*Sigh* It really is amazing what can drive people to do some pretty horrific things. *Shakes head*
You bring up a pretty interesting point there Hideous. It's not more the case of that people were more violent before video games were made, but more that people even with or without videogames are always going to be violent, just like Flare said.
I don't think that's quite the case. Violence games as a whole generally desensitize it in some form or another, not the other way round. That's just watching it through a screen though, you see dismembering and blood flying around in real life, you'll most likely piss your pants, freeze up, or bolt out of there.
I'm not exactly saying videogames desensitize you completely either. Hell, when I used to play Dead Space, I felt the teensiest bit squeamish sometimes when hacking the limbs off necromorphs with the ripper.
... even if it was fun...