I think the better example would be:

"There's a huge difference between going camping and going to see a movie about campers that makes camping look easy and uncomplicated. I'd rather have the scouts go camping and actually learn what it's like to camp then go see that movie, because what's that movie teaching them?"

And you don't see any contextual difference between shooting at a series of concentric circles on a paper target under close adult guidance and supervision, in the real world, where the destructive nature of the firearm is both emphasized and readily apparent --

-- and shooting at human or humanoid representations in a game where your mission is to kill others? Repeatedly. For hours and hours.

If you don't denote some measure of difference there, then I have to deduce that you either A) have never fired a weapon at a target range, B) have never played a violent video game, or C) are in fact, psychotic.

Lots of everyday things are dangerous. Driving a car, using power tools, working with electricity. That doesn't mean we don't teach children to do these things. A weapon is a dangerous object, but it is far more dangerous in the hands of an untrained operator (to both the operator, and to everyone else). Unless you take the extreme view that "all guns are bad," then I can't see any reasonable reason why we shouldn't teach children to use a firearm safely and responsibly.

is a pretty naive sentiment. Regardless...

Please. Perhaps you are an adult, and so you can see an implied moral context in the game scripts, but the games themselves do not convey such a context. There are no mission screens that say that war and killing are bad things, but unfortunately sometimes good men must engage in terrible acts for the good of communities and nations. The missions read, "kill this enemy, take this territory, obtain this objective." And you receive a reward for that. Is there any war video game out there today with rules that say, "if you intentionally target and kill civilians or bystanders, your character will go to jail and be unplayable for 20 years?" Oh, maybe you lose some points or something, that will teach a moral lesson, right?

I've watched my 13 year old nephew play these games. What's the objective, skip the boring flavor text, let's blow stuff up. Ask him, "why are you killing all those guys?" You don't hear, "Because they are invading my peaceful country and terrorizing the population." You hear, "because that's the mission."

Sorry, I just don't see an overt moral context being presented there.

There's a pretty significant difference between an adult teaching a child marksmanship on paper targets, and violent video games where 99% of the time the *targets* are other human beings, and there is little to no moral context for the violence. There is nothing inherently evil about "REAL guns with REAL bullets." A firearm can be used to provide food and security, or it can be used to harm others maliciously, depending upon the intent of the operator. I learned to shoot as a child at a Boy Scout camp, and it taught me respect for firearms safety, the patience to achieve accurate marksmanship, and pride in my growth and achievement in a real-world skill. What exactly do these hypothetical Cub Scouts learn from playing Halo?