*Casually scrolls through topic*
Wait, did this turn into an actual discussion?
First off, forms of violence exist everywhere. Football, Boxing, Slasher Movies, etc. are about every bit as violent as video games. If I see Jason merrily running about and murdering a few unwitting teens, I'm not going to be tempted to do same. That said, the media does have an effect on people, but this is assuming every human being in the world is a drooling moron. Yes, there are stupid people, but even the ones with minimal intelligence understand the dangers of violence, murder, and illegal activity.
Video games are a gateway towards fantasy - the key word being fantasy. Oh sure, we have photo-realistic-uber-gritty-epic-omgsauce-adult games that dimwitted parents label as "murder simulators", but they're not real. (Besides, murder, I would assume, is much more complicated than the press of a button) Furthermore, if we're going to blame video games as the bane of all evil in the world, then everything else is just as culpable. Anything can be learned from the internet nowadays with a simple Google search, even something as grotesque as at-home bomb construction. Are we going to run around in circles and extinguish the internet? No.
But remember that one kid that one time that did the one thing with that one gun to his parents? That was because his video game was taken away!
- No, that was because he was addicted, dependent, and most likely suffering from social anxiety or something. His parents didn't regulate his time on video games, assess his maturity for playing violent games, or simply think that their kid might be crazy. Some people are crazy by design, or, have a lot more emotional baggage than alluded to. (I.E Suicide victims? Psychotic murderers?)
Hell, let's take a gander at the real world since this is what eveything is applying towards apparently. Flip to the news channel and actual muders are carried out by actual people daily. Do I say to myself: "Hey look at the plan that guy used to kill someone! Man I should totally do that!" No, because violence is wrong. The same could be said for racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. Just because one person does something doesn't mean I'm guaranteed to do the same.
The reason video games might be the source of violence are because they're a material good. People kill for money, people bash each others heads in over their favorite sports teams, people corrupt the government for power. It's not the content of video games that's, for the most part, bad, it's the idea of entertainment being taken away from you and/or being used as a scapegoat for emotional conflict.
The amount a person is influenced by media comes from their self-control and maturity level, not an arbitrary source of entertainment.