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.
Have some balls, kids. (Score:5, Funny)
That totally sucks as an insanity defense, and I'm calling these kids on it. "It's-a Mario Kart, you honour!" as a plea? Now a that's a spicy-a meatball. (fr1st)
Re:Have some balls, kids. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Have some balls, kids. (Score:5, Funny)
Midnight yesterday, 12-year-olds Emily Rone and Abigail Harding were arrested by police in fields outside their village, apparently building a town center close to a disused gold mine. Officers attending the scene were fired upon by watchtowers in the vicinity, and Officer Frank Peters sustained minor injuries from a crossbow bolt, apparently fired automatically. When questioned, the girls were cooperative and willing to explain the project; unfortunately no orcish interpreters could be provided by the Ohio police department. The girls have been taken into care, while police spent the rest of today dismantling orc burrows in the area.
See page 16 for our editorial on why kids should be banned from playing violent videogames, and page 18 for a reaction from the Enraged Coalition of Elvish Mothers.
Parents sue Mario and Luigi (Score:5, Funny)
Mario has been prosecuted before for vandalism in Isle Delfino, as well as illegal drug prescriptions in Dr. Mario.
Re:Have some balls, kids. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm a parent. (Score:5, Insightful)
We do NOT let him play any games with guns. He plays racing games, goofy Mario type games and the like. We also teach him that people using guns on others is a very bad thing. We are trying to instill in him that guns are weapons for the sole purpose of harming and killing other things.
We're trying to teach him to be nice. To try to be a good person. To know right from wrong. What happened to being a nice person? Why is everyone so cynical now adays?
Are we perfect parents? No. Will what we're trying to teach him stick? I don't know...but we're trying, we really really are. It's hard to do with the media overblowing violence and crime most of the time.
When something like this happens, everyone points fingers and blames everyone else. But I feel there is no one thing to blame. There are many different factors at work here. Bad parents? Violent Videogames? Violent media and music? War starting presidents? Evil dictators? Religion? Environment? Bullies? School?
There are no answers, only choices.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Funny)
One of the reason that many people are so cynical nowadays is because of the idiots who run rampant. Back in the good ol' days, a cave bear would have eaten them and we'd all be better off for it. Now we have to watch them launch lawsuits. Bring back the bears, I say.
UP WITH BEARS, DOWN WITH BAD PARENTS!
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:4, Insightful)
And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mate I'm from Australia too, and I have just one (1) word for you "Fucken Bullshit!" (*In Australian English the word 'fucken' doesn't count as a word, cause you don't even realise you are using it half the time.)
Yes as a parent you bear a LARGE responsibility, absolutely. The parent poster above is to be commended, or rather, this is what we should expect of every parent. I totally agree that too many parents are just way to passive in deciding which influences will be formative of their offspring.
HOWEVER, as a parent you are just never going to have 100% control over what influences your kid is exposed to. Well not unless you belong to some wierd religious cult that keeps kids locked away from the real world.
To think it makes no difference what the kind of teachers kids have, or what kind of educational environment they are exposed to is just delusional. By law, you have to surrender your children to the tender mercies of some educational facility for something like 30 hours a week. (Again unless you are some whacko cultist, or a hippy homeschooler or something). If the school I send my kids to fucks up in some major way in regard to them, you can bet your life on this, I'll sue their fucken arses off!
And if you think the media have no influence, you are just living on cloud cuckoo-land!
The media, teachers, the producers of entertainment will hopefully enjoy a large measure of freedom of speech, as is fit to any democractic society. We wouldn't want it any other way. However, that doesn't mean they can simply shrug off their responsibility for the calculable effects their contribution produces. If Hezbollah TV (which until recently was screening in Australia), exorts young children to become suicide bombers (which it does), Hezbollah TV bears at least some repsonsibility for the outcome their utterances were calculated to produce.
In fact, children learn not only from parents, teachers, the media etc, they learn from every person they see doing something. And this doesn't only apply to children! Remember: Every act you commit in public, serves as a model for others to emulate . As individuals, we have more power than we realise, to influence the culture we inhabit.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have always found video games to be a escape... Shooing a person on the screen is sort of a release for me, Because I fully understand the diffrence between real life and the screen.
Trying to hide them from it just will not work...
