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."
The irony was (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/manhunt_m
Re:The irony was (Score:1)
Re:The irony was (Score:3, Funny)
But thems facts and that gets in the way of a rumour
sigh...
CJC
Not true... (Score:2)
What's good for the goose is good for the gander (Score:1)
"GTA Blames for Columbine-style Massacre Planning"
Thoughts rushed through my head widldly of Rock Star Games suing someone related to Columbine-style massacre planning for copyright infringement. Suddenly, it made me feel all giddy and righteous inside.
Someday, someday. Someday we'll win the war on terrorists stealing ideas from games.
- shazow
GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2, Informative)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:4, Informative)
And for the record, killing real life cops is evil. Support the police. Su-su-suport the police.
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:1)
Either you really respect the uniform or you have no regard for human life.
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:1)
It's no more evil than killing anyone else. Su-su-support human life. Period.
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
Absolutely. Just like killing someone of another race should be no "more illegal" than killing someone of the same race. Getting higher sentencing for "hate crimes" is B.S., just as it is for being a "cop killer."
Killing is completely wrong regardless of what age, race, profession the victim (or murderer -- soldiers count most of the time, IMO) is. The only thing that should affect judgement is how many they killed & if they've done it (o
wrong (Score:5, Informative)
But you are right odds are the lawyers never played the game.
Re:wrong (Score:1)
Re:wrong (Score:2)
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
Wanna know what bugs me? I've been gaming since the early 90's. I've played the heck out of every 'bad game' out there. Mortal Kombat, GTA, Quake, Doom, you name it. According to all the Kile's Moms out there, I should be totally desensitized to violence. Wrong. 9-11 shocked me. Rotten.com shocks me. Somebody on Slashdot once related a story about how his wife knew somebody w
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:1)
Same for me.
They just look for a scapegoat instead of saying that the guy is a just fscking retard.
Kids that do get influenced by computer games are mentally unstable and should not play games, but be in therapy.
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never been one to play action games -- give me Tetris over GTA any day. Although I bought my first action game, GTAVC coincidentally, about a month ago. I've always wanted to see gruesome stuff & wanted to kill people. I just didn't (still don't) have the guts to do it. That whole "life in jail" thing works as a pretty good deterrent for me. I act very properly, but inside, I'm very evil. I have the traditional Ma & Pa
Re:GTA does NOT promote killing cops (Score:2)
"The technique of killing civilians and then first-responders when they get there is the primary scenario to win in all the Grand Theft Auto games," he said. "They are killing simulators actually used by gangs."
Hmmm.... I don't know about being the "primary scenario to win" in the GTA games... Usually killing civilians and then mowing down the responding cops is just a way to blow off steam
There's actualy "missions" that have "goals" that you need to play to actually win th
Re:ban sticks (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ban sticks (Score:1)
This is for the kids (much like the Wu-Tang Clan).
Re:ban sticks (Score:3, Informative)
What's so special about police? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eric Clapton sang about "I shot the sheriff".
Cops are killed in movies and television shows all the time and have been for some six or seven decades at the very least.
Cops are killed in books all the time.
All sorts of people are killed in all sorts of movies, music, books, television shows, plays and even VIDEO GAMES.
** Why is it okay to kill cops in any media EXCEPT videogames/interactive media?
** Why is it okay to kill everyone else BUT cops in interactive media?
It's not like police are some high and mighty upper class that rises above the rest of the world in importance simply becuase of the authority they wieild over citizens.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2)
Not that I think this case has any merit, but there is a difference.
Cheers
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:1)
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2)
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.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is, that people are responsible for their own actions. Any attempt to blame something else for your own actions, is just some cheap lawyer trick.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line is, that people are responsible for their own actions. Any attempt to blame something else for your own actions, is just some cheap lawyer trick.
Now if only we can persuade the public about this we might finally start to shift away from this completely rediculous compensation / blame culture. Its rampant in the US and becoming an issue in the UK as well now. Working in a UK college (16-19 year olds primarily), its quite noticeable that most of them seem to try to blame everything else
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2)
Actually, that was Bob Marley. The Eric Clapton version is a cover.
