scrubcedar: I apologize if my post gave you the impression that I was accusing you of correlating video games with violence. The only point of your post that I was trying to address was your perspective that shooter games, as a category, constitute simulation time for already mentally unstable murderers.
Your data actually meshes quite well with my previous post. Two of the three games I was referencing are derivative from early US Army training simulators, the Operation Flashpoint series and the ARMA series. The third consists of the earlier specimens of a game series called Rainbow Six. I specify the older versions because the newer ones depart slightly from the series' original goal of simulation fidelity.
These games are combat simulators. The weapons work correctly, all the pieces are in the right place, every element of functionality is simulated to as great a detail as possible. The weight of equipment the player's avatar (in-game character) is carrying is taken in to account, influencing your ammo supply, movement speed, simulated stamina. Each avatar's heart rate and respiratory systems is simulated to account for variances in accuracy, tunnel vision, adrenaline shakes, and other factors that a soldier might experience. Ballistics are accounted for, including bullet drop and windage, hardness of material taken in to account to calculate for penetration and ricochet, and hit detection designed to model the effect of fired rounds on the human body.
These are the types of "games" that the US military uses, and they are the exception, not the rule. These games have almost nothing in common with games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 4, or Halo. Furthermore the differences between mainstream games and true simulations like ARMA are not readily apparent to the casual viewer. You have to play the games to notice the differences, and be familiar with the subject matter to see where the casual games depart so heavily from reality.
I think your point is valid in a sense that was touched on earlier in these thread. I think there may be some validity in the idea that exposure to gun violence can color a predisposed person's preference for the form their violence eventually takes. For instance a person who identifies gun as symbol for powerful violence in things they read, watch, or play will be more likely to seek out that symbol when they want to commit a violent act themselves. However, I have no evidence of this one way or another, so it's merely a matter of opinion.
However, I can see nothing in a vast majority of modern video games that will teach such a person any of the necessary tactics or skills they need to cause damage to other people. The example you mentioned specifically, the rumor that Lanza dropped his half expended magazines before entering rooms, does indeed show a gamer mentality if it's true. In a game your ammunition is independent of your magazines. If you have 100 bullets then each time you reload you get a full magazine as if by magic. You can fire one round, then reload, and the game will behave as if you have 100 fully loaded magazines. Your opponents can't pick your half expended magazine up off the ground and use them against you, and you never have to worry about reusing half empty mags. Mainstream shooting games do not reflect reality in any meaningful fashion, even if they appear to do so at a glance. You have to look deeper to find the truth.
All training simulators are games, but very few games are training simulators.