Theres a saying "The Pastors daughter is always the worst".
The more you hold a item away from a dog, the more they want to play with it..
Instead let them play with it but teach them how to play right.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheltering is pretty much what it's all about.
Videogames aren't the real world, and it's appropriate to treat them as pedagogical - they can teach as much as they entertain. Responsible parents will react accordingly. Sometimes, the message that they are not supposed to play with this until they've achieved a certain maturity and moral distance is as much part of the message as any that's in the game itself.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with a measured amount of play-violence, either. That's a normal part of childhood, and I don't want to think you can nerf-ify a kid's entire life. Here's [justicetalking.org] a good discussion about it - I think Gerard Jones is right-on in his perspective [atlantisrising.com], but interestingly enough he doesn't let his kid play GTA3.
Do you have children? Would you let your kids watch porn? After all, they'll just want to watch it more...
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't allowed to play with gun toys and such when I was a kid. In the end I don't really think that was a huge contributor to my moral development (guns simply aren't a p
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:3)
From the beginning, let them know the difference between reality and fantasy, that's the problem with these kids, they don't know that death is forever, that killing people is not the answer etc., etc., etc., - and they need to know that not everything they can do in the video-game world is acceptable in real life.
I will say that I have always - well, since 13 when I experienced Wolf3D for the first time - played violent video games as a tension release. It works very well: take out my aggress
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Interesting)
And 90% of the time, the parent nods and says yes, they know. And then the kid, insulted that I had to point out how young they are, brags that they've already played that game before. And they often mention that they've already played GTA: Vice City.
At least it's not as bad as when the kids come up to the counter with a game without a parent. Those kids are just plain jerks sometimes.
"But my mom is _waiting_ right _there_ in the _car_."
That's great, legally she has to be in store.
"You can call my dad at home!"
Anybody who picks up the phone and sounds male could sound like your dad to me. I can't do it.
"*walks out swearing up a storm to their mom in the car*"
Buncha savages in this town.
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:5, Funny)
Scott, I have to disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids have played with tin soldiers, played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and games in the same vein forever. The fact that the current game involving shooting happens to be a video game simply doesn't justify it. The kid playing the rob
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but you're barking up the wrong tree here. I'm not a believer in God and religion. If my son wishes to find these things for himself when he's older, thats fine. But you don't need God to tell someone that shooting another human being is wrong. The model of God and religion is a model of hate and death. More people have died in the history of this plan
Re:I'm a parent. (Score:3, Insightful)
But still, guns were not invented and bought for olympic skeet shooting. They were made to kill.
I'm hardly brain-washed. I was born and raised on a farm in rural Virginia and many ti
Re:You are actually a bigot, not a parent (Score:4, Insightful)
Guns are used for nothing but killing, whether you respect them or not...
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
But I stated in another post: Olympic trap and skeet shooting. Ok...one thing that takes a gun. A shotgun...But this is also a simulation of birds flying up while hunting. That is how skeet shooting got started...for practice in dove and pheasent hunting.
I was born and raised on a farm in rural Virginia and many times me and my brother and Father went hunting for deer/squire/rabbit not for sport, but to actually put food on our table. Was also a memeber of the NRA. And believe it or not, but in the early 80's I was also a gun dealer and pistolsmith.
Yes, there are sports I call "practice sports" such as silo competition (where the
But my main point is that most of these "sports" are simply practice for hunting. Target practice is practice of shooting a target so when a "real" target comes into a situation that you need to shoot it, you're better prepared to shoot it. True, not much death there, but these are mainly pratice for dealing death if that need should arise.
I changed I guess. In your view, they have a useage and we are given a right to have them. But in my view now, just having a right to have them doesn't mean I HAVE to have them. As far as defending my property, I have no defense. If someone wants to break into my house and murder me and my family, then they will have our dead bodies. Bodies that were going to die within the next 100 years anyway. They can kill me and I will die...but I will not take another life again.
There was this little bald guy that kicked the entire British empire out of his poor country...and never lifted a gun or sword or any weapon to do it.
Now, if teaching my child to be kind and gentle (or in your words fear) is screwing him up...then I guess I'm screwing him up.
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
Legal precedent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe then they'd stop taking all these crap lottery cases.