Doesn't change the point of your post though.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:1)
Police Officers don't wield authority over citizens... they wield it over criminals.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:1)
Directing traffic is one example. Police posted as guards (near a crime scene, or accident for instance) is annother.
I'm no police officer or student of the law, but I suspect there are more examples I can't think of.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:1)
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2)
Unless you are falsely accused of a crime, remotely suspected, or the victim of a corrupt bureaucrat. Then they can seize everything you own never to be seen again & put you in jail for at least a full night. Granted, that isn't as comman as many self-annointed victims would like you to believe, but it happens.
Re:What's so special about police? (Score:2, Funny)
Its all about the Police State. (Score:1)
The answer: When you live in a Police State, you will worship Police.
Such bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Such bullshit (Score:1)
Fame? Fortune? His name in newspapers all over the world?
Re:Such bullshit (Score:2)
There is one mission in Vice City where you and Lance must lure 2 Police-men into a Garage to kill them, take their uniforms, and their patrol car.
It is not possible to complete Vice City without completing this mission.
Not that I'm defending this dillhole lawyer - but one cannot just dismiss out of hand a simple fact such as this one.
Re:Such bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Such bullshit (Score:2)
You're new to the concept of lawyers then?
Re:Such bullshit (Score:2)
Crank (Score:5, Informative)
Pakeerah was beaten to death with a claw hammer by a friend who, Thompson claims, was inspired by Manhunt.
Yeah, and everybody seems to overlook one fact: the "damning evidence" that the police found the game in the kid's bedroom was, in fact, found in the victim's bedroom.
That wasn't the first time Thompson has been involved in cases like this; he's a well-known crank who foists himself on the families of victims and convinces them that the games are to blame. In one case, he tried to persue a case against the wishes of the victim's family. He's also harrassed people and had restraining orders taken out against him. He's a crank of the highest order [tripod.com]. You want to know why you hear so many stories about "evil games"? It's him and people like him.
Re:Crank (Score:1, Funny)
I mean, if you name your kid some wierd shit like that, you're just lining up him to be teased, taunted, tortured and maybe someday - killed. (What is he, a tiny yellow orange-dotted anime character that three year old kids collect?).
Re:Crank (Score:2)
As trollish as it sounds, you are absolutely right. That's just like wearing a "kick me" sign that can't be removed (until you're 18 & can change your name legally).
Re:Crank (Score:1)
Re:Crank (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Crank (Score:2, Insightful)
The poor kid was killed as part of a mugging that went wrong. The mugging was planned in order to get cash to pay the perpertra
dont (Score:2, Insightful)
using this logic the boxcutters company that built the ones used in 9/11 would be charged as well
So... (Score:5, Funny)
If I print out the Patriot Act and beat someone to death with it...
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2)
-
Re:So... (Score:2)
Nice Friend (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nice Friend (Score:1)
If the video caused him to kill (Score:2)
Re:If the video caused him to kill (Score:1)
Re:If the video caused him to kill (Score:1)
Okay, there are basically three kinds of murders/murderers.
There's the basic one when a person turns violent and kills someone out of rage, like barfights, or finding X in bed with Y. This is almost always second degree murder, although sometimes the anger turns into some sort of seething hatred and a murder is actually planned. Basically, you want to hurt the person, and hurt them to death.
Then there the other motives for murder...they're blackmailing you, you're
Re:If the video caused him to kill (Score:2)
Actually, true serial killers do have a motive. According to "The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" by Harold Schechter and David Everitt (ISBN 0-671-53791-1), serial killings tend to be of a sexual nature, where within the murderer a lust for blood, gore and death builds up to a climax, at which point the serial killer "ejaculates" (sometimes litterally) by killing a victim. After the murder, there is a cool-do
Re:If the video caused him to kill (Score:1)
the crusades! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the crusades! (Score:2)
That's it! Let's outlaw religions!!!!
