Video games being blamed again for killing

[Cinorjer]

From AOL news, I don't know how to post the link: NEW YORK (Sept. 6) - The family of a slain motorist has filed suit against the maker of a video game that two teens claim inspired them to shoot at passing cars on a Tennessee highway.

Grand Theft Auto, a video game that allows players to "fire" on people and cars in realistic, shoot-'em-up fashion, is a cash cow that propelled manufacturer TAKE2interactive to the top of the video game industry. For the middle and high school students who play the game for hours on end, it's a means of escaping the monotony of teenage life.

But for two stepbrothers, 16-year-old William and 14-year-old Joshua Buckner, that escape turned deadly this summer. They told police they were emulating Grand Theft Auto on the night of June 25 when they took shotguns to Interstate 40, near their Newport, Tenn., home, and opened fire on vehicles.

So a 16 and 14 year old boy play this video game, and say, "Hey, that was neat. Gee, Wally, I have an overpowering urge to get a gun and go shoot some real people. How about you?"

No, we can't blame the kids or parents, so it must be the video game's fault. It couldn't be that there was just something wrong with the boys now, could it? Or that neither one of them were apparently taught the difference between right and wrong? Overall teenage violence has actually declined while video games have become standard entertainment for kids.

[Ziggurat]

A nice little take on the whole thing:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-08-11&res=l

Yeah, I'd have to say that parents have more than a little to do with how they raise their children.

[Yahweh]

Videogames cause violence, what a way to scapegoat...

The kids had a history with Grand Theft Auto (a violent game) and they hauled off and killed a bunch of people, "Hey, these events happened together so they must be casually related"... welcome to Flawed Reasoning 101.

I dont believe in "inspired violence".

[Some Friggin Guy]

I dont believe in "inspired violence".

I agree, unless the the killings were "divinely inspired".

[EvilYeti]

This is sick on so many levels.

The degenerates go on a rampage, get caught, and cynically think they can push the blame off to something else.

They should both get life and prision and their parents should be sterilized.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by EvilYeti
The degenerates go on a rampage, get caught, and cynically think they can push the blame off to something else.
Some teenagers I know think that punishment is dealt in fixed amounts (like money), and therefore can be spread out... in effect they believe doing this will lessen the punishment they'll recieve.

Also, they are just looking for an excuse for their actions. Any exuse.

They should both get life and prision and their parents should be sterilized.
If someones genes were that bad they'd need to be taken out of the gene pool, they'd of won a Darwin Award by now...

[Cinorjer]

They should both get life and prision and their parents should be sterilized.(Evilyeti)

Kinda overboard on the sterilizing bit, don't you think? In our desire to understand Why Kids Do Bad Things, we do have to look at the parents. They, not video games, have the most effect on how their child grows up. We do know there's a causual relationship in many cases between the role parents model for their child and how the child behaves.

But we can also get into the blame game in a different direction and automatically say "It's the parent's fault." That's as wrong as blaming video games, since it's still looking for an easy answer to a difficult question. We'd like to think that with the proper stable, loving environment, all children will grow up to be model citizens. Yet some of the worst crimes are done by people who seem to have perfectly fine childhoods. For those parents, if their child cuts loose and does something terrible like this, the anguish and guilt must be overwhelming. "What did we do wrong?" We have many other people who experienced terrible parents yet managed to grow up to be fine people.

Sometimes violent behavior is like suicide, something that defies rational analysis. In spite of our best efforts, some kids are going to grow up self-absorbed, with a cruel streak, or decide to act on their desires no matter who it hurts.

[Ian Osborne]

And remember, Grand Theft Auto is an 18-rated game in the UK, and I believe it's rated 'Mature' in the States. The kids were too young to play it, but the parents let them anyway. And let them get their hands on the shotgun. But hey, who's into taking responsibility for your own actions these days? Blame someone else and call your lawyer...