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they'd be even more inclined not to take cases they don't think they can win. And suddenly making sure defendants get a fair trial doesn't seem so important any more. After all, nobody would want to get involved in a criminal case unless the defendant has a rock-solid alibi.
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no clue what you are talking about. The lawyer invests signifigant time into filing and preparing for a lawsuit. If the lawyer didn't honestly think that the client had a valid claim, that time could be spent working for a client that did. And the lawyer IS held accountable. It's called "Rule 11" [epistolary.org] and it's there to sanction lawyers that file frivilous law suits.
They should not be necessary at all,
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:4, Interesting)
You have no clue what you are talking about. The lawyer invests signifigant time into filing and preparing for a lawsuit. If the lawyer didn't honestly think that the client had a valid claim, that time could be spent working for a client that did. And the lawyer IS held accountable. It's called "Rule 11" [epistolary.org] and it's there to sanction lawyers that file frivilous law suits.
My parents have just been sued by a tenant who claimed to have suffered $10 million in pain and suffering by falling down the stairs in their apartment building, oh, and that my father pushed her.
She did however neglect to mention that she was drunk off her ass, forced her way into another tenants apartment, assaulted them, and fell down under her own power (or rather, lack of stability), and much of this is on video. Also, she fell down two carpetted steps to land on a carpetted landing, and was SO pained by the fall that she refused to let the EMTs take her to the hospital until the police arrested my father (which they eventually didn't).
Now I ask, what kind of scumbag of a lawyer does she have that would file a $10 million suit against us on her behalf? The insurance company took our statements and saw the video and the case in their opinion is so frivilous that they're not even willing to settle with her for any amount and will actually take it to court.
Why would her lawyer get involved in this?
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, because he probably is a scumbag. And dumb. Frivoulous lawsuits exist. That's why rule 11 exists. It was created in response to them. If I were your parents lawyers, I'd probably bring it up. There are going to be scumbag lawyers, just like there are scumbag doctors, and scumbag taxi drivers. The point I'm trying to make is that lawyers are not A) all bad like everyone seems to think and B) the only problem. Scumbag lawyers are only part of the problem. B
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:4, Insightful)
The things these storys dont tell you...
How many hours a week did they spend with there child ( today, it seems children are lucky if there parents spend 1 hour a day with them )
Did the parents know the other kid? Maybe one of the kids where known to cause problems...
Why didnt one of these kids stop and say "You know this is a bad thing"
They want you to believe to people just happened to have the guidence there parents have given them all there lives wiped out by a video game.. Not just one kid but 2...
Have they ever been talked to about the dangers of guns?
Have they ever been told cartoons,video games and such are not real.. I know it sounds cheesy to say but damn my dad asked me once if I understood the diffrence between real life and TV.. Come on parents get with it.
I say they never had proper guidence to begin with, That we spent more time as a family things would not be as bad as they are now.
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:3)
And you are basing this on.....? If they are armed, and I fire a warning shot in the air, guess where their warning shot is going: in my gut. If they're in my house, trying to steal my stuff, I do have the GD right to plug 'em. If I didn't, more people would probably be stealing since a potential deterrent is no longer there (i.e. getting shot). I mean, I'm liberal, but please, don't go spouting off about burglar's rights.
psxndc
Re:Legal precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, to be fair, I was referring to here in the US. I won't contend the point with you in matters of the UK.
So, in other words, a human life to you is worth less than your property?
When they're in my house, how do I know they're not going to kill me and rape my wife? Should I politely ask them? In an abstract sense, no, of course human life is more important. But when it's 2 AM and dark and some strang
Well obviously (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well obviously (Score:3, Interesting)
Jack Thompson (Score:5, Funny)
Jack "2 Live Crew, Cop Killer, Dear Policeman I Am God, EverQuest Killed My Son" Thompson, Florida's leading disgrace to the legal profession.
and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:4, Interesting)
who?
Re: and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
> who? who?
I'd be more concerned with where they got the guns.
Re: and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument that GTA2, or any media, is to blame for one's actions is absurd. What should be explored is why these kids are feeble minded imbeciles. What is next - not allowing kids to read history (full of murder, rape, and violence) because we fear it might cause them kill? If you are simple minded enough to be persuaded by a video game to shoot someone in the head - you are either insane or a moron.
