Trigger Happy
motivated to kill by their experience of playing that game; they are ordered to do so by their superiors.
Fencing, of course, is a sport whose kinetic form is derived from a long, bloodthirsty history of actual sword fighting, combat and duels. But we class it as a morally neutral sport because its content is nonviolent: the risk of injury is very low (far lower than with boxing), and the intent of the fencer is not to kill or maim but simply to win. The same is true of videogames. When I am playing Time Crisis 2 or Perfect Dark, my intent is not to kill. For there is nothing to kill; there are only patterns of light on the screen. Similarly, the consequences of my actions have no moral content either, because no one dies.
So to blame videogames directly for childhood violence is absurd, unless one is prepared also to legislate against laser tag, paintball, martial arts and even
On the other hand, videogames may be one of a complex of causal factors, any one of which in isolation does not produce a killer but which in combination become lethal. Clearly, for instance,
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