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Highway Shooters Claim To Emulate GTA
Thanks to Yahoo! for their story regarding teenage stepbrothers who randomly fired at cars on a Tennessee freeway, killing one person and wounding another, and told police they were inspired by Grand Theft Auto's sniper mode. According to the piece: "From a wooded area near their home at the Smoky Mountain Country Club, the boys fired a .22-caliber rifle up to 25 times through a break in the trees at cars driving along Interstate 40 about two miles east of Newport. They said they were bored and decided to shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just like in the video game, 'Grand Theft Auto.'" According to this IOL/Reuters article, "Prosecutor Al Schmutzer told Judge Ben Strand that the boys told authorities they were mimicking the video game by trying to hit the sides of passing trucks."
I did this as a kid (with a BB Gun) and that was before GTA. I guess I can blame it on the Duke Boys.
so that's what you're suppose to do in the game...
no wonder I suck playing GTA3.
-my other sig is your mom
There's not any tractor-trailers in GTA.
Sorry Mr. Prosecutor, got to come up with something better than that.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
We need to make a game where people jump off a cliff and kill them selves to finally clean out the shallow end of the gene pool? Sheesh. People will say anything these days to shift blame from themselves.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
When I was nine, I wound up in the hospital with three broken fingers becuase I tried to imitate Super Mario by punching bricks that were floating in the sky. Those were the days.
The ESRB rating for GTA3 and VC is 17+. What were these kids doing with a game that they shouldn't be playing? They should sue the parents for negligence.
the pun is mightier than the sword
The real question is, who was dumb enough to give these kids a gun.
They should receive the same punishment, because through their action/inaction they helped kill this driver.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
"Prosecutor Al Schmutzer told Judge Ben Strand that the boys told authorities they were mimicking the video game by trying to hit the sides of passing trucks."
Yeah, and he probably forget to mention to the judge that due to the lack of parental attention and involvement in these boys lives, they grew up to be anti-social and depressed kids who deep-down really just wanted somebody to pay attention to them while their parents sat on the couch, drank beer, and worshipped the idiot box.
Now if they were imitating a game by shooting at tractor trailers and trying to hit the trailer (those of which ther are none of in GTA3/GTA:VC) how the hell did they hit people. They must not play many FPS's either if they cant hit the broad side of a truck without hitting a person in another car ... This is just what the Games=Violence activists need, more ammunition (no pun intended)
Maybe they should outlaw tractor-trailer rigs. That will fix this little problem.
Kids these days are awfully lucky. When I was a kid, we actually got blamed for what we did. If I'd had excuses like this childhood would have been a hell of a lot more fun.
Has anyone on the prosecution side even played the game, or know anyone that has played the game? There are no tractor/trailers in either GTA3 or GTA:Vice City. There are tractors, but they don't have trailers attached to them.
There are PARKED trailers in places in vice city, but they are static objects and can't be moved.
I was unaware that Tennessee was even a state still. Damn NY public schools.
and went on a fencing spree into the city and also had sex with anything i saw..
seriously, geez...
i don't remember shooting tractor rigs in gta though..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I think the sad facts are, idiots and psychos will always find something bad to emulate. If there were no games, they would been inspired to shoot at people by a movie. If there were no movies, they would have been inspired by the Washington sniper, or the US government.
If someone doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality then obviously playing computer games and watching TV could cause them to do something bad. But the problem is with them, not with the game or film.
I remember that they said GTA had nothing to do with it. But then their lawyer probly fixed that, plea for insanity, blame the game.
The game is not to blame, these @#holes are and their parents for not looking after them.
The answer is so simple, why doesn't anyone with power see it?
i swear..the judge should drag these kids parents out and sacrifice them to demon gods..
Reasons?:
1) Letting you kids play a game they shouldnt
2) Letting you kids play with a gun
3) Not watching what teh f*** your kids are doing
4) Being retarted.
For god sakes..parents out there..take some bloody responsibility and watch your kids.
