Warriors Of Freedom Prompted Rampage Attempt?

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Philadelphia Inquirer article linking videogames to an alleged spree killing attempt. According to the article, "Investigators suspect the three teens arrested.. as they allegedly were about to launch a killing rampage in the small town, found inspiration in violent computer games.. [police] learned that the name the three reportedly had given themselves - Warriors of Freedom - is also an Internet-based combat game." But only a few media reports mention that the violent game connection was made by Jack Thompson, a Miami lawyer and outspoken critic of violent video and computer games - is this a case of shameless Googling to find any obscure game with a similar name and make a connection, or is there genuine evidence here?

Comments

does it matter?

[feed_me_cereal]

is this a case of shameless Googling to find any obscure game with a similar name and make a connection, or is there genuine evidence here?

Evidence of what? Playing a violent video game? Big deal. Most kids play violent video games. What kind of games do you expect psycho killers to enjoy: doom3 or oregon trail? These critics really need to understand that a=>b does NOT mean b=>a. It's a very simple logical fallacy. I'm not discounting the possibility that violent games can incourage violent behavoir either, it's just that you actually need to show that video games lead one to violence when one would otherwise not be disposed to it. Violence was here long before video games were.

Re:does it matter?

[ADOT Troll]

The British author (amongst other things) Ben Elton wrote on the topic of violence in movies in his book 'Popcorn'. One of the main themes was about violence in movies spreading into real life, he pointed out many times that it's not that people emulate the characters they see directly, but that movies STYLIZE killing and violence - they make it seem COOL. Killing and violence is shown as a quick and effective way to get revenge, achieve goals, make a name for yourself etc..

Think of how they portayed killing in the basement scene in the first matrix, how 'COOL' was that; a computer hacker/nerd in sunnies and a trenchcoat, with a hot female in latex blasting away numerous innocent people without even flinching - with the propellerheads soundtrack pumping.

How many people play violent video games and imagine that the people they are shooting are real? Or use the simulated violence to release agression? What happens when life becomes too much and they SNAP and decide to do something about their situation - get revenge on all those motherfuckers in the coolest way you know, bust into school in trenchcoats with semi automatics and spray it with bullets - fantasy becomes reality.

I'm divided on the issue, as I don't think any sane person would snap like this and bring something patently evil into action, but what about the nutcases that do - have videogames and movies made killing SO cool that it appeals more than anything else? Should we start -constantly- portraying killing and violence as negative, highlighting the consequences and making these actions TABOO in our society, rather than revering them on Screen and in Play?

Re:does it matter?

[freeweed]

I'd suggest that removing freedom from the majority only to stop a *very* small minority from doing what they may like have done anyway (sure, I'll admit the evidence is out) is a REALLY stupid idea.

We don't ban cars because one or two idiots a year decide to deliberately crash into another person. And we don't ban movies that make speeding look cool, even though it kills far more people every day than even the most paranoid would claim videogames have in the past 31 years.

Re:does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

The father of one of these kids went on NATIONAL TELEVISION on FOX NEWS and ADMITTED HIMSELF (without provocation or even direct questioning of it) that all of the guns the children were caught with BELONGED TO HIM.

So here we have a parent who owned a lot of guns. I don't mean one or two -- I mean a LOT (you saw the photos on TV). He was a gun "collector". AND he failed to lock them up properly so that there was no possible way for his children to get at them. Not only did the kid get the guns but he also managed to get the ammo. Great parenting.

Of course being a gun nut doesn't make you a bad parenting. But being a gun nut with a bunch of guns that your chidren can access and having a child that would happily steal those weapons, plan a mass murder and then being to embark on said mass murder with friends by his side and the stolen weapons is as sure a sign of "fucked up parenting" as I've *ever* seen.

In one sentence the father dismissed his son's interest in weapons but admitted he (the father) had an arsenel of weapons and ammo in his house. In the very next sentence, he laid blame not at himself for raising the kid that way or showing any regret that he made the weapons so readily accessible... but instead, he blamed "the gothic belief" (whatever the fuck THAT is) and "videogames".

A parent with their head up their ass that severely about something as obvious as that is also a parent that probably failed to notice a lot of other things or act on them. Things like their child being withdrawn, sad, depressed, being picked on incessently, being beaten up, being confused, being hurt, being lonely, being suicidal, being homocidal, being delusional and everything else.

Like I say. Shitty parenting.

Re:does it matter?

[Mr. Slippery]

I'd suggest that removing freedom from the majority only to stop a *very* small minority from doing what they may like have done anyway (sure, I'll admit the evidence is out) is a REALLY stupid idea.

