The news reports on those things - it doesn't show them to you in graphic detail. Very, very big difference. It doesn't give you a moment-by-moment breakdown of a suicide bomb attack video - complete with pointing out of flying limbs and body parts.

No, I've seen the footage of similar events, and while it's horrible, it's not graphic, intense violence. The 9/11 footage, for example, could be explained to a child who had seen it in a way that made them unafraid - some of the kills in Manhunt, however, couldn't simply because games try and present as realistic a vision as possible.
I've seen footage of terrorist bombings - usually the moments leading up to it are all that is visible, the rest is dust. If they went back and showed you people lying in pieces, zooming in on the carnage and taking a moment to read the 'tally' of kills, counting severed limbs and the like, you'd have a point.
Comparing the footage visible on publically accessible, prime time News programs to the violence in Video Games is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. Telling someone something horrible happened isn't the same as letting them act out that horrible act in graphic detail.

Thats you, and to be honest me, grown adults capable of making the distinction; if an eight year old played the same games we do, would they say the same thing?

Agreed with the guy above.

My favorite book when I was 4 or 5 (and yes I could read then due to being read to every night and private schooling) was "Jack the Giant Killer".

I know you're thinking of the mickey mouse version now, it wasn't like that at all... It showed 2 giants with nooses around their necks pulling against each other because it was the same rope thrown over high point. A pit with spikes at the bottom with a giant falling down about to hit it.

My favorite though? He goes to breakfast after spending the night at a giants castle, he survives an attempt by the giant to kill him by replacing logs under his covers the night before, and he has a pouch under his shirt. Jack tells the giant he's unkillable, and after drinking all his cereal (actually pouring it into the pouch under his shirt) he takes a knife and slashes his shirt and pouch open.

The picture is of him with a knife slashing his own body open, the cereal pouring out of his now cut shirt and pouch. The page opposite that picture is the giant trying to out-do Jack with knife in hand and raised high about to plunge it into his own gut.

When I was 9 years old through 11 years old my favorite genre was horror movies. I laughed and laughed. They were my comedy. This is why I no longer like most horror movies... they're for kids. (over 8)

I've had access to quite a few guns because of my brother who was a U.S. Marine and gun lover (deceased now and all guns gone away sadly) and I was not by any description a popular person in high-school. I never shot up a school, or w/e. When I see pictures like the ones from the torture by my government (USA) showing a  2 foot wide and 5 foot long bloody streak on the ground (shown on the TV news) I feel literally sick to stomache. Clearly I wasn't "desensitized to violence" or any other of the nonsense the controlers want people to believe.

The bad parenting isn't letting kids watch / play violent movies /games... it's not explaining things.

IMO if you haven't instilled a good, for lack of a better word, "moral" foundation by 8 years old... you've lost the chance to and your kids won't learn them.

From 8-12 you need to give them more and more freedom of what they watch/play and give GUIDANCE (The "G" in PG and PG13) on what they are seeing.

13+ They can and should make their own decisions on media they intake. They are still too young to make adult legal decisions, but by that age they have earned the right to free speech or you have raised them as slaves or psychopathic nazi's / killers. Both are equally bad but I'd take psycho's over sheep any day, at least they know what they want and have their own ideas and agendas.

More and more governments take away rights and treat adults like 5 year olds. We need to treat adults like adults and treat kids like what they are: ignorant people who need older people to teach them instead of keeping them ignorant and compliant. You don't solve ignorance with ignorance, you solve with knowledge.

Hope I wasn't too terribly preachy.

Hold on....I'm ACTUALLY DUKE NUKEM?!!?

AWESOME, COME GET SOME!!!

I believe this is a statement from from someone who lacks the subtle form of insanity known as "imagination".

Yes, people do get more emotions from the interactive-ness of video games over movies, but until we start using holodecks or VR helmets it's not really that different and setting videogames as "special" media to be specially enforced is the dead end.

When we do get holodecks or VR helms then, and only then. will we have to worry about becoming Edward Furlong (John Conner from Terminator 2) in that movie where he plays a VR game as a serial killer and then becomes one in real life, or maybe he just thinks he is. I forget which, I need to watch that movie again, except I forget what it's called.

While we're on the subject... why does the government allow children to dream? In dreams kids can fly, kill, use magic, talk to animals, become the flame on top of a candle with no consequences. Dreams are not only ultimately interactive, but you can see, hear, feel, taste and smell in them and any other senses your mind cares to dream up. Dangerous... they aren't just experiencing being the protagonist from a seperate interaction via a controller and TV...you literally are the one the interaction is all about.

Scary. The government should ban dreams for Adults Only and give kids drugs that puts them to sleep dreamlessly every single night from ages 1 day old to 18 years old!

That is all in jest and mockery of course, I would never truly suggest taking dreams away from people. I serve the Dream King as my patron deity while giving thanks to the deities of knowledge and books such as Thoth.

the only reason video games are perceived to be more dangerous than TV, to young children, is because of the news itself.

the news has created this problem that video games are bad for children because "it is the fastest growing illness of the 21st century" and "internet addiction, blah blah blah" im sorry, but thats total bullshit.

look how they perceived it in this interview: