Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed

Dr_LHA writes: "This story on Yahoo! reports that the federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that claimed the influence of video games and movies where what caused the Columbine High School massacre. Obvious to those of us who play GTA3 regularly but still manage to overcome the urge to plough over pedestrains on the way to work in the morning, but good to see someone high up showing some sense."

Comments

One more stupid lawsuit out of the way.

[Mike the Mac Geek]

One more scapegoat for bad parenting taken away.
Now lets work on the rest. All we have to do is wait for some money hungry family to start suing.

Re:One more stupid lawsuit out of the way.

[gwernol]

One more scapegoat for bad parenting taken away.

I agree that bad parenting is often at least partly to blame - I can't talk about Columbine specifically because I don't know the full facts of the case.

However this is a complex issue because of the age of the people involved. At some age people need to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame (parents/society/computer games/whatever). Clearly very young children are not full individuals with full accountability, as adults are.

But where do you draw the line? When is it reasonable to demand that a person accepts full responsibility for his/her actions? Legally the answer varies somewhere between 13 and 21 (in the US) depending on the state and the act being considered. But even if there was a single age, this would be an arbitrary cut-off point. Some people mature earlier and should be held responsible at a younger age. Some people mature later or not at all - for example if they have severe mental incapacity.

The problem with Klebold and Harris is that they at the age where they are leaving their parent's influence and becoming their own people. Clearly these two could not handle the transition, for whatever reason(s). Should their parents take at least some of the responsibilty? Probably. Should most of it lie on the shoulders of the murderers? Probably. It seems like they were old enough to act largely independently of others. Are there other factors that should be considered? Probably.

There aren't simple answers to this.

Re:One more stupid lawsuit out of the way.

[markmoss]

Klebold and Harris were still living in their parents' homes. Their arsenal was stored in one of their parents' garages. You might not be able to control your kids when they are away from your home, but you really should be able to keep them from building bombs and accumulating enough firearms for a small war in your own garage. How much freedom you can or should give your teenage kids depends on how much responsibility they have demonstrated; Klebold and Harris apparently already had enough of a record to show that they needed close supervision...

Well, almost..

[Havokmon]

Funny, the first time I played GTA (at work no less), I just about plowed over a cop on my way home.. Of course I didn't. I was just surprised I had the urge to.

Then again, maybe it was the combination of a bad environment and GTA :) (*attention Columbine parents)

Huh?

[EricKrout.com]

Obvious to those of us who play GTA3 regularly but still manage to overcome the urge to plough over pedestrains on the way to work in the morning, but good to see someone high up showing some sense.

What the hell are you talking about? It's well-documented that no murders or school violence took place before Magnavox created the first videogame system thirty years ago.

Re:Video games cause death?

[KenSentMe]

I wholeheartedly agree. Those parents are just trying to shift the focus of blame off of them, and onto something else, like media. It's a typical move. They portray the illusion that, somehow, society has failed them by not helping them raise their children. It's wrong, so very wrong.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of having 16-on-16 in a good CounterStrike game.

The real problem.

[Reedo]

Parents.

Pretty much anything can influence someone, but it depends on how you were raised whether or not you're going to actually want to copy it or do something similar. When MOST people play a game like Doom, they would never ever even consider doing anything remotely close to that in real life. But some people don't have that type of conscious or morals(or ability to distinquish between reality and fiction), and when they see a movie or play a game and enjoy it, sometimes they go and do it themselves. It's possible they were influenced by it...it gave them an idea. That's all it takes when someone hasn't been raised right or fell off the wagon along the way for some other reason. But games/movies/music/etc are not to blame, the parents are. If the kid is going to be influenced by something like that, they shouldn't be playing/seeing/reading it in the first place.

It should also be noted that video games are a popular scape goat because they are relatively new. Books had the same problem back in the day. And most of you can probably remember all the hooplah when rap and the like became popular.

Like Itchy & Scratchy

[Bravo_Two_Zero]

It's just like Itchy & Scratchy Industries president Roger Meyers Jr. said in that Simpsons episode...

