Video game violence has always been a controversy, and at the center of the controversy is usually one of the most violent video games released, Grand Theft Auto. With the recent release of GTA 5, the controversy has started back up once again.

GTA 5 has its fair share of violence such as robbing banks, running people over with cars, and other crazy and violent things. Games much like GTA have been banned from countries before, but surprisingly only Saudi Arabia has banned GTA so far.

Most parents are upset that this game condones so much violence, believing it to cause their children to become just as violent.

I personally believe that the games do not make a child into the violent criminal that so many parents and protesters have come to believe it makes them into.

GTA is just the main target of the group attacking these games, and I believe it is wrong to blame the games and the creators for the outbreak of violence occurring all over the world. Games do not train people to kill, nor does it give them the idea to do violent crimes since it is “Ok” in a video game.

People who blame video games on their crimes are simply people who are not fit mentally, and used the game as an excuse for their crime. Then there are people who believe that the games are doing this to everyone, and demand that these games are banned since they are “making everyone into violent criminals.”

This is not the case. People who do this are holding up an extremist from a group and using him as an example. They  are blaming the group for the actions of the extremist. It’s wrong to convict a entire group of people for the actions of an extremist.

But games like GTA do desensitize peoplel. A lot of people who play video games are very calm when it comes to extreme violence now. This is not a good thing either, and its disturbing to a degree to see how many people talk about getting a “360 headshot’ or anything like that.

Overall, all I can say is that while yes, video games do desensitize kids who play them to violence, it is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. I think that the excitement over video games causing violent crimes is over exaggerated, and needs to cool down.