Oh, the HUMANITY !!!
Me, I was always taught not to taunt angry dogs, or aggravate bullies who have good left hooks, or make faces at teachers who were mad at me for not turning in my homework. Thus I think the National Rifle Association may have been, if not foolish, needlessly provocative by choosing this moment in time to tweak its intractable and largely unhinged opposition by releasing a new smart phone app for iPhones and iPads, a 3D shooting range game.
Nevertheless, there is nothing unethical about it. This is a classic example of the ick factor at work. (The ick factor is the common phenomenon in which conduct that is unusual,strange, new, surprising or shocking are seen by many as unethical, when in fact they are just unusual, strange,new, surprising or shocking.)
Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy had a predictable reaction. “How dumb can you get?” he foamed. “How insulting can you be? How outrageous can your behavior be? How tone deaf can you be?” Yet the NRA has no obligation to withhold products its members or other shooting enthusiasts would want, use or enjoy because those who don’t want, use, or enjoy them are offended by their very existence. It’s a shooting range game, on an iPhone screen. By no rational definition is this an insult or outrageous. It is arguably unwise, because the gun opponents are demonstrably hysterical. That does not make the NRA’s app unethical.
Over on the Legal Ethics Forum, for example, the usually astute and reasonable Richard Painter notes ominously that the targets in the game are “shaped like people”(though they lack faces, heads, arms, legs, waists or torsos), and writes ruefully, “Its too late for Christmas, but keep this game in mind next year for the children who are still around.” Yes, a Sandy Hook child-slaughter epidemic surely beckons if iPhone users are encouraged to fire pixels at inch-high oblong shapes. “It strikes me that this is totally inappropriate,” George Ferguson, a member of the Newtown Legislative Council, told CNN. Ferguson also said he had not seen the game. If he hasn’t seen the game, what exactly does he think is inappropriate? CNN, meanwhile, as well as other news media, covered the app release while making a point of quoting NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s statement a week after the slayings that “There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people, through vicious, violent video games.” The comment isn’t relevant to the game. The game isn’t violent, vicious or bloody: it simulates a shooting range.
As this controversy rages, an anonymous computer game developer has released a violent video game online called, “Bullet to the Head of the NRA,” allowing players to shoot the president of the National Rifle Association. As far as I can determine, neither Richard Painter, nor George Fergusen, nor any of the other critics of the NRA have expressed disapproval of this diversion.
Maybe the NRA’s timing of its app isn’t so rash after all. The over-heated reaction to the game shows that its is the idea of guns, not just gun violence, that many of the post-Sandy Hook reform zealots loathe and fear, along with the NRA itself.
_______________________________
Pointer: Legal Ethics Forum
Sources: Daily Caller, CNN, 1o News
Graphic: NRA
Ethics Alarms 
How very interesting. I have loved every one of your posts since I started following. What an interesting blog.
Can’t say I always agree, but I do more times than not.
I hope you keep this up for a good long time.
What I see here is the NRA being hypocritical. Didn’t LaPierre complain about violent video games as the root of the evil not a month ago?
As I said, though, there is nothing violent about the game, or a shooting gallery. “Angry Birds” is more violent. It’s only violent if one regards shooting at targets as violent.
It’s only violent if one regards shooting at targets as violent.
Usage of guns is, by definition, violent. Pretending otherwise is an attempt to bastardize reality.
I think that’s nuts, to be blunt. Shooting a bow and arrow at a target is violent, or just guns? Which of these definitions of violent match firing a gun at a target, never mind operating an electronic device that portrays a graphic gun firing pixels at an imaginary target:
vi·o·lent
[vahy-uh-luh nt] Show IPA
adjective
1.acting with or characterized by uncontrolled, strong, rough force: a violent earthquake.
2.caused by injurious or destructive force: a violent death.
3.intense in force, effect, etc.; severe; extreme: violent pain; violent cold.
4.roughly or immoderately vehement or ardent: violent passions.
5.furious in impetuosity, energy, etc.: violent haste.
In any event, all this means is that YOU would be hypocritical in the NRA’s position. Since the NRA and its members don’t think firing a gun at a target is violence (and neither do I, since it’s NOT), they wouldn’t be hypocritical.
I’d go with 3. If you don’t think there’s intense force in shooting a gun, I’m not sure what force would be considered intense. 2 could apply in reference to the targets.
I’d also take Merriam-Webster over reference.com, as that, most common meaning, comes first.
Definition of VIOLENT
1
: marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity
2
a : notably furious or vehement
b : extreme, intense
3
: caused by force : not natural
4
a : emotionally agitated to the point of loss of self-control
b : prone to commit acts of violence
Instead of hypocritical, the NRA (and you) are just denying common word usage. Much better.