Don't be so quick on the trigger. The post to which you're replying made no suggestion of removing freedom.

Exposing immature or incompetent people to portrayals of violence is not a good idea. Exposing older kids to portrayals of violence without placing them in a proper context is not a good idea. But that bit of gatekeeping is the job or parents, teachers, and other caretakers, not of state censors.

Interesting reading from Lt. Col Dave Grossman, a West Point psychology and Military Science professor. (I disagree with his proposed solutions, which involve legislation and litigation, but his data on the problem is pretty solid):

• Due to incredible advances in trauma medicine, murder rates are a bad indicator of violence - an act of violence that killed someone 30 years ago may be highly survivable today. Better is the aggravated assault rate - which, in the U.S., which, per capita, increased seven times between 1957 and 1997, and has gone up similarly all over the world in the past few decades.
• Killing one's own species is a rare occurance in the animal kingdom. Even in wartime, up until WWII, most riflemen would not shoot - the rate of fire for individual riflemen was only 15-20%. Operant conditioning methods brought that over 90% in Vietnam. (A cynic might mention something about brainwashing, turing men into killing machines.)
• Some video games are very similar to these conditioning methods - but lack the training and discipine that tell a soldier when not shooting is the correct choice.
• Media portrayls of violence are often beautiful examples of classical conditioning. As Grossman puts it, "Kids watch vivid images of human death and suffering and they learn to associate it with: laughter, cheers, popcorn, soda, and their girlfriend's perfume". Many video games also perform classical conditioning, rewarding violence with victory.
• The media coverage these kids get turns them into role models.

So will Quake turn you into a monster? By itself, no. If there are other factors pushing you towards violence, it can be a strong influence. And it is conditioning you towards an acceptance of violence; be aware of that, be mindful of what's going on in your brain (always good advice) and be sure to balance it out with counter-influences.

warriors of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to go on a huge killing spree and kill lots of innocent people as a "Warrior of Freedom" sign up for the United States Army.

All the murder, none of the legal problems.

Who is to blame?

[Hao Wu]

They will blame everyone and everything, except the two causes:

1) the people who teased them to death for years.
2) the boys themselves for choosing to plan the crime and carry it out.

EVERYONE else will be blamed first- you, me, and the internet....

Rampage Attempt?

[Wingnut64]

I live quite close to there, and read about it in my local newspaper. The 3 teens had 2 rifles, 2 handguns, a shotgun, knifes and swords. They surrendered when 1 cop showed up and told them to drop their weapons. Rampage my ass, this was just a cry for help. With their numbers and firepower they could have easily killed him, but they didn't. The 18 year old 'leader' just lost his mother (and some other female friend/family member, don't remember which) and didn't fit in at school. He was mentally unstable and socially outcast. Games had little to do with it, except to give them a title to use.

Re:My take on videogame violence.

[nacturation]

Another interesting question is do violent games desensitize people to violence? Consider an analogy: a boy who grows up in a nudist family won't think anything of seeing naked women -- it's not going to be a big deal. Compare this to a boy who was brought up not even seeing much bare skin at all -- his reaction upon seeing a naked woman will be huge, pardon the pun. At the turn of the century (ie: 1900) it was considered risque for women to show their ankles in public. For a woman to wear a skirt knee-high, she would have been considered a tramp. Times change, and people grow accustomed to the new standard.

Now a kid who grows up playing violent, realistic games could tend to be lsss affronted by violence. How easy would it be for a kid to look out his apartment window to the street below and imagine getting a perfect rail shot to a person below? Or turning the corner in school and hitting the local nerd with a double-barrel shotgun blast? Now that doesn't mean the kid would necessarily consider acting it out in real life, but is that the first step on a slippery slope towards real violence?

For the 1000th time, correlation != causation

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Lovett's uncle Thomas Crymes said the June graduate of Collingswood High School had been on his computer "constantly."

"He never went anywhere with anybody," Crymes said.

Ever think he was on the computer constantly because he was harassed by the other students and had nowhere to go? Maybe that same harassment had something to do with his motive?

Was the guy that shot up that Lockheed Martin factory also "under the influence" of computer games and violent movies? Or is there a more complex societal problem going on here?

Ronald Lovett, who works as a electronics repairman on the same block as his apartment, said his son had become withdrawn after his mother's death. His son also often had to defend his younger brother, who has undergone 13 operations for a cleft palate, the father said.

"When they used to go out when they were little, of course people would pick on the brother, and Matt would have to defend him," Ronald Lovett told CNN. "They didn't get along well with their peers."
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"The boys also had to endure the death of an older half sister who was hit by a car a year after their mother's death, Crymes said."

