A couple days ago, Game Guy took a shot at a study out of Iowa State University that claimed video games containing violence are capable of turning the children who play them more violent as well.

He was skeptical of the research methods, which relied mainly on asking the children what they thought about their behavior. Missing was input from professionals who study how children react to their environment and comparative analysis of studies that insist video games of all kinds have just the opposite effect on behavior.

But Game Guy’s not a scientist, not a researcher, not even a kid any more, and as a result probably didn’t sway many people one way or the other.

Which is fine — he’s no great shakes as a pundit, anyway. But an honest to goodness real smart person, a Texas A&M psychologist, seems to sort of agree with Game Guy on this.

In a letter to the journal “Pediatrics,” Christopher Ferguson says the Iowa State study contains “numerous flaws in the literature review, methodology and conclusions,” that its authors “ignore a wide body of research which conflicts with their views,” and that the authors failed to consider numerous variables — family behavior and peer group influences among them — that might skew their findings.

Read his letter and the included bibliography of opposing research. Then play a couple hours of “Tom Clancy’s EndWar” and see for yourself whether virtual gunplay makes you feel compelled to do the real thing.