Meyers: I did a little research and I discovered a startling thing... There was violence in the past, long before cartoons were invented.
Kent Brockman: I see. Fascinating.
Meyers: Yeah, and know something, Karl? The Crusades, for instance. Tremendous violence, many people killed, the darned thing went on for thirty years.
Kent Brockman: And this was before cartoons were invented?
Meyers: That's right, Kent.

Replace "cartoons" with "video games" and add a hearty "get bent" to the censors.

Obvious...

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

Obvious to those of us who play GTA3 regularly but still manage to overcome the urge to plough over pedestrains on the way to work in the morning

Let me tell you that urge is getting harder and harder. Thank God I don't have access to Rocket Launchers, M16's and Uzi's.

Re:Then what did it?

[SirSlud]

There's always the fact that murders have always plagued humans. We simply tend to lock into the 'new' angles of sensational stories. In this case, a connection with videogames was very obvious, and it suited the already growing anti-violent-videogames sentiment at the time.

I tend to look at these things, and shrug. Nuthing new. Humans will always have a few who fall through the cracks and are forced to scream out for attention and revenge for perceived wrongs; its just too bad we strive so hard to 'categorize' the influences instead of trying to understand the less material catalysts behind their physcological state at the time of the tragedy.

I was teased, ridiculed, and ostricized from school, and I thoguht about suicide more than a few times. To me, it doesn't seem like that far of a leap from what these kids to from the psycological states that thousands upon thousands of outcasts suffer from school. Their reaction was out of line, their actions uncondonable, but I cannot simply dismiss the fact that popular school goers get away with psycological torture that is far more of an influence on what these kids did than video games.

And if you don't understand, thats half my point. Humans look for the bright red flags that say, "Look at me, I caused people to do this," and usually dismiss what outcasts are consistantly saying: "It fucking hurts to be hated by so many people." You have to take the extent of the pain caused by seemingly flippant adolescent peer to peer behaviour on faith.

Re:Good but........

[fobbman]

No kidding. Ever since the release of Pac Man and Burgertime the number of obese Americans has risen dramatically. Coincedence? I doubt it.

Also consider the number of times that America has had to flex its millitary muscles since Battlezone and Missile Command. It's no wonder people are scared to death of video games.

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to go threaten my supervisor with a joystick up-down-right-right-left-left high kick medium punch if she doesn't give me a performance bonus.

Re:Finally, some common sense.

[ethereal]

I agree with your point, but not your example. See Legal Myths: The McDonald's "Hot Coffee" Case for more info. The basic deal is that McDonald's has been serving coffee at an arbitrary high temperature, knew that over the years there had been a number (~700) of injuries due to this, and did nothing to reduce the chance that these injuries would occur. So the question isn't really whether one coffee burn is cause for suit, it's whether a repeated pattern of coffee-related injuries constitutes reckless conduct on the part of McDonald's. Should spilling coffee in your lap make you feel stupid, damp, and very warm? Yes. Should it give you third-degree burns in three seconds? Considering that there's no advantage to serving coffee at that temperature, I would say no.

I agree with your point about personal responsibility, though - a video game doesn't make someone kill; if those kids were killers then it was because of something else that had already made them like that. Perhaps the fact that they could plan the whole thing in a parent's garage without the parent knowing is a good indication of where the problem may lie.

The moral question...

[pinkUZI]

I guess its sort of a sad thing that the judge should probably be applauded for this.
It seems all too popular these days to blame the symptom rather than the disease. When are we going to wake up and realize that guns don't kill people and video games don't corrupt youth. The problem with Columbine isn't the guns. Its the fact that two teenage boys thought that it was OK to kill all of their buddies.

The root of the problem lies in the continual de-moralization of our society. I think it would help to remember our priorities: when we say - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, life comes before liberty. And in order to preserve life morals are essential. It becomes a delicate balance between an individual's freedom to believe and carry on as they choose and if some of these activities and beliefs are downright bad for society as a whole.

Re:The moral question...

[dmarx]

when we say - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, life comes before liberty.

Actually, I believe that the founders intended all these rights to be equal in importance. They thought that you could do whatever you wanted, so long as you did not infringe on one of those rights. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best: "You have the right to extend your arm, but your right to do that ends where my nose begins."