What kind of evil SOBs would pick on a kid with a cleft palate whose mother and sister recently died. I thank the Lord that these kids were picked up before they hurt anyone, but if you want to examine "root causes" instead of video games maybe take a look at an utter lack of conscious or morality by all parties involved.

Evil begets evil.

Brian Ellenberger

Let's see here...

[mcasaday]

• "His son had become withdrawn after his mother's death"
• "Often had to defend his younger brother, who has undergone 13 operations for a cleft palate."
• "They didn't get along well with their peers."
• "Ronald Lovett had focused most of his attention on his younger son, James, because of his disability."
• "The boys also had to endure the death of an older half sister."
• "The classmates said he had been mocked for his bow-legged and stooped gait and his clothes."
• "Matt was an easy target, but he never lashed out. He just took it."
• "Everybody picked on him"

The only reasonable explanation for a kid to lash out under these circumstances is the evil influence of games like Mech Commando. I just can't see it any other way.

I certainly wouldn't put any of the responsibility for these crimes on the people who made up these kids' world. There is no way that people are to blame for this sort of thing.

It has to be video games. Or rock music. Or D&D. (D&D!? That's sooo 80's.) Or marijuana. Or the devil. Or a malevelont, super-intelligent giant chicken from the center of the Earth. Anything, as long as people don't have to come face to face with their role in the lives of these kids.

Bullying...

[iopha]

From the article:

Lovett also was the target of teasing. The classmates said he had been mocked for his bow-legged and stooped gait and his clothes.

My guess would be that over 75% of teenagers play or have played 'violent' video games at some point or another. I'm guessing but it feels more or less right. That's probably millions-- tens of millions-- of video game players in the US and across the developed world. Are they all potential killers? Of course not. To argue so would involve twisting statistics around in a 'war on drugs' fashion-- maintaining that marijuana is a 'gateway' drug, which simply isn't true. Very few users of marijuana go on to do harder drugs. But many that do harder drugs have smoked pot (and continue to do so), which is what alarmist conservative organizations, in a thorough betrayal of libertarian roots, emphasize in order to restrain civil liberties.

But there is simply not enough of a correlation to warrant limits on video games (a form of free speech IMHO anyway) even *if* in specific cases a causal argument *might* be made. The point is that you can't do sociology by anecdote only. By all rights, statistically, toasters are probably deadlier than video games anyway.

Given the utter lack of *any* systematic correlation between playing video games and engaging in violent, anti-social behaviour, perhaps we should look at other possible causes, Like the bullying and teasing which goes on in every schoolyard, every day, hmmm? I am convinced that the solace this kid found in video games was a result of being called a 'fag' constantly, of being beaten up for lacking social grace, for failure to heed the intricate, consumerist protocol of North American teenhood. Any 'obsession' with video games was a symptom and NOT the problem.

Bah, sheer sensationalism and a refusal to look at root causes-- of course this seems to be a recurrent theme these days.

Reminds me of that Onion article--Columbine Jocks Safely Resume Bullying. It's a sad indicator of the state of our civlization when we learn nothing from tragedy, but that's another topic entirely.

iopha

There are no thought crimes...

[sTalking_Goat]

Just after Columbine happaned I remember spending a lot of time during class working out the easiest way to take out the most people by myself with a limited number of weapons.

I sat around and thought about the merits of snipering from a tower vs. armed assualt complete with smoke and infared goggles. I remember thinking about it in detail planning every little thing I could think of, researching ammo types, max lethal range for certain easily available rifles etc.

Now granted my knowledge of firearms came alot from Video Games, but not any more than from Tom Clancy books and the History Channel. In fact since this was pre-CS I'd say most of my knowledge came from the History channel, especially some wonderful documentaries they aired on assasinations, that thought me the merits of the AK-47/74.

Now the difference between me and these guys is a simple one. I probably did as much planning as they did if not more. In fact I dare say I fantasized about it. But I stopped just short of collecting weapons and making the large leap between "I'll think about killing half my school" and "I'm going to kill half my school".

Why is this? The answer to that question is the fundamental issue here. I'm am not violent by nature. I tend to avoid fights even though I'm 6' 2" 230lbs. The fights I've been in, I've tended to reign in my punches at the last minute because I don't like hurting people.

I shudder to think what I'd be like if I had a violent personality. I can bet I'd be a lot more dangerous than these guys, more effecient anyway.

And thats what it comes down to basically. Not video-games or media in general. Having the knowledge to do something isn't the same as doing it. Despite what the media keeps telling everyone. There is something else that makes you violent or not. I wish people would stop looking for easy answers.