Maybe we could avoid a few of these cases if we included LOGIC somewhere in our public school's curriculum.
Re: and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
The gun owner has a responsibility to keep them locked up. Right?
wbs.
Re: and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Violent games don't always look that bad when you look at the covers. Take GTAIII, it's all cartoon style violence. Ok there's big guns and explosions but is that much different to the box if Action Man?
Video games are more immersing than traditional toys and this is the problem.
Re:and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and who bought the game for the kids? (Score:3, Funny)
P2P - Porn 2 Pistols!
other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other side of the coin, the victim might not be concerned about deep pockets. Instead, the victim is most likely in deep pain and may be under the impression the stopping the game company from making such games might also stop this pain from happening again.
Just on a personal note, I am not opposed to violent video games; I play them. I believe teenagers are more impressionable than adults, and we should be careful about their level of violence ingested.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not Take2's fault that Darwin had a point.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone willing to go out and shoot people at random probably also makes other choices which are bad for society.
I'm not implying that the U.S. "correctional" system's crude methods are the best available, but someone who doesn't think about the effects of their actions before acting should be taken aside and "parented".
Claiming that GTA leads people to believe that random killing is normal is similar to claiming that watching Wheel of Fortune will lead people to expect that they can earn thousands of dollars as a result of doing crossword puzzles.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really?
Ahh, I see. you mean FINANCIAL pain, as in "God damn, my neighbor got a bigger car then me and my wife's life insurance still won't get me a new Dodge! Hey, let's sue the makers of the game that the people who killed her played!". By Eris, all this 'financial compensation for emotional pain 'crap is making me so sick, especially in a case like this. Maybe the game creators weren't the people who are responsible, maybe the parents of the kids are, who quite obviously FAILED to properly raise their kids.
It's just another lawsuit with the purpose of getting rich quick over someone's death. Ignore it. The only ones who will profit from this one are the lawyers.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and whose responsibility should that be? Maybe... um... could it be... THE PARENTS' JOB? They bring the little brats^Wdarling angels into the world, yet we can't expect them to actually know what the kids are doing? Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me ONE case where parents have sued to stop publication, rather than suing for heaps and heaps of cash. Show me just ONE and I'll say you've got a valid point.
Re:other side of the coin (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Sorry, but your argument is nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Except, of course, that it's the family of the victims who are suing, and whom we might reasonably cut a little slack, not the parents of the shooters.
of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
It would have been okay for these little fuckers to be packing heat if they were weened on Bubble Bobble instead?!
Re:of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
No it isn't, but the parents cant be financially milked, unlike the gaming industry. Think in terms of money. The people who filed the suit couldn't give a rats ass who is right and who is wrong, as long as they can earn money from it. If someone dies, no amount of money can bring them back, yet a certain amount of money can make them 'forget' it happened. I call that both disgusting and immoral because they use someone's death for financial gains.
why so specific? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about just not to point guns at people? If the kids are so dense you have to tell them not to shoot at cars then they're probably too dense to know they shouldn't shoot at trucks or semies or mini-vans or SUVs, etc either without you specifically telling them each type of vehicle.
They should just throw the kids in jail for a very long time and be done with it.
They're obviously incapable of functioning in society. And the parents are obviously incapable of raising the kids otherwise.
And the parents who are suing the video game makers would be better off spending their time getting the court systems to stop feeling sorry for kids they'd like us all to believe "made a mistake."
A mistake is breaking a lamp. It is not a "mistake" to take innocent lives in such a malicious manner. They've crossed the sympathy line about 3 miles ago with this one.
The parents should simply be content with those kids locked away indefinitly.
Ben
Another fine example (Score:5, Insightful)
The game did it.
What happened?
GTA, a "game"? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm in the same situation (Score:5, Funny)
Well when I showed up for training camp earlier this year they kept telling me to get the hell off the field. They wouldn't believe me that I really was on the team.
I'm seriously considering suing the makers of Madden for making me believe I really was on the team because they, of course, are at fault in this situation.
One mo' time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any kids that went out and did stuff like that had problems before they ever got ahold of GTA.
American Experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One mo' time... (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, the parents can't blame the game company for this: They bought the game. A game with a "Mature" rating called "Grand Theft Auto"? Did they think this was educational software? Apparently it didn't matter, because obviously it's not their responsibility to monitor what they buy for their kids, the game industry is supposed to be in charge of that right? PS2 = Babysitter. And now their kids got this idea that it's ok to shoot people because the parents who probably didnt' even teach them to take their pants down before they shit obviously didn't teach them that SHOOTING PEOPLE is wrong. So thank you Sony, and thanks Rockstar and Take Two. Christ, if only I was a little more irresponsible, I'd be a millionare.
Also, what is this tobacco company = game company shit? Tobacco companies lie about their products and the degree of harm they cause. Tobacco companies know cigarettes are addictive and they know cigarettes cause cancer and all kinds of other nasty stuff. Video games don't cause anything. People who immitate violent video games make a CONCIOUS CHOICE to do so.
...or is America so full of follow-the-leader zombies that people really don't have control? Parents who let the corporations babysit, kids who dont' know any better because the corporations sure ain't trying to teach them anything, no wonder we're in this mess. Those parents should be spade and neutered.
I love the quote from the article from one of the kids: "I didnt' mean to hurt anyone." Hey asshat, dont' shoot shotguns at the highway then, you fucking tool.
It's not the games, it's the people. Period.
interesting idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
1: being irresonsible and leaving unlocked weapons around.
2: not teaching the kids gun safety
3: not knowing what the kids were up to
You never know, it might actually work! The next step would be, imagine this, that parents would actually be responsible for their childs actions!!
Re:interesting idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:interesting idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone know why they don't they teach logic in public schools? Blows my mind... I hear Informal Logical Fallacies [cocc.edu] at least 20 times a day! If not in person - in the news (tv, paper, etc.) Matter of fact, I would estimate that 80 percent of all the arguments I hear anywhere contain at least one. We need to engrain these in our youth, and maybe we will end up with fewer morons (like these two kids).
unbelievable (Score:3, Insightful)
"The industry needs to cough up money so victims and their families can be compensated for their pain," Thompson said. "The shareholders need to know what their games are doing to kids and their families. They need to stop pushing adult rated products to kids. These products are deadly."
Amazing that some lawyer believes this...oh wait, no its not. If they win they'll make history for themselves as well as get a really good chunk of change.
Why can't I get on jury selection for stuff like this so when they ask me a question I can tell them what morons they are???
Kids are seeing that they can claim video games made them do it these days and they don't get labeled as murderers or as crazy. Its just another ploy to not accept responsibility.
Granted these kids admitted responsibility but they also blamed GTA. If they didn't they probably would have been in more trouble. Lesson for the kiddies out there. If you are going to commit a violent crime make sure you have a good scapegoat. These days movies and video games seem to work pretty well.
obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the guy who said that the DC snipers were gamers and got nearly every mainstream media outlet to beleive it. This is also the guy who sent a 13 year old (possibly his son, I don't remember exactly) into Best Buy to guy M rated games. He has very good PR and is very good at getting media coverage beacuse he gives the media the kind of hysteria laden sound bites they love. This guy has an agenda and he needs to be watched out for.
Re:obvious... (Score:4, Funny)
Public offer: If you happen to know an impressionable game junky, I am willing to reimburse the cost of Hitman and Hitman 2 games, on the condition that you buy these games for the above mentioned junky and provide him/her with the home address of Jack Thompson. This offer becomes valid immediately.
From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this even a question? Yes.
Please allow me to quote Gabe from Penny Arcade:
"Like some kind of pornographic archeologist your 10 year old boy is probably rummaging through a stack of poorly hidden playboys from the 1970's at his best friends house right now. You cannot watch your kids all the time and you cannot ensure they will never see a boob or a gun before they are ready. What you can do is make sure that what they see and do in your house is appropriate and rely on some good old fashioned parenting skills to make sure that a quick glimpse of some blood in a videogame doesn't send them into a violent rage that ends with a school full of dead kids."
The Game didn't do it! (Score:3, Funny)
The game may present an idea, but there are far more steps involved in actually carrying this sort of thing out than those presented in a video game. What, did the kid run towards a spinning, levitating star after he shot at cars?