Does there HAVE to be blame?

[dschuetz]

I see quite a few posts already saying that this decision helps to place the blame where it "belongs" -- on the parents.

But what about parents who do a good job? Parents who read Dr. Spock, have family dinners, spend a night a week with no TV but playing games and talking to their children, and yet STILL have children who grow up to be Charles Manson?

It's entirely possible that even the best parents in the world could have evil, maladjusted, sociopathic children.

We, as a society, are very quick to (1) Assume that someone "must" be responsible for anything that goes wrong, and (2) sue the crap out of whomever is currently assigned blame for #1.

For a while it was ADHD and Ritalin. It's often lousy teachers. Then it was rap music and/or video games. Sprinkled in there occasionally are parents, teachers, and school administrators (not to mention on-site security officers or the bus driver).

Hasn't anyone thought to blame the people who actually commit the crimes?

We as a society have to get used to the fact that you don't always know why, that there isn't always someone who has the power to stop things, and that we aren't always entitled to restitution.

Alright, everyone, repeat after me: "Shit happens."

Re:Does there HAVE to be blame?

[Tony.Tang]

There's an interesting thread that could develop here. To be clear (not insulting), "society" in your post really means "Western Society."

Putting blame on the surrounding environment comes out of psychology -- in particular behaviourist psychology, which came out of the US. Its basic premise was that everyone is born equally -- it's the environment that shapes you into what you end up being. This is actually a pretty huge premise. Academic psychologists don't completely subscribe to it any more, but the idea has been embedded into the American psyche. Of course, it doesn't just come out of psychology... "All men are born equal," anyone?

It becomes clear then, that regardless of how it came to be, the notion that the environment should be blamed is deeply etched into the American psyche. It's hard to blame the individual; most people (in the US) wouldn't stand for it.

It's only the most heinous of crimes that get blamed on the individual -- we don't want to ever believe that society could produce such a monster (e.g. serial killers).

Behaviour can be learned.

[Petersko]

Many people simultaneously believe that:

1) Behaviour Can Be Learned

2) Video Games Can Be Educational

3) Video Games Cannot Teach Negative Behaviour

Does this belief make sense? Children take their cues from all aspects of life, including the games they play. No, I don't believe violent video games should be banned - but I believe they should be rated, and those ratings enforced. 18+ for games like Quake. "Let's see some ID kid. No? Well, I can't sell you this game - I'd risk a fine or revocation of my business licence."

The parent could still buy it for their child, but at least they'd be forced to accept their responsibility as a parent.

Columbine happened right smack in the middle of a time period when we are witnessing the breakdown of the basic family unit, and the collapse of parental responsibility.

Video games are not the direct cause, but neither are they unrelated or innocent. They are one contributing factor in the fabric of society.

Society is Bunk!

[fotoLilith]

Maybe now that a judicial voice has managed to surgically extract their head from their bum we can get some reason into this facet of society and look at helping all of those involved: the people who have been bullied and those that bully others. Unfortunately, it is *really* hard to avoid assigning culpability: human nature tends towards blaming the victim (which is why only 10% of rape and domestic violence victims report their attacks: they are too afraid that someone will say "They were asking for it." And people will say that). Most people *want* to believe that humanity runs by a strict set of mores: they don't want to admit that a seemingly normal individual can hurt another person, so they place blame on the victim or on a myriad superfluous factions.

Studies of bullying behavior are just now starting in the scientific community. One of the things that researchers are recognizing is that people who are abused tend to have *different* values for what is abuse and bad behavior - basically, someone who goes through abuse or neglect tends to "grow up" faster and not recognize abuse in themselves. That is one reason why children of abusive families tend to carry on the vicious cycle to their own kids; and it is also a key to how someone who is bullied in school (or maybe bullied at home and carries that to school) would resort to such mind-bogglingly violent options.

There needs to be more investment in counceling and positive reenforcement in schools - perhaps as early as elementary school. Yes, a significant number of people who read this site were probably bullied and ostracized when they were younger (I still have bad memories of a rather unfortunate day in 6th grade when I wore a yellow hair band that did not match the rest of my attire). Most people do not go home and gather up the dynamite and a few gallons of gasoline, but some individuals have different receptors for pain and abuse. This is just a prime reason of how environment can alter our brains at the *cellular* level - changing even how the DNA is transcribed.