About the only thing I learned in GTA3 and GTAVC is how to speak with a bad cuban accent ("I'm RReeco, you the man wit de big cojones?")
Re:the crusades! (Score:1)
REBENGAAAA!!!
some truths (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact 1: The game has an MA rating, so any kid under 17 or 18 is not able to buy it (ideally). So how could he even get such a game? Well in all probability his parent's bought it for him, so even if this was some derranged world where his claim was true, it's the fault and responsibility of the parents for knowing what this kid is playing and making sure he isn't playing things he's not supposed to.
Fact 2: The average age of a video game player is 28. You cannot tell a 28 year old what they can or can't play, so they can't get rid of these games. It's not our fault that stores and parents don't enforce the rating system, it's their responsibility.
Re:some truths (Score:3, Funny)
From his crazy lawyer. Jack Thompson, A/K/A "BatJack", apparently because he used to make public appearances in a Batman costume. Some of BatJack's prior hits here [reason.com]...
amazing (Score:1)
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:in other news... (Score:2)
It should be pointed out (Score:3, Informative)
Civilian and Police Kills not Central to GTA (Score:3, Informative)
The article shows that Jack Thompson says:
I've played the newer GTA games, and critical to winning the game is to avoid killing civilians or police, as the police will come down harder on you if you do. Mr. Thompson may have a valid point in linking video games to violence, but this outright lie undermines his credibility.
cause and effect (Score:2)
He has no valid point. He has only lies.
Videogames cause violence, cartoons cause violence, movies cause violence, comix cause violence, etc. If they did, every videogame testing department in the world would be overflowing with blood, wouldn't they?
You know what causes violence? VIOLENCE!
Getting slapped around by your family, by bigger kids at school. Watching daddy beat the snot out
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).
did they check the medicine cabinet (Score:2, Funny)
Lieutenant: "Officer Downing, may I remind you that the media is waiting in the front yard. Check the game console and stop wasting time"
Officer 1: "yes sir! hmmm, Looks like he was a fan of Mario Cart."
Officer 2: "Sir, his little sister has a copy of Gr
misdirection of blame (Score:4, Insightful)
No one wants to admit that the problem might lie with someone they can't sue.
Re:misdirection of blame (Score:1)
Logically (Score:2, Funny)
One can thus conclude that he must have really sucked at it.
All right for a second let's just assume (Score:1)
Well, what the fuck are you going to do about it? I still think the principle behind Amendment Numero Uno is superior to whatever kind of inducement people may find in forms of communication.
There are case law exceptions to freedom of speech, of course, and direct inducement of others to kill, or conspir
Why does it have to be blamed on something? (Score:3, Funny)
Retribution? (Score:2, Funny)
Contact info (Score:3, Informative)
Or, if you prefer a more direct approach, he can be reached via phone at: 305-666-4366 or by email at jackpeace@comcast.net.
And finally, if you really feel like you need to meet him and tell him how much you agree with what he preaches, feel free to visit him at his office located at:
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, FL 33146
Lack of Fear (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lack of Fear (Score:1)
Re:Lack of Fear (Score:2)
While fear of consequence for actions is important in the vast majority of poor behavior, I think that really sociopathic behavior can't be averted just with fear of punishment. I think fundamentally those peoples' lack of fear comes from a lack of self worth, from whatever, probably mostly from alienation. It's probably often the case that it's the
WTF? (Score:2)
Fine. Maybe I'll go out and kill a few people here and there and blame it on the history books I read in school. Maybe build a nuke and let it go off (disclaimer to Homeland Security...I'm not really going to do this...I'm just making a point) because I read about it and saw it on TV.
I know I'm preaching to the choir right now, but every
A rhyming couplet of our times (Score:1)
In related news..... (Score:1, Funny)
Phooey (Score:2)
Video Games & Violence (Score:1)
Only 17? (Score:2)
Re:Only 17? (Score:1)