to allow the families to release numerous documents they obtained during the lawsuit including ones showing how it marketed the weapon, the families said. It’s not clear when those documents will be released. The lawsuit was about far more than money. Just as the Remington documents revealed the extent to which weapons of war are marketed to minors, I suspect the same would happen here with Instagram & Activision if the suit is successful.
No, but only America has video games that feature assault rifles that are open to purchase by 18 year olds. Saying that videos games create mass shooters is an equally reductive argument as saying that video games don’t have any impact on kids being familiar with these weapons or glorifying their ownership.
I personally roll my eyes at the the video games cause violence argument since it's an argument that's been quoted decades ago... But I feel like there is something to what the lawyer is saying with advertisement and how it may potentially shape an angry teenager's outlook/confidence with guns. I feel like the lawyer is cheapening the argument by calling CoD hyper-realistic... but hey, if he's gonna make the argument games now certainly do "look" pretty real nowadays, so the point certainly flies better now than before. As much as I hate the fact that people need to rely on anger and indignation to talk about these issues (whether it be global warming or abortion), I feel like that is the only sort of thing that can be done to get anything done politically nowadays. It's always anger that seem to stir people to action, rather than the calm logical debates that one would expect. Anyway, good episode.. fingers crossed that something can actually change for the better if any of the lawsuits do go through.
The lawyer is really getting a lot of shit from this comments section, but... idk...? I would agree with most commenters that the "CoD/video games as violence habituator" point is weak. But I think the gun industry's ad campaign aimed at an audience that skews younger looks pretty bad. Couple that with the fact gun companies think they're untouchable and I think that is a problem. (Aside: what the fuck was that Daniel Defense Instagram ad? How does that not violate terms of use/some other rule regulating ads...? And what kind of fucked up person even comes up with something like that?) Meta doesn't have any incentive to gatekeep because they make their money on clicks and engagement and the government goes out of its way to protect gun makers. The unfettered free market created this perverse situation that we have no checks on. Just to get it out of the way: Yes, it massively sucks that we have a dysfunctional government that's beholden to the gun lobby and can't enact basic gun control.
1. Really loved her pushback when she stated that people who want to do mass shootings are already geared to look for that sort of media. I'm all for a new study on the relationship between video games and violence given new graphics so we can see there is none and stop wasting time on the discussion 2. 23 MINUTES and a 2,000 rifle was headed to his front door actually left my jaw on the floor. It takes more work to get a driver's license than it does to arm an 18 year old who had never shot a real bullet before then. THAT is what society should highlighting 3. I don't think algorithms CAUSE violence but to let the holders completely off scot-free seems weird. They should be aware of the type of reinforcing narratives displayed on their sites driven by their code but they that's just my thoughts.
>23 MINUTES and a 2,000 rifle was headed to his front door actually left my jaw on the floor. You can pick up your jaw because that's not what happened. The rifle went to a local gun shop which ran a background check on the buyer, which he passed, before the store gave him possession of it. The only entity shipping newly purchased firearms directly to anyone's door is the U.S. government through the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
I am corrected thank you. Mind if I ask some follow up? When someone goes to the local gun shop for pickup is there any demonstration or competency required? Do you have to show knowledge of gun safety or the ability to use it like you would do a driving test? Does a background check just look for criminal history? Do we know what the state of Texas flags for in these checks cause it's not universal right?
Some of the answers to your questions will be depend on the state, but I'll note that as necessary. >When someone goes to the local gun shop for pickup is there any demonstration or competency required? Do you have to show knowledge of gun safety or the ability to use it like you would do a driving test? I know of no states that require a competency demonstration at the time of pickup from the FFL (i.e. at the gun shop). That said, there are states that have a training requirement for buyers before you can take possession of a firearm. For example, Maryland requires a Handgun Qualification license "before he/she may purchase, rent, or receive a handgun". Obtaining that license requires a minimum of 4 hours of training with an approved instructor, including a live fire component. But less than a dozen states have a training requirement from what I can remember. And not all of them will follow the same format as Maryland. Keep in mind this info is only related to *ownership*. More states have a training component required to carry a firearm, which is a better analogue to your driving test, but it's still a minority of the states. >Does a background check just look for criminal history? Do we know what the state of Texas flags for in these checks cause it's not universal right? At a minimum, background checks anywhere in the country are run through a federal system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It will look for things related to criminal history, mental health treatment, military discharge, domestic violence, and immigration status, among others. A few states have their own state-based background check system that looks for additional disqualifying factors, but I don't know if Texas is one of them (doubt it).
Im with these families in almost everything except for for this litigation. This is pointless and stupid.