"If the whole world depends on today's youth, I can't see the world lasting another 100 years." Socrates

Heard on NPR this morning...

[cnelzie]

About a new possible Bill in the State of Michigan regarding the sale and rental of video games that have violent content in them.

I am going to find out who this idiot is and ask him why he believes that parents are incapable of raising their children.

I was also going to point out that a law similiar to this was passed and then reveresed in court, in the city of Indianapolis recently.

Parents do not need additional laws that give them even more reason to shirk their duties in raising their children. If they do, then they really shouldn't be parents. Work a few less hours and frikkin' raise your children. I know that when I have children, I or my wife, whomever is making less, will stay home and raise the children.

Again, those children in Columbine, including most of the "Copy-cat" children, were all on some kind of psycotropic medication, had two parents that worked more hours than they spent with their kids and probably barely knew what their kids were doing, thinking or planning.

That never happened to me, because my parents were there. Sure, sometimes they seemed annoying, but for the most part, they spent time with me and my siblings. They took us places, explained the actual difference between right and wrong and helped us become the good citizens that we are today.

Today's children don't have parents, they have lax animal trainers that are barely there to feed and change, let alone train the children they bore. Get a grip people, stop supporting these silly laws and start supporting your children.

Another thing, your children are growing up. If you don't teach them about the REAL WORLD, then they are going to learn all the dangers on their own. If that means they get pregnant at 15, then that is really your fault for choosing not to talk to them about sex. If they end up whacked out on drugs, again, you should have talked to them about drugs.

My parents did that for me and yours may have done that for you. If you turned out okay and actually had parents there to raise you. What makes you think that your children will be okay without parents?

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Re:Video games cause death?

[einTier]

It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one listening to Metallica in high school and playing Shadowrun and violent video games to help work out some of the rage I felt on a day to day basis.

I think in earlier times, it was easier to work out this rage, either fighting was more accepted (my parent's time), or you had to actively hunt for food (grandparent's time), or by 13 or 14, you were out fighting [i]real[/i] wars.

I don't think I was an atypical teen, but I had a lot of anger and angst I needed to work out. Luckily I had an outlet for that. I don't think it was unhealthy, most of my angst was about things I couldn't control and didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with yet. Adolescence is a very hard time to deal with. Mine was made better knowing that someone felt the same way I did (or at least did at one time) and there were outlets for my irrational rage and aggression.

Unfortunately, I see many parents trying to take away every one of these outlets, on the idea that they somehow cause violence. They'd like to ban everything from football to video games to violent television, because they aren't comfortable with the violent aspect of them. Somehow, they think if you just take these things away, people will somehow stop being "animals". It doesn't work that way. Man is violent by nature, and I'm sure that's part of the reason we survived to build society. You don't breed that out in a generation or get rid of it by legislation. And, the more you close off the places to get rid of this aggression safely, you will encourage more and more school shootings.

Re:Finally, some common sense.

[Phanatic1a]

I think the personal responsibility of the person involved should be a mitigating factor with regards to damages.


It was. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, but this amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury also found that Liebeck was 20% at fault for the spill. The massive $2.7 million punitive damages award was, well, punitive, and likely had a helluva lot to do with the 700 claims McDonald's had settled since 1982 involving people scalded by its coffee, was aware that its coffee could cause and had caused serious burns, and was utterly unrepentant of that fact.

McDonald's knew its coffee burned people, and did nothing about it. A quality enforcement manager at McDonald's testified before the court that the coffee was required to be held in the pot at 185 degrees, +/- 5 degrees, and admitted that this would cause burns, but also that McDonald's had no intentions of reducing that holding temperature.

The judge reduced punitive damages to three times the compensatory damages, and called McDonald's conduct "reckless," "callous," and "willful."

It is entirely another thing to have a cup of potentially-scalding hot coffee wedged between your legs while driving.