It's not so important that they blamed it on GTA - there are other games, and then there are gpong to be Half-Life 2 mods.. what is important is that kids get BORED and shoot at moving vehicles..
Yes. Because we all know that game physics and real life physics are identical.
If there's anything that our office sessions of Quake II taught me, it's that the best way to move about in any situation is to constantly run while incessantly jumping like a rabbit 6 feet in the air.
I don't wan't to blame the motivation on the game either, I think it's just a cheap excuse
Ok... let's be frank. I believe in Personal responsibility. If I do something dumb, I'm supposed to pay. I believe that if I smoke, I get cancer, I died, I asked for it... but let's assume for a minute that the companies should live under the same rule.
For smoking, this means the following. The fabric industry is the cause of a very small amount of publicly spent medical costs per year. The smoking industry is (indirectly) the cause of the majority of medical expenses per year. However, both the fabric and smoking industries pay the same amount of taxes (at least before the suits). Is this responsible? I'm not sure where I fall on this because I'm still trying to figure out my stance.
On an individual level. Say, I never work out, so I'm fat. I get so fat that I can't work, so I live on welfare. And I completely live off of the guy who takes care of himself and works hard. Is this responsible?
I think I've decided that the smoking industry is the fat guy who doesn't work. I think the same thing about the piece of the porn industry that the justice dept is sueing right now. And truthfully, I think the same thing about Rockstar.
Nintendo and Super Mario cause very little aggression. The one guy's post about mario inspiring violence was marked funny because you never hear about someone killing someone else with a hammer they can't keep from bouncing and playing a tune. However, this is not the first violent act performed because of (at least) some relationship to video games. It's very difficult to argue that these things have absolutely no effect on you. If you see violence all of the time, it's difficult to argue that it has no effect. If you take part in violence all of the time (real or unreal), it's difficult to argue that it has little effect.
All that being said, Rockstar and Nintendo pay the same amount and are recognized as equals. Is that responsible?
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
And anti-videogame attourny Jack Thompson rears his ugly head in 5...4...3...2...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
"they were mimicking the video game by trying to hit the sides of passing trucks"
Lets think about this quote... The trucks in GTA don't have trailers! Dumb shits.
Point 1) There are No Tractor-Trailers on the roads, for shooting in either Grand Theft Auto III or Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Looking into previous revisions of the game, which don't have the aforementioned 'Sniper Mode', the closest you can get to a Tractor Trailer is a snub-nosed fuel tanker truck.
Point 2) Where did they get the gun? Notice how everyone is 100% ready to jump on the video game... my question... WHERE THE FUCK DID THEY GET THE GUN? I mean, of course the gun isn't dangerous. No way. Guns never kill people. That's why cops and 'sportsmen' carry around RAZOR SHARP DVDs.
It's fucking obscene. I can't wait to see what happens to such good titles (and yes, you have to admit, even if you hate the content with a passion, the games are done really well..)
Informatus Technologicus
oh - well let them go then. sorry, big misunderstanding.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
The best line by far is :"I didn't want to hurt anyone"
.22 rifle and shoot at cars...wtf are you trying to do?
You got to be shitting me. You take a
If you're shooting a rifle anywhere but at the shooting range, you're shooting to kill as far as I know.
Even in GTA, you only ever shot to either blow up the truck or kill the driver.
It's absurd that anyone believes their bullshit.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
What if I start a bunch of really sick and twisted lawsuits against major companies, and loose in court,
can I say I was inspired by SCO and blame it on insanity and get away with it?
I can't wait for someone to commit a war crime, and claim they were inspired by America's Army...
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Sure it's conceivable for a 13-year-old to have a concept of "the rest of my life", and for him to imagine the guilt he will feel over that length of time, but could that maturity and self-awareness really exist in the sort of kid who shoots at cars because he did it in a computer game?