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
Re:Some figures... (Score:5, Funny)
England and Wales 0.41;
Japan 0.05
And the sales figures for GTA: Vice City
United States: 5,221,935
England and Wales: 800,000 (extrapolating from full UK figures)
Japan: 0
Which just goes to prove that Take 2/Rockstar have a lot to answer for, the murdering scum.
Re:Some figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next? Pool Deaths? Ocean Deaths? Knife Deaths? Food Deaths?
Control the language, and you control the thoughts. Don't buy into their newspeak.
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
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
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%
Parents, Don't pay attention to Game Ratings. (Score:4, Insightful)
Psychotics aren't born in a day.
I Didn't Shoot Anyone (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reminded of a line out of a Batman comic that I have in which a paramedic tells Batman not to feel bad after a maniac shoots several people because he (Batman) couldn't have known. Batman's response is something to the effect of:
"I don't. I didn't shoot anyone."
I think that applies here fairly well. Noone at Take Two shot anyone (at least not in relation to this case), and it wasn't their job to watch and raise every fucking 90 IQ kid out there who plays their game when the parents don't screen their kids' purchases. A more apt lawsuit might be filed against the parents for criminal negligence and the fact that they let their mentally ill, retarded children anywhere near guns...
Actually, my apologies to all the mentally retarded people out there, I shouldn't have grouped you with people as ridiculously stupid as those kids...
Who are we blaming? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it is time to have exams for parenting eligibility. Seriously. There was a recent case that also blamed games for some shootout.
Never do the articles even MENTION how the f**k those kids got the guns! A 14 year old child with an access to loaded shotgun is clearly a problem but not a one caused by video games.
What are the parents going to blame if the violent games are banned? Oh, right, movies [go.com].
Why do they think this will work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, it wouldn't work without an unhealthy dose of denial on the part of the parents. You really have to have your head in the sand (or someplace else dark and possibly more moist, and certainly stinkier) to not realize that it's your parenting to blame here, not the game. When I was just a wee lad I had an NES and I played zelda, metroid, etc, but I never ended up picking up a sword or some kind of plasma cannon (well, that last part was only because they weren't readily available, but on a related note, parents who leave guns out are part of this problem too) and going out to kill people, damage property with it, et cetera. On the other hand, I did do a little graffiti 'tagging', and some petty acts of vandalism, in spite of not having any games which even had vandalism in them. A simpler time, indeed.
The fact is that if the kids couldn't have gotten their hands on guns in the first place none of this would have happened. This is not about gun control, except in the sense of controlling your own guns. Personally I think that when someone's kids grab their guns and run around shooting things with them, that person should have their right to own firearms revoked permanently on the grounds that they are not responsible enough to own them.
Further, while this is not covered by this article or anything, we should never ever be trying children as adults. They do not have the rights, why give them the responsibilities? Punish the parents and take their children away from them. (If the kids killed someone, I think you really ought to just go ahead and sterilize both parents, too, but I'm kind of doubting too many people will be behind me on that one.) Sure, a foster home or the state probably won't do a great job raising the kids, but obviously the parents themselves aren't accomplishing much.
Eminem said it best... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about playing GTA. What happens the first time you try to play the game?
Chances are you end up with the boys in blue on your butt and you're being beaten to a bloody pulp. Nothing misleading there.
They should select a group of jurors with no experience playing the GTA games and have them each try playing the game -- the trial will last about 90 minutes before being thrown out.
$5000 answer (Score:4, Funny)
I happened to have seen Bowling for Columbine yesterday. In it the solution, provided by a very funny black entertainer. Make bullets $5000 a piece.
Bert
Who appreciates a lot of what Michael Moore makes.
Kids' parents already show irresponsible (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems pretty obvious where the blame falls to me. Parents that are not willing to help their children in school, or pay even the slightest amount of attention to their other activites invite this kind of shit.
Just to add to the lack of attention, the guns were gone for almost a week:
(from KnoxNews [knoxnews.com])
Kids not doing shit in school, playing M rated video games (at home, in the parents house), and guns missing for a week... yeah, blame TakeTwo.
bad press and laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Our LAN customers are mainly between 15-18 yrs old, but some are significantly younger, like 10-12 yrs. The parents we've had in our store have mostly either recognized the games, and been o.k. with it, or specifically told their children not to play certain ones. I think the parents we've run into recognize that raising their kids *is* their responsibility, and they have to keep track of what they do in their free time.