I’m sorry tgt, but that is just insane.
The “forceful/furious/vehement” definition of violent that you are invoking is not in play here. It is for sentences like, “tgt violently opposes shooting ranges.” It is not the correct discription for “violence”, as in causing physical harm.
Karate classes are forceful. Horses running are forceful. Crashing waves are forceful. All of these are “violent,” in the same way that shooting ranges are violent. The NRA, whatever you feel about them, are consistent. They do not endorse shooting people (other than in self-defense), they don’t like violent video games (of which this is not one), and they don’t glorify shooting of people (as Hollywood often does.)
I have to assume that you understand this, and are just using awful semantic arguments and butchering English so as not to give an inch in your argument.
A shooting range still isn’t violent, even if a gun discharges “violently”.
The first paragraph is one giant strawman. I didn’t back the vehement/furious definition as applying.
For the rest of the argument, you’re still in strawman territory, but of a subtler shade. This is willful destruction for the sake of destruction. It’s not akin to horseriding in the least.
This game absolutely glorifies violence. It doesn’t glorify violence against people, but I haven’t claimed that it does.
In a shooting range, people use extreme and excessive force to tear up things for sake of using extreme force to destroy things. In mobile game form, you can’t even try the “practice” dodge. If this isn’t violent, then the term has no meaning.
I shoot paper targets all the time. Am I violent?
As the definition is applied to games, yes. This is a case where the NRA is getting hoisted on their own petard.
“As the definition is applied to games, yes”
Nice way to evade the question.
An ETHICAL answer might have been: “Yes, Bill, you are a violent person for poking holes in paper, be that real paper or virtual paper”.
I answered as I did so to be nice. I did not dodge the question; I was trying to point out the error in your implication without calling you out directly.
Your question is built on equivocation over the word violent and an improper assumption of the transitive property. Someone who does something violent (marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity) is not necessarily a traditionally violent person (emotionally agitated to the point of loss of self-control)
You want a direct answer? Here it is:
Yes, you are a violent person, in the sense that you are someone who does violent things, but no, you are not necessarily a violent person, in the sense that you are are dangerous. Your clear attempt to confuse the two meanings shows that you’re not arguing in good faith.
In other words, everyone who sneezes is a violent person.
As long as we are going to be pharisaic and unusually “hair-split-ish” about definitions when we need to un-paint ourselves from corners.
Not that this is totally relevant, or even logical or accurate, but I did see an interesting sign yesterday, which said “I can hardly wait to be lectured about gun safety by an Administration that transferred guns to the Mexican drug cartels.”
And some were assault rifles. Still laughing.
Truly selective judgement here. The “ick factor” would barely be present at all if not for the NRA being behind this.
This looks like the tamest video game I’ve ever seen. Think about it: you are virtually firing a gun AT A RANGE, at non-human shaped targets. Firing a gun at a target is not an act of violence in itself, even if the tool involved could be used for violence. Most video games have you shooting at human or monster targets, not just stationary sheets of cardboard. Laser tag and paintball have you shoot at actual living people, and in the case of paintball, with a real projectile.
This is so far down the list of offensive things it merits zero attention. This is a lot of feigned outrage, generated simply for the crime of mentioning guns in a non-negative manner post-Sandy Hook.
Well remember, the ick factor is completely subjective. Many of these people find guns inherently “icky.”
“The “ick factor” would barely be present at all if not for the NRA being behind this”
Good thing it actually wasn’t, then.
The NRA had nothing to do with the creation, selling, or any other part of this app. Its name is used by the creators without permission.
Really? I can’t find any authority for that—not that it changes anything in the post.
If this game is violent, then what I did to the carrots I prepared for dinner is truly reprehensible!
Only if you assume all violence is reprehensible.
Is the accompanying graphic (targets roughly shaped like human beings with a head and heart indicated in red) from the actual game?
Yes. “Roughly” is the operative word.
Roughly, but only because of the squared lines. Clearly there is a head and heart. I don’t think there is any denying that this is a human representation no matter its abstractness.
The game designers could have used targets the circular variety with a red bullseye. Instead they chose to use a target that is anthropomorphic. By doing so, they left the door open for criticism.
So the question is this: Do you consider the simulated projection of deadly force against a human-shaped target to be a violent act?
I submit that the more human the target appears, the more violent the act becomes.
I submit that the violence level doesn’t change, just our value judgment of the act.
You know, I almost worded it that way, but I shorted the sentence and lost that part of the meaning. You’ve rightly noted the subjectivity of it. Thx.