Kids Kill, Victim Sues Game Maker 1035
qbproger writes "Sadly, two kids decided to go outside and start shooting cars. They were mimicing a video game they had been playing, Grand Theft Auto. I think it's about time parents started paying attention to the rating on video games." The family of one of the victims has decided to file suit against Take Two Interactive, presumably deciding that blame should be assigned to whoever has the deepest pockets instead of to those who actually did something wrong.
Some figures... (Score:4, Informative)
(selected figures for) gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in 1994:
United States 14.24;
Northern Ireland 6.63;
Canada 4.31;
Israel 2.91;
Australia 2.65;
England and Wales 0.41;
Japan 0.05
the kids already "won" (Score:2, Informative)
These kids already won. They fired a gun at passing cars 25 times, killing one person, wounding another, and got off with a slap on the wrist. They should have been charged as adults for murder, and several counts of attempted murder, and done major hard time. Instead, the judge sent them to a juvenile prison [yahoo.com] that they will get out of in a couple of years. The judge even considered letting them off on probation!!!
Re:Some figures... (Score:3, Informative)
I may as well post this: Guns And Crime [gunsandcrime.org]. You'll see by the stats posted there that our robbery and other forms of crime are lower than England's and other countries, even though we have *gasp* guns. While we have a higher percentage of murder, our murder rates are declining while theirs are rising, narrowing the gap.
May as well bother reading the rest of the site, if you can handle actual pro-gun agenda established with hard facts without cowering and closing off your mind because of fear.
More interesting facts about crime in general. [usdoj.gov]
Re: and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:3, Informative)
> Well, it surely wasn't legal, however they got them. More laws aren't the answer, enforcement is.
Yeah, but "more laws" is a convenient "solution" for politicians to peddle to the public.
Look at the TIA crap offered as the "solution" to the 9/11 problem. The reason we didn't preempt 9/11 (ignoring any conspiracy theories) is that our police and intelligence agencies already gather so much information that they have to pick and choose what gets forwarded toward the center for putting bigger pictures together, and unfortunately some really important material didn't make the cut. IMO the DoHS/TIA "solution" is more likely to aggravate the problem than to solve it, but since the problem is genuinely hard it's much easier and more profitable for politicians to peddle a big expensive snake-oil "solution" that will convince us rubes that they're really going to take care of us.
Re:interesting idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Blaming the wrong people. (Score:5, Informative)
I have observed this enough times to dub it Sarah Brady Syndrome:
- Something horrible happens to someone close to you.
- You decide that Something Must Be Done <tm> to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.
- After considering, and rejecting, the idea of using the existing laws that punish the person who actually caused the problem (especially if that person is the putative 'victim' himself, as in the case of cigarette smoking or McDonald's food), you settle on:
- Suing someone other than the perpetrator, under the theory that they aided and abetted the perpetrator by manufacturing one of the tools used, or wrote a book/movie/TV program/video game that 'inspired' the criminal act
- Lobbying your legislators for new criminal remedies against these enablers.
- Both.
I am heartened by the fact that the latest lawsuit against McDonald's (apparently for forcing kids to eat so much of their food as to have fat asses) was rejected with prejudice by the judge, but recent history is filled with too many examples that go the other way.We not only have the Brady Bill, but countless other laws named for a victim, and almost without exception, they're bad laws - unnecessary and counterproductive, because they punish people other than the actual perpetrators, which teaches the next round of dumb kids that it isn't their fault when they shoot up their high school, killing scores of people and giving Michael Moore a chance to make another preachy movie (and Katz an excuse to compile a book).
I expect someone to go paint a tunnel on the side of a concrete wall, run their car into it at 60 mph and their family sue Warner Brothers for making Road Runner cartoons give them the idea.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:1, Informative)
I am not trying to deny you your right to pray (or not) to whomever you choose. I am trying to deny the state the right to make that choice for you. It's a simple as that.
Re:Have some balls, kids. (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA!!!!!!
The kids aren't trying to use this as a defense. The family of the victom is trying to sue Take Two. I feel bad for the victoms and their families. If I were to guess their intentions they simply want some compensation because they know they'll never get anything from that damn red-neck family that was the _real_ cause.
On another note: What the F*** is this about they'll have to be realeased at 19 under Tennessee law!?! That means that one of these idiots will be out in 3 years!!! Could someone _PLEASE_ find some federal charge so they can be put away longer.
Please Darwin! Do your magic once again!
-B
Re:Some figures... (Score:3, Informative)
i do understand that that if someone were to kill somebody with a gun he could do it just as well with an axe(or get that gun somehow) if he didn't have immediate access to a loaded gun. it does however cut some random shit like this.
and you don't freakking need them to 'defend' yourself either. defend your country sure, but defending yourself with a gun is pretty dead end idea anyways(provided the society hasn't failed, and then it's a crappy way of handling things too). i'm not against guns as a sporting item either, you just have to be responsible in using and in storing them. underages(under 18) should not have any access to firearms whatsoever, they don't need them at all and you don't really have to start early to become good enough to defend your country or to hunt(almost _anybody_ can train good enough to hit an at least 20cm circle from 150m with an assault rifle in just ~50-70 shots with no prior shooting experience at all when they are given the proper training and sights adjusted).
all that being said i did enjoy the shooting experiences i got during the local mandatory army service here(finnish 7.62*39mm rk-62 assault rifle, which is a finnish copy of ak-47, and same caliber machine gun and some crappy 9mm pistol by fn), also important in the training is that guns are not toys(this is the part that the two kids didn't obviously understand), and you better make sure you don't fool around(even more so with hand grenades). also i learnt that i don't freakking wanna be fighting in some fucking war unless i absolutely have to.
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ok i guess the point is that this incident was much more a gun death than a game death.
Re:Some figures... (Score:4, Informative)
From Barclay, Tavares & Siddique, "International Comparisons of Criminal Justics Statistics, 1999" (link [crimereduction.gov.uk])
Probability of Victimization, Overall
Australia 30%
England & Wales 26%
Canada 24%
United States 21%
Japan 15%
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:2, Informative)
I shoot targets, not animals because deer aren't doing anything that bothers me. Although if I lived in an area where deer are a menace I might develop a taste for venison.
How other countries handle this better than the US (Score:2, Informative)
Think about Japan. They are way more into video games than the U.S. They are very focused on getting an education and doing well in school, which causes a lot of stress. However, you don't see many statistics on students shooting things and blaming it on video games. They know better.. their society (schools, parents, peers) educate them.
U.S. society is becoming less civilized and more demoralized. If a student drops out of school, so what? They can still get a high-paying job and earn respect. Less education leads to more ignorance, which in turn breeds violence, hate, and all those unpleasant emotions. What is stopping them from killing people IRL instead of in an isolated-reality video game? Education.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:2, Informative)
Quake has sold millions of copies. Somehow, I must have missed the news stories about the 10,000's of teenagers who went around trying to gib people with shotguns after playing it. Moron.
To put it another way, the manufacturers of metal spoons should not be sued because some idiot in Montana decides to scoop out his wife's eyes with them.