Pixels Make People Killy

I am tired of hearing people harp on about how video games are responsible for the violence in modern society. There are two issues I have with this line of thought.

Firstly, and most obviously, is the fact that video games have been around for a very short period of time in the span of human history. War, amazingly, has been around much longer. And its bloodiest episodes existed long before Punchout on the Nintendo Entertainment System had even been thought of. Back in 1206AD, Genghis Khan wasn't standing in his house in Mongolia playing the Final Fight arcade machine, only to run out of credits and decide that the best way to vent his pent-up aggression was by charging across the planet conquering nations, killing an estimated 40 million people in the process: he went out and did it because he wanted to build an empire - not because he wanted extra coins so he could come home with enough money to defeat the Mad Gear gang.

Secondly, and most obviously, is the ratio of Psychopathic Murderers Inspired to Kill by Video Games to Psycopathic Murderers Not Inspired to Kill by Video Games. I'm not too hot on the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that amongst the thousands of murders committed each year there can't be more than 0.001% of those cases in which an individual was found to be guilty of the unlawful killing of a turtle because 'Mario told me to do it.'

I'm not going to bother with a Thirdly. Or another Most Obviously.

I don't need to.