By Chris Cosci

First, they blamed movies and television. Then they said it was music. Now, they've moved on to video games. People have spent a long time trying to find the root of violence in society. By looking at video games, they're moving closer to what I think is the real root of violence: computers.

People think that violence stems from playing games where you blow stuff up, destroy cities and kill people. But that's not quite right. People playing those games are having fun, not becoming violent. The real root of violence comes from trying to use a computer.

Over the years, computers have been designed to be more and more incomplete. Every new version fixes the problems of the older version, while introducing new problems that will force you to buy the next version. Programs that ran flawlessly in older systems will show all sorts of errors in newer systems. Adding programs to your computer will inevitably cause existing programs to stop working properly.

On top of these problems, computers will exhibit diva-like behaviors. For no reason, they will suddenly decide to stop working. They'll freeze up and refuse to let you do anything. If they’re feeling particularly impish, they'll turn the screen blue and put up some dire, apocalyptic message that's impossible to decipher, like "Fatal Error: Cannot run computer due to illegal operation #42nHd82m9Ni0i2-00jnm."

Occasionally, computers will try to be helpful by giving you hints, saying it can’t find a certain .dll file. Of course, this doesn't help because nobody actually knows what a .dll file is. All you know is that, without it, your program won't run.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Computers are filled with these evil entities. And when computers unleash their poison, the result is anger, impatience and, yes, violence. You've seen it happen - you've probably even experienced it yourself. You're relaxed, working quietly on your computer, when all of a sudden an error message appears. In a domino effect, one thing leads to another until you can no longer do anything but stare at your computer in disbelief. And that's when it begins.

You go through page after page of help screens. You try dozens of solutions, none of which work. After just five minutes, your temperature and blood pressure rise. After ten minutes, your hands start to shake. After fifteen minutes, you're ready to grab the largest object you can find and beat your computer into billions of little pieces until all that's left is a small pile of dust.

And there you have it. It's not the violent games. It's not the shooting or the explosions. It's the plague of malfunctions. If you need more proof, ask Colorado restaurant/bar owner George Doughty. Recently, Doughty started experiencing problems with the computer in his office. He stepped out of his office into the bar and announced that he was going to shoot his computer. About thirty minutes later, Doughty placed his laptop on the floor, suggested his patrons cover their ears, and proceeded to fire four bullets into the misbehaving machine.

After successfully killing his prey, Doughty hung the carcass on the wall - either as a sort of trophy to show off or as a warning to any other computer that dared to cross his path.

Although nobody was injured in the incident, Doughty was arrested for felony menacing, reckless endangerment and the prohibited use of weapons. In the police report, Doughty admitted that, in retrospect, shooting his computer was maybe not the right course of action. But, at the time, it seemed appropriate.

This goes to show that computers themselves are the impetus of violent behavior. While Doughty's actions may seem a little extreme, they accurately reflect the fantasy of every computer user in the world. A person can successfully kill hundreds of bad guys in a video game, yet still walk away relaxed and ready to hang out with some friends. But give that same person a "cannot open file" message, and you better hope the police are standing by.