Just a couple miles away in the neighboring town, there's an ordinance stating that patrons under 16 years of age need parental consent to play anything at a gaming center. I don't know if anyone actually follows these ordinances, but its the kind of laws that ppl could pass that makes running a LAN center (what I consider to be the "modern" arcade) a royal PITA.
Blech (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I hate the entire GTA series. I think the glorification of violence is a bad idea, and that the game makers show a lack of social conscience. But I respect their right to make the games. Further, I believe that if we were to hold game makers responsible for the effects of their games on the people who buy them, it would have a profund chilling effect on free speech. That is unacceptable.
You know it and I know it: these kids were severely disturbed long before they ever got their hands on GTA. Hundreds of millions of people play video games, why aren't at least a few million of us out there emulating them? Because the vast, vast majority of us have too firm a grip on reality. We also share an ability to empathize with others and accept that their feelings are important. These kids, somewhere along the line, lost that ability.
Even if we accept that there is a small subset of humanity who--for whatever psycho/neuro/sociological reason--can be affected by video games in this way, that is not sufficient reason to stop creating the games. It doesn't make sense any more than it makes sense to stop making peanut butter just because a few of us are violently allergic to peanuts. The focus should be on finding these broken people and trying to fix them, because making the world safe for them is impossible.
In most countries this would be near impossible (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" - or what is that saying? Well, that is fine by me. Then you can bust anybody running around with a gun and get the problem out of the way. Seriously, how many lifes have the right to bear arms saved? How many has it cost? This system is what keeps deaths down in oh so many countries.
In my country, you are allowed to have guns. You have to pass some rigorous tests for it, and get a real license - just like to you have to pass tests to drive a car. To get any gun not suitable for hunting, you have to be a member of a shooting club, and you have to have been a member for quite some time. Also, nowadays, this permit is reevaluated every few years.
Responsible, test passing people are way more likely to keep their guns safely, and disassembled like they should do. You almost never hear about any incidents over here. Almost, of course, because nothing is idiot proof. But almost never. Wouldn't that be nice?
I'm gonna get soooo jumped for this, I guess, but I honestly, seriously do not get it. What the hell do you need those guns for? And if you really like to fire a weapon, how come a shooting club isn't good enough? And if you are a serious, law abiding, responsible gun user, how the hell can stricter rules on who gets to own a gun be a bad thing? You should applaud it, and if you are all of the above, you should pass any test easily.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. True. But why give them such an easy way to do it?
Why is this stupid piece of lethal metal so fucking important to you people?
Legal BS (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were one of his victims, I would sue his parents for leaving an unsecured gun around a mentally disabled child.
So if I bombed Berlin? (Score:3, Insightful)
Could I blame that on Mattel's B-17 Bomber?
Or Microprose 50 Mission Crush?
zombie like -- must restore B-17 and Bomb Berlin.
Historical Precedent (Score:4, Funny)
Damn.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Joshua wrote.
Now, I'm not saying that these kids are kind of slow, but one would expect when you live in Tenesee where your parents let you wander over to the highway with some rifles, your parents would have taught you at the very least that when you shoot people with guns, they get hurt. I'm very certain that when these kids parents took them out Coon hunting or whatever brain dead sport people keep these useless pieces of trash around for (those would be guns) they explained very clearly that the buisness end of the gun should not be turned on other people and that when it was loaded and sighted, pulling the trigger would cause massive trauma to whatever was in front of the business end of the gun.
I'm sorry, but video games companies should start suing these kids and their parents for slander, because the other 500 million of us that played Grand Theft Auto have never shot anyone, and just becuase some retard, with a minimal understanding of causal relationships decides that blasting away with a gun is a good idea, doesn't mean that a game is involved. These people have been disconnected from reality for a good long while and it's time that we lock them away in quiet houses for crazy people where they belong.
To summarize, when you give a moron a gun, bad things happen. It is sincerely time to take people into account for their actions ("Hey kids you killed someone, wounded another, and cuased a deal of property damage, I'm thinking about letting you off on probation") it frustrates me to no end that this is the kind of society that we live in.
