GTA Blamed for Columbine-style Massacre Planning 120
bippy writes "A Miami attorney claims that a teen accused of plotting a massacre used GTA to prepare for the attack, RedAssedBaboon reports.
Attorney Jack Thompson is the same guy who is trying to link the murder of Stefan Pakeerah last year to Manhunt. Pakeerah was beaten to death with a claw hammer by a friend who, Thompson claims, was inspired by Manhunt. The uproar surrounding the case led to the game being pulled from many British store shelves and Prime Minister Tony Blair looking into a link between violence and video games. It looks like Thompson has found himself a niche." Update: 10/10 19:25 GMT by T : Peter Endean writes "It might be worth noting that in fact in the case of the murder linked to Manhunt, it was the victim who owned the game."
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh... but you see that is where you are wrong. Disobeying or attacking/killing police is particularly useful to use as an example of videogames making kids anti-social (whether or not it holds any merit). This is because police represent clear AUTHORITY figures, which adults are also expected to respect. Since many older adults believe that only children (and immature adults) play games, the idea that a game for children not only allows you but requires you to defy authority figures (police and by extension, them) allows them to go "tut, tut. That is what is wrong with the youth of today, no respect for authority."
Part of it is also the implicit degree of approval of the child for the act. For example, when watching a TV show showing cops getting killed, if the child were to express his approval for the act, it would not go well at all with many people. Similarly, if you buy many CDs with many examples of singing about killing cops, this would also reflect poorly, because you CHOOSE to listen about cops being killed. When they see a kid playing a game, because the kid chooses his actions in the game, it seems as if he is clearly agreeing with the act. Otherwise why do it? Indeed as has been pointed out above, it is possible to get through the mission WITHOUT killing cops (fighting them makes the mission ludicrously difficult). If you have the choice (not everyone will figure out how to do it without fighting) and choose to attack cops, that reflects poorly. Personally, while forcing the player into that kind of a situation makes observers uncomfortable, I think most players should be smart enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality and see the mission as simply another set of obstacles to overcome.
Studies have shown ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically what they did was monitor several classrooms of children (a variety of age groupings) and recorded all physical interactions (shoving, head-bonking, grabbing, etc). Then they showed movies to the class depicting violent activities. They continued recording the physical interactions and what they found was that only a few of the children were affected. Most kids experienced no change in behavior, but some kids had a large increase in attacks on others. The ones who increased their atacks were children who it later turned out were already diagnosed as disturbed children.
The study was somewhat more complex than as I describe it, but the conclusion they drew was not what they had expected to find. The conclusion was that viewing depictions of violent behaviors did not affect healthy children, but that it did affect disturbed children, and it affected them badly.
So what do we do? How can we regulate a product that causes no harm to healthy people?
We have the same problem with drugs: most people can do recreational drugs from time to time without harm; they can regulate their usage and have sense enough to not drive doing while doing LSD and meth. The same can be said for alcohol - some people become destructive when allowed to drink alcohol.
It appears that the percentage of people in our population who cannot drink is small enough that we can tolerate the side effects of those who cannot handle it. On the other hand, it may be that the number of people who can use heroin or cocaine responsibly without becoming lost to it (and there are those) is small enough that there is a significant danger to society from the side effects. Imagine what life would be like if every fifth person at work was coming off a 2-week meth run.
There are patchwork solutions in place. For example, it may surprise you to learn that convicted murderers in the United States are forbidden from owning guns - even after they've completed their prison sentence!
Another solution is that we don't allow children to purchase or operate dangerous products such as alcohol, guns, automobiles, and voting machines even though many children do have the skills and judgement to use these products.
So we ask ourselves are violent video games dangerous in that they may affect unhealthy people in such significant numbers that society is endangered? It seems unlikely to me to be a problem, but it has been shown that it's bad for some people such as the disturbed children above.
What bothers me about kill-games is what makes it different from watching killing on TV. You're actually practicing the very thing that we don't want you to do - going through the motions over and over. No prob with healthy people (I must not be one because although World of Warcraft has no effect on be besides exhaustion, Counterstrike leaves me with a very itchy trigger finger)
So, our compromise in these cases is to prevent the acquisition of these products until the children are of an age where their judgement has matured to dampen their urges (I want to kill the teacher, but then the police will then kill me if I do that).