Many people who’ve seen The Dark Knight Rises know about the recent shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado that left 12 people dead and several more injured. Motives are still up in the air, but that hasn’t stopped some people from forming their own truth.

Pat Brown, a published criminologist who regularly consults for CNN, theorized that the killer must’ve been addicted to video games.

He’s probably prepared for this for a long time, just obsessing over it, gathering his weapons. [He] probably spent a lot of time in his apartment, playing one video game after the other—shooting, shooting, shooting—building up his courage and building up the excitement of when it’s going to be real for him. And it’s made his day.

Insensitive? Perhaps. Pandering to Republican bias? Maybe. Unfounded, baseless and yet another reminder of the sad state of gaming in mainstream media? Definitely.

Source: EGM

Both he and his assistant, Nikita Duncan, argue why a condition called “arousal addiction”, relating to both video games on pornography, has damaged the American youth of today.

Unlike physical addiction, Zimbardo contests that the so-called ‘arousal’ addict are compelled towards novelty and a perpetually crave new experiences and sensations. The book then goes on to claim that such addiction has led to an entire generation of young men who are either incapable or unwilling to accept the realities of modern life.

“Young men — who play video games and use porn the most — are being digitally rewired in a totally new way that demands constant stimulation.” stated Zimbardo and Duncan in an article for CNN.

The pair also cite Anders Brevik’s claims he ‘trained’ for his attacks on Utoya island by playing Modern Warfare 2 and World of Warcraft, along with millions of other people world-wide who aren’t clearly unstable sociopaths with terrible hair.

It’s worth nothing that at this moment in time video game addiction has not officially been recognized by any U.S. or international psychiatric governing body.

Source: CNN, Gamesindustry.biz.

Image courtesy of Heroicimagination.org.