---
The second ammendment allows for the right of a well regulated militia to bear arms in defense of our nation.
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You know what I just thought of, the core of the problem is that most people who own firearms (unless they're really messed up in the head) own guns for sport hunting. I think that the real root of this problem is that these people have introduced the idea of a gun as a source of entertainment far before video games.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Real war (Score:3, Flamebait)
Times have changed.
Knowing the difference between reality and fantasy (Score:5, Insightful)
Never during my youth did I ever attempt to faithfully mimic any of my forms of entertainment in a dangerous way. I have never known a friend, a friend of a friend or even a dumbass kid who ever pulled stupid emulation tricks that ridiculously ended in some "willful" violent act.
This does not include accidents that were painfully stupid, of course... I remember hearing about a kid screwing around with a shotgun... eeeew.... not a pretty scar.... even then I thought to myself "what a dumbass!"
WHY did I have such a stark sense of reality that kids today seem to be missing? After all, that is the REAL problem here. It's not games we/they play. It's not the crap we/they watch on TV. A majority of kids actually do understand the difference between reality and fantasy or else we'd have a plague of mutant kids shooting up schools, writing Microsoft worms and virii, teenagers getting pregnant, dogs and cats sleeping together, mass hysteria!
Now I have sons and I let them play Mortal Kombat when everyone else says "No! They'll become evil mutant killer kids! It'll warp their impressionable little minds!" Sure enough, they began to emulate the games they played. The difference between my kids and the "odd" kids who don't understand reality? My sons somehow KNEW they should "pull their punches." They somehow KNEW that you can't and shouldn't attempt to rip a person's head off by the spine dripping blood all over my freshly cleaned carpet.
Clearly it's not the games. It's the influence the parents have over their children. Somehow people got some WEIRD ideas about raising kids. Here's a few of them: (in no specific order of significance)
1. Parents own their kids and no one can or will take them away! It's a socialist crime against nature to even try.
Here's a reality: NO! You don't! They are your responsibility. They are not your thing. They are not your hobby. They are not for your convenience and they aren't "cheap household labor." They are little versions of you and they embody all of your dreams and hopes. They can avoid making all the mistakes in life you made and you can have a vicarious second chance not to screw your life up as you did before. Most importantly, your self-elected job is to teach these little PEOPLE. So teach them!
2. No rational person goes about causing distruction. The only reason it could happen is a sheer lack of respect for other people, property and ultimately themselves.
This goes back to TEACHING YOUR DAMNED KIDS!!! I was taught. My kids are taught. Most of the kids my brothers have are taught. The only "trouble" I have seen from any of them were the STEP-KIDS of one of my brothers... he clearly has problems with reality and problems with respecting other people and property. Strangely, he has a "very good mother." She's one of those over-reactive, sheltering soccer-moms who is "ultra careful" and censoring.
Teach your kids to respect and understand reality. Don't do what my mother did -- preventing me from using a fork to eat with for fear I might hurt myself. Give your kids a frikken KNIFE and teach them how to use it properly and maybe even show them that when used improperly, injury can occur. That's how to teach respect for your environment and how to deal with and live within the realm of reality. Teach them to shoot guns properly; How to clean and maintain them; to be good at hitting the target and to understand that they are dangerous and deadly in the wrong hands and that there are serious consequences to misusing these tools.
TEACH THE KIDS!!! You're not "too busy."
And for those who aren't taught... for those who raise defective kids... HOLD THEM 100% responsible. It's a frikken tragedy that their failure as a parent would actually have repercussions on themselves... but this is kind of like conventional corporate mentality... they can do bad things because they kn
"Your honour...." (Score:4, Funny)
Nuisance suit, anyone?
Re:What happened (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened to this country?? Has the average intelligence dropped that fucking much??
Short answer: yes. But there's more to it than that.
When the fuck did I get sucked into the Twilight Zone? And whatever happened to personal responsibility??
It isn't just the drop in American IQ that's at work here; indeed, that's only a minor factor. The group most responsible for bringing this stupidity to our once-great nation is the American Trial Lawyers Association.
IANAL, but as I understand it the sou
Videogames DO infleunce kids, but then... (Score:3, Interesting)