It is, indeed. But that's not what this woman did. This woman wasn't even driving the goddamned car. She was a passenger. Her son was driving, and he stopped the car at her request so she could take the lid off the coffee and add cream and sugar. She held the coffee between her legs to pry the lid off, at which point it spilled.

She was not driving. She was not holding the coffee between her legs while she was driving. The car was not even MOVING when this incident occurred.

if you aren't assuming that hot coffee can burn you, you are being stupid

Do you routinely assume that beverages served to you for your consumption are capable of inflicting full-thickness third-degree burns in 2-7 seconds should they touch your skin? I'm aware that I should treat my coffee as if it were a hot beverage, not as if it were hydrocholoric fucking acid.

I'm sorry for the off-topic post, but I'm sick and fucking tired of how people who are ignorant of the fundamental facts of this case feel qualified to pronounce judgement upon it.

Anybody ever watch Picket Fences?

[NanoGator]

There was an episode of Picket Fences that I saw a few years ago that had a court case involving television's role in violence with children. The basic plot of the story was a kid fired a potato gun at a teenager's car because the teenager was picking on the potato-gunman's little brother. The potato broke the car's windshield and caused the teen to swerve, rolling the car. The teen suffered a back injury and temporary paralysis. The little brother of the injured teen brought a gun to school the next day and shot the kid who fired the potato gun in revenge.

The city that this show takes place in is a small town and many of the people there suffer from knee-jerk over-reactiveness to events like these. They immediately blamed television for the shooting and pulled it off the air. The defense of the child that fired the gun (not the potato gun) was that television taught him that shooting guns is ok, therefore it's TV's fault.

The way the episode ended (if memory serves...) is that the prosecuting lawyer asked the kid a very interesting question. "When you watch TV, do you see people get shot?" "Yes." "Do they die?" "... Yes." "So television taught you that when you shoot somebody with a gun, they die."

I thought that was an interesting response to this whole TV/Video Games/Music causes violence debate. Movies like Robocop taught me that guns are not something you really want to play with at all. Some would say Robocop glorified violence, but it sure didn't for me. The idea of getting my arm blown off and surviving to feel it didn't settle too well with me at all.

It bothers me that this aspect of television is never explored. Personally, I think TV teaches that guns are dangerous, and that you're really playing games with your life expectancy vs. solving problems with them.

Re:GTA3

[-Harlequin-]

So tell me - what are you GTA fans thinking when you watch blood pool around a dead bystander's head in GTA3? Is it really necessary for the game to be THAT violent? How does it make the experience more enjoyable?

Like your post, this isn't a troll, but might sound like one. The violence doesn't make the game more fun, in fact, the game simply isn't violent in ways you describe - it's consistant. If you choose to beat up an old lady, why should the game intervene, stop you, and say "hey - that's not nice, you can't do that"? In other words, it's just like counterstrike, Halo etc - an artifact of creating a consistant world.

I haven't played all that far into GTA3, but from all that I have seen, you are NEVER required to beat up an old lady to progress or finish a mission. In fact, if you are so violently inclined as to use your weapons on an old lady, you're much more likely to have a run-in with the police, ending your game.

That's the interesting thing about GTA3 - unlike most games, there are serious consequences if the player commits random acts of violence. When you first get the game, it might be fun to try and rack up as many stars as you can get, but when you're actually playing it, you try pretty hard to avoid hurting people, else the police response makes it almost impossible to progress.

So in a sense, I see GTA3 as less violent than the shoot-everything-in-sight games, even though both might be very graphic.
That said, there are some pretty dodgy missions (though you still get to decide whether or not you want to do them). (I really didn't like the idea of being muscle for a protection racket for example. I was glad when it turned out to be a trap :)
GTA is also needlessly gratutious. The prostitute thing for example. (Not to mention - the idea that sex with a prostitute makes you healthier is somewhat counter to reality :-) and I think this exaggerates the feeling that it's violent.

I agree that it goes over the top, I just wanted to make the point that the game discourages violence - it seems more violent because whenever someone starts playing it, they discover that they are in a consistant world in which they be as violent as they want. And thus the PLAYER rips loose, NOT the game. When they start playing properly, it's completely different.

I think it would be a tragedy if game tech was retarded on the premise that offering a consistant world is too violent.