When you need to rant...

[charlietheowl]

I think that the biggest problem with anti-any type of media campaigns, whether violence, sex, drugs, anything, is that they neglect the idea that all people are going to have different reactions to media. You cannot paint over an entire group and say "they're going to act like this after seeing Y". People are wired differently and will therefore act differently.

 

[Drtooth]

People who have mental problems with fiction and reality can have problems with any work of fiction. The old "putting on a towel and flying like Superman" bit, though I never heard of any story of that ever happening. And sure, kids like to play what they saw on TV, which is basically the same instinct as someone poorly rehashing a gag from something they saw last night at the watercooler. That's not quite imitating TV out of lack of reality, that's goofing off and having fun. Remember what happened with Beavis and Butt-head? One dumb trailer park kid sets something on fire, someone blames it on the show, and all the sudden, two characters who were never considered role models and created for an older audience are the worst things ever for children when children were never supposed to see them anyway.

The more I look at fiction, especially children's fiction, I still don't see why we need censorship of those guns. Super Heroes and good guys rarely use them (exception to the rule being Lucky Luke, but that's not something American kids can access easily), and gun violence is usually the use of force for either the law enforcement, or most likely the villain. Deep down, most fictitious media has a moral code, not so much out of pushing an agenda, but rather cliches are cliches for a reason and it's all about favorable storytelling. You have to let the good guys win (in certain media) because that's how we're programmed to be optimistic. If nothing else, it's escapism for the hopeless. Good guys always set a clear good example. Bad guys and characters the kids aren't supposed to emulate (out of fears that they'll go off the wrong path) are seen doing bad things, but usually getting some comeuppance. Heck, Beavis and Butt-Head get beaten up all the time. Who wants to be like that?

 

[CensoredAlso]

Explain to me this. How is going after illegal dealers and gigantic weaponry that you only need for combat which is specifically manufactured to kill as many people as possible going to hurt the responsible?

Like I said, I don't expect the government to be that fair. They have their own biases.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I've heard that some place in Connecticut now wants people to turn in violent video games in the same way as guns.

Glad to see they're taking this seriously.

 

[Drtooth]

Like I said, I don't expect the government to be that fair. They have their own biases.

You mean that's stopped them before?

I don't really trust self regulation either, but I will applaud this story I heard.

There were to be 4 Gun shows this weekend within a 50 mile radius of the school shooting. All parties decided it was in their best interest to cancel those shows out of respect. Another gun show, over 125 miles away was asked nicely by local law enforcement not to show military grade weapons and high capacity magazines and complied. That means there's a thin chance of hope. All they need to do is abandon the NRA and come up with a more sane alternative, and we'll finally have the gun culture we should. The biggest threat to responsible gun owners isn't the government or mass murders. The biggest threat are the irresponsible wack jobs that hide behing the responsible ones, thus making the responsible ones look crazy.

It's all about who you associate with.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Gun shows happen all the time, the overwhelming majority aren't crazies. How does cancelling the shows save anyone?

 

[MrsPepper]

The dichotomy of the tone from the first page and the current page is astonishing.

 

[D'Snowth]

When TV shows are put on DVD RIGHT AFTER THEY JUST STARTED!

It's really a senseless thing to do! If a new show or a new season JUST started, and the show is still being aired on TV on a regular basis, people aren't going to be in any kind of a big hurry to get any DVDs, because they can see on TV whenever they want to... and even if they DO go ahead and get the DVDs right then and there, it's usually because they want the special features, and don't really care about the program content itself.

Give people a chance to actually WANT these sets before you actually release them! And people wonder why DVD sales aren't so good, between only releasing compilation sets with only six episodes of series that people DO want to see on DVD, and releasing season sets of shows that are already on TV so often they don't want them...

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Not true...

Dan Vs fans were demanding season 1 to be released on DVD while season 1 was still airing...and all that demanding did pay off XD

 

[Drtooth]

Gun shows happen all the time, the overwhelming majority aren't crazies. How does cancelling the shows save anyone?

It would be in poor taste, they did it out of respect. That shows restraint. The government didn't shut them down, it was a respectable self made decision. That is a level of wearing Twin Towers T-shirts ironically poor taste if they didn't. It wasn't some yahoo blowing his head off accidentally, it was a large scale mass murder. They might as well have a sign out front that says "SEE the very same gun the killer used to murder your child!" If they put those things on, there would be massive protests. I don't see why once again it's time to hide against the "gun owners aren't crazy" argument. No one was ever going after the supposed sane ones. That's just NRA paranoia. Wackjobs that think we need high capacity magazines because of some cartoonish apocalypse fantasy spouted out by some partisan hack on the other hand...

Besides...5 gun shows in a single state in a weekened? They don't have that many comic conventions in a single state that many times a year. That proves that there's something wrong with gun culture if they need that many shows in a weekend.

When TV shows are put on DVD RIGHT AFTER THEY JUST STARTED!

Shows on cable for one thing. It's cheaper to buy a season set of a cable show than it is to get cable.

Plus, let's face it. You know why so many old shows take so long to get on DVD? Rights. Can you imagine the hoops Glee is going to have to jump through in 20 years with all those songs? I'm no fan of the show, but I feel deeply sorry for whoever has to scramble through that mess.

But let me add to that rant. When they do it with a current cartoon series, they do it in such a way that they put out 5 episodes at a time instead of waiting and putting a multidisk season (or half season, since 13 episodes used to be a season anyway). There are 5 Adventure Time DVD's out there. Only 1 is a season set. That was 3 DVD sets in. Then it was followed by another crummy single disk release. Nick's pulling the same crap with the new TMNT. They don't put out 5 episodes of 2.5 Men every couple months, I expect the same thing with cartoons.