According to Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M International University a decade's worth of data has failed to find a link between violent games and violent crimes.

"School shootings, although exceedingly rare, are an important issue worthy of serious consideration," says the report by Professor Ferguson in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling. "However, for our understanding of this phenomenon to progress, we must move past the moral panic on video games and other media and take a hard look at the real causes of serious aggression and violence...the wealth of evidence...fails to establish a link between violent video games and violent crimes, including school shootings. The link has not merely been unproven; I argue that the wealth of available data simply weighs against any causal relationship."

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You might think that's strange given the propensity for such a link to be made between ambulance chasing lawyers and the less salubrious end of the mass media but Professor Ferguson has some words to say about biased researchers making the connection.

"It has been observed that a small group of researchers have been most vocal in promoting the anti-game message, often times ignoring research from other researchers, or failing to disclose problems with their own research. As some researchers have staked their professional reputation on anti-game activism, it may be difficult for these researchers to maintain scientific objectivity regarding the subject of their study. Similarly, it may be argued that granting agencies are more likely to provide grant money when a potential problem is identified, rather than for studying a topic with the possibility that the outcome may reveal that there is nothing to worry about."

You can download the full and fascinating report at Wiley Interscience.

Of course, decent parents do not let children play games that are rated above their age. All games carry age guidance ratings and only poor parents ignore these.