The Surgeon General's office of the United States has released a report on yourth violence, and the Adrenaline Vault was one of the first to produce an editorial on the matter, as first reported by HBO. Among other things, the report cites a lack of data to determine computer games as a definite causal factor in violence. Three paragraphs that I've quoted appear to sum up the effects of media violence rather well. (I'd post them here, but then this news item would be gargantuan)
We'd recieved a visitation in our forum from an apparent member of the Christian Family Movement, urging us to discourage violent games from developers because we cannot allow another Columbine! This was met with various responses, as you'll be able to see further down in the thread.
I had also posted another item to our forum which described efforts by US Senators (including former VP-hopeful Lieberman) to legislate for governmental punishment of violent video and computer game makers. I'm wondering but doubting whether this new report will alter their opinions on the matter at all. The most interesting and frustrating thing to me in this matter is that those most involved in (and affected by?) computer games will probably have very little input into the matter.