Warriors Of Freedom Prompted Rampage Attempt? 771
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Philadelphia Inquirer article linking videogames to an alleged spree killing attempt. According to the article, "Investigators suspect the three teens arrested.. as they allegedly were about to launch a killing rampage in the small town, found inspiration in violent computer games.. [police] learned that the name the three reportedly had given themselves - Warriors of Freedom - is also an Internet-based combat game." But only a few media reports mention that the violent game connection was made by Jack Thompson, a Miami lawyer and outspoken critic of violent video and computer games - is this a case of shameless Googling to find any obscure game with a similar name and make a connection, or is there genuine evidence here?
Boo to the media (Score:4, Informative)
I just wish the media would give these causes as much airtime as they do trumped-up, sensationalistic stories.
Warriors of Freedom... (Score:4, Informative)
This whole thing makes my brain hurt.
Warriors of Freedom? (Score:5, Informative)
It appears that the official website for the game is either at this [dd-clan.org] clan server or at this [alternativegames.ca] game company. Google returns the fact that Warriors of Freedom RPG is now ... "The Guardians of Har". So maybe the Alternative Games company changed the name of their moderately popular browser-based RPG.
It's interesting that these youths would be corrupted by a simplistic browser RPG. Most previous stories of this type involve games such as Doom or Counter-Strike or sniping in Halo. I guess we might be able to assume that these youths didn't need the first person perspective to corrupt their perspective of reality.
This Columbine article [liberator.net] quotes Jack Thompson (the attorney who brought up the video game connection) as saying "We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt porn sites". Mr. Thompson [aim.org] has tried suing the video game companies, tried pressuring Best Buy and Wal-Mart to not carry certain titles and tried to get a bill introduced to outlaw mature video games being sold to minors.
I don't believe that video games caused these youths to go beserk. So I will continue playing games [gametab.com] and wondering what exactly is wrong with Jack Thompson.
Re:Guns kill not games (Score:2, Informative)
Having lots of guns makes it a lot harder for these guys to go on killing ME.
Please do your own Google on crime stats for those countries that have feelings like yours.
The most amusing thing is, (Score:5, Informative)
crime and murder rates. Neat how that works out.
Japan and Judas Priest (Score:5, Informative)
However, the murder rate in Japan is currently hovering at one in 100,000, where the murder rate in the US is at 7.7 in 100,000. This does not count suicides though, which have gotten hideously high (18 in 100,000) in Japan. However, I haven't seen people blaming violent movies for suicides. Judas Priest, maybe [csicop.org]. Not violent movies. At least not yet.
"Warriors of Freedom" is a text-based RPG (Score:5, Informative)
Re:does it matter? (Score:1, Informative)
Bowling for Columbine has some answers (Score:4, Informative)
For better answers and more questions on violence in the American culture, watch this film.
Re:Bowling for Columbine has some answers (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html [hardylaw.net]
Re:My take on videogame violence. (Score:5, Informative)
This is perhaps the most geekiest argument ever, but let's delve a bit deeper into this. I quote from the Nethack 3.4.1 source code eat.c line 1184...:
} else if(!rn2(3)) {
flags.soundok = 0;
nomul(-rnd(10));
nomovemsg = "You are conscious again.";
Eating a rotten corpse can indeed cause 1d10 turns of "helplessness".
And now from line 1277 of the same source file:
if (!tp && mnum != PM_LIZARD && mnum != PM_LICHEN &&
(The comment is my own to avoid the lameness filter).
Rotted corpses can have negative effects such as blindness and helplessness except for when the corpse is of the lizard or lichen variety. I mistakenly thought that jelly fit into one of these categories; indeed, it does not. Eating jelly can lead to death by kitten during helplessness. I was wrong.
Re:does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent is plagarism (Score:1, Informative)
Compare it [slashdot.org] with another comment posted 15 minutes earlier [slashdot.org].
Credit where credit is due, please.
Although he did leave out the last sentence:
Re:warriors of freedom quote (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_state
Re:does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:does it matter? (Score:2, Informative)
You can't purchase a handgun until you are 21, though you can get rifles and shotguns when you are 18.
Re:does it matter? (Score:3, Informative)
A few facts omitted or misrepresented above:
* The weapons were locked in a closet
* The majority of the (whoo scary) 2000 rounds of ammunition were a few 500 boxes of ancient target rounds.
* The "kid" was 18, a legal adult.
Blaming the parent without knowing the full facts is just as idiotic as blaming video games.
Re:does it matter? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:warriors of freedom (Score:1, Informative)