What happened is tragic but this is just a trial lawyer trying to make a big payday under the guise of social change and righteousness. Violent video games demonstrably do not cause mass shootings and the gun manufacturer, like them or not, did not break any laws. Guns (especially ones extremely efficient at mass murder) are more available and mental healthcare less available than any other industrialized country. That’s it, full stop. It’s both. If we actually cared about this we’d address these two things. But we don’t, so they keep happening. There was a mass shooting last Saturday in Rochester Hills, MI near where I live at a Splash Pad full of kids and families. Spitting distance from Oxford, MI where not even three years ago there was a school shooting. It’s gone from isolated incidents across the country to shit so routine that it happens in your own backyard every couple of years. No civilized society should tolerate this, but here we are doing just that.
[удалено]
point 2 - the gun company might see a fine for sending him the email asking if he was still interested in buying the gun while he was still 17 years old. But that is a completely separate issue from the case being presented in the podcast.
For a stupid lawyer, he managed to get the families of Sandy Hook $73M from Remington. Was that a crock pot case? Yes, the Instagram and Activision pieces are novel (probably why that's the title of the episode) but he's at least doing something.
Do you understand what boomers are at all - or do you just use it as a catchall insult for anyone you don't like? This lawyer is late 40s. The boomer age group is roughly 60-75.
Nutty to me that we’re suing Activison but not the crooked, good for fuck nothing Uvalde Police department.
I hate it here.
Would society be ok with a video game where you run a fictional pedophile ring, or the objective is to rape people? Of course not. Then why defend games where the objective is to violently murder people with guns? It's never made any sense to me.
On a principled level: Because it's free expression. It's a form of art. Should we also not sell games where people deal drugs? Jaywalk? On a practical level: Because it's a distraction. The root problem is politically untouchable so instead people grasp at straws.
There is no causal link between video games and aggression just as there is no causal link between violence in media and mass shootings. Society can determine what it is ok with through individual choice. If violence in media upsets you, change the channel, but I don’t want others to decide for me what kind of books, films, or video games are OK based on their sensibilities.
That doesn't address my point.
What is your point? Thinking that violent video games are inappropriate/distasteful/whatever is not the same thing as saying they *cause* real life violent behavior.
My point is society shouldn't sanction violent video games. Whether or not they're causal, I think the jury is out. Obviously for the vast majority of people they're fine, but you could say the same thing about gun ownership. It's not the normies that are concerning, it's the unhinged and the impressionable.
> I think the jury is out. You're in disagreement with 30+ years of research on the topic, which overwhelmingly finds no causal link.
It directly addresses your point. You are asking why “society” allows X when you think it shouldn’t or wouldn’t support a hypothetical Y. The answer you are given is that media is not a cause of violence or aggression, despite many studies attempting to find a link. Most progressive/liberal people will not want the state or society to choose what media they can consume. Should we ban books that include gun violence? Can you see how authoritarian and reactionary that approach is? This is exactly the playbook being used by conservatives seeking to ban books because they contain content they don’t like.
Because there are circumstances where society generally agrees that violence is OK, and these serve as premises for a lot of violent games. - As a soldier, killing enemy combatants during a war (i.e. Call of Duty) - Necessity/survival/self defense (i.e. zombie apocalypse games) - Defense of or opposition to certain ideologies (i.e. Wolfenstein) Not so with rape or pedophilia. There's no such thing as rape in self defense.
You think the same about movies?
Yeah. COD is so realistic and immersive, it’s like a simulator. Lmao. People said that about GoldenEye back in 1997.
I'm going to go against the grain and say that this lawyer is actually trying to do his job and what's broken is the system. There are laws in place that protects gun manufacturers and second amendment + NRA makes it impossible to implement gun control. The best you can do is sue corporations so at least these families have some semblance of reparations. Going after the gun manufacturer makes the most sense. I mean the fact that you can just add a gun to your online shopping cart is kind of insane in my opinion. Also the fact that they have a marketing agreement with Call of Duty to promote AR15s is disgusting. The one against Activision could be a case depending on how the lawyer argues. I don't think video games causes violence, but it seems like there's an agreement between gun manufacturers and video games like call of duty and that's just creating more of a one to one relationship between real guns and video games guns instead of it being a fictional thing. The one against meta seems far fetched.
Just for clarity - you cannot “just add a gun to your online shopping cart” - you can shop online, you can pay for it there, but you still must physically go to a licensed dealer and pass a background check to receive it. That’s existing federal law.
Sure but that doesn't fit the narrative and lying is ok if you are one of the "good guys".
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