[Checkmite]

Unlike other cases in which the young perpetrators were known to have played violent "FPS" games and the like, and so a connection was assumed between their crimes and the games, these kids actually came out and declared they were acting out the game in real life. What's the difference, here? Certainly not the loss of blame on behalf of the kids. 16 and 14 aren't too young to know right from wrong, and I don't know their parents well enough to presume that they were "neglegent" in the teaching of "morality" in that regard. I place the blame squarely on the kids. But the difference is, I won't get all mad or steamed up over "parents" or "law enforcement" mentioning a video game connection; I blame the kids for that also, since they're the ones who brought it up to begin with.

On the same token, I'm not fond of adults evoking and blaming shows like "Jackass" when kids do idiotic stunts and hurt themselves - but when the kid comes right out and says "I was trying to do this Jackass stunt", there's not much left to argue about. Is it, then, the show's fault, or the parents' fault for not teaching their kids to be safe? Neither; the kids are just morons. Thus endeth the sermon.

[Frostbite]

How come japanese kids don't pull off stunts like that but they're still huge videogame consumers?

[clk]

Originally posted by Frostbite
How come japanese kids don't pull off stunts like that but they're still huge videogame consumers?

The Japanese have quite a strict culture. I remember reading somewhere that if a kid stole a bike in Japan, it could very well ruin the rest of his life (if he were caught)...

[Rosencrantz]

While I don't agree that the makers of the game are responsible for acts of violence, I have to say that sometimes it's easy to blur the line between fantasy and reality. There was a time where several friends of mine and I would often get together to play a game called Carmageddon, where the object is to win a race and bonus points are awarded for causing damage to other cars and property and even running over pedestrians. It was a fun game, if you could handle the sort of sick concept, but I became very disturbed by it when I was driving home afterward once and caught myself instinctively veering towards the people on the sidewalk. If this kind of thing could affect me, a reasonably intelligent and responsible adult, surely it has an effect on kids who are still working out their behavior patterns?

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by Rosencrantz
While I don't agree that the makers of the game are responsible for acts of violence, I have to say that sometimes it's easy to blur the line between fantasy and reality. There was a time where several friends of mine and I would often get together to play a game called Carmageddon, where the object is to win a race and bonus points are awarded for causing damage to other cars and property and even running over pedestrians. It was a fun game, if you could handle the sort of sick concept, but I became very disturbed by it when I was driving home afterward once and caught myself instinctively veering towards the people on the sidewalk. If this kind of thing could affect me, a reasonably intelligent and responsible adult, surely it has an effect on kids who are still working out their behavior patterns?

Never mind the violent video games. My friend used to play the race-car rally games at the video game arcade, then drive home at 1000 mph. I think he thought that if he ran into a wall, his car would just wiggle a bit and he'd be placed back in the middle of the road to start again.

[shuize]

Originally posted by clk


The Japanese have quite a strict culture. I remember reading somewhere that if a kid stole a bike in Japan, it could very well ruin the rest of his life (if he were caught)...

Hardly. You may recall the case of the "Sakakibara" killer in Kobe about five years ago. It even made the news in the U.S. Two Japanese elementary school children were killed and one had his head chopped off and planted in front of his school with a note stuck in his mouth reading, in effect, "Catch me if you can." The authorities thought they had a serial killer on their hands and brought in criminal profilers to try and solve the case. It turned out the killer was a 14 year old middle school student who, incidently, was just recently released from juvenile detention.

Even more recently, a 13 year old in Nagasaki was caught after brazenly taking a four year old from his kindergarden to the top of a building across town, stripping him naked and throwing him to his death. Because of his age, however, he will not be prosecuted even in juvenile court.

There are many more example of cases such as these. Japanese society may be "strict" in other ways, but punishment of juvenile offenders is not one of them.

BTW, bicycles and umbrellas are the two most commonly stolen items in Japan. Don't believe everything you read.

[Moccomouse]

Uggh....yet another case of people assuming that a picture of a societal problem is somehow automatically the cause of said problems.

[JAR]

Originally posted by EvilYeti
[snip]
They should both get life and prision and their parents should be sterilized.
I see that like me, you don't buy into the concept of the "blank slate" which Rousseau came up with.