Methinks an adult had a hand in writing that letter.
im trying to immitate America's Army(or any FPS for that matter) but i can't select the weapons!!!! im tired of having to punch everyone :/ :/
it would be nice to at least be able to select a knife
Smile... tomorrow will be worse.
Stop it f4gz!1 arghj
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Long ago several girls claimed their behavior was inspired by an old slave "Witch." Behold the past is present, let the "witch-hunts" begin anew.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
games don't kill people(people have seen violence 'all the time', or heard in fireplace stories, for the past x thousand years).
however.. guns do kill people.
or more correctly, irresponsible behauvior with a gun kills people(where the f did they get the gun??).
or more simple, shooting someone with a gun can/will result in death.
where did they get the gun, why weren't they educated enough to NOT SHOOT SOMEWHERE WHERE PEOPLE ARE? the gta excuse is just an excuse(there's no trailer-tractors in it) they decided to use, stupid excuse in that too. it's like i started throwing stuff out of the window(11th floor) on people and saying donkey kong made me do it..
videogames are in the mainstream culture, nearly everyone under 30y has played a videogame at some point in their lives, so it really doesn't surprise me that videogame players do something awful since (almost) everyone is a videogame player. you don't see romeo and juliet blamed for suicides though.. strange that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I now have a sudden urge to fight any green-suited Hyrulians, scantily-clad purple-sknned woman with chain swords and Elvis impersonators with a nunchuck.
Seriously though, this is just sick. Not only that, but personally the whole "GTA made me do it!" just feels like a lame excuse. I've played through and beat GTA3, and I have absolutely no urge to run out with a sniper rifle. Nor do any of my friends who have played it.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
I read 'Oedipus the King' for school, and I killed dad and had sex with mom. Next semester we are reading Hamlet.
I find this news particularly annoying. This merely strengthens the public perception that the state is a haven for stupidity and a complete wasteland of intelligence.
I think it should be restated that Schmutzer is not making a baseless accusation: He is merely repeating what the boys already told police.
However, it should also be pointed out that young boys have been shooting at trucks in Tennessee for about as long as there have been trucks. I doubt this is the first instance of death, or the defendants blaming video games.
When are we going to realize that stupidity is a disease, and get around to treating it medically?
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
The smoking industry is (indirectly) the cause of the majority of medical expenses per year. However, both the fabric and smoking industries pay the same amount of taxes (at least before the suits). Is this responsible? I'm not sure where I fall on this because I'm still trying to figure out my stance.
Smokers pay a great deal in taxes to be smokers. The cost of a pack of cigarettes in New York or California is anywhere from 2-3 times the cost of a pack of cigarettes in Virginia, due almost entirely to state taxes on each pack (California makes far more money off the sale of a pack of cigarettes than the tobacco company that produces that pack of cigarettes).
I had sword fights with my friends when I was a kid because we all watched He-Man and Conan the Barbarian, but none of us went out and got a real sword or a kitchen knife to do it, we used plastic swords and cardboard tubes. We played with toy guns, not real guns. As we got older, we played multiplayer online games instead of running around the streets scaring the neighbors when we played laser tag at nite (in other news, a local kid got shot by a cop when he was playing laser tag, but that was years ago, someone decided we had to have bright colours on our guns because cops are too stupid to see the difference between a laser tag gun and a real gun).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Personal responsibility and accountability is perhaps the most important thing that people can teach their kids. However, it seems that popular culture is increasing making it appear that people are rewarded for lying, cheating, killing, bribery, getting something for no effort, etc. Take Enron, WorldCom, the current Republican administration, reality television, nationalized health care proposals, Grand Theft Auto (to be on topic, of course), public schools, the Earned Income Credit, short-term cash loans, pre-approved credit, six-year car loans, no-money-down mortgages, rent subsidies, many organized religions and labor unions, student loans, professional sports, soft drink commercials, and so forth.
People need to be much more cynical than they are. They need to realize that both large government (whether Republican or Democrat flavored) and large corporations do not act in the interests of individual people. They are much too wealthy, powerful, and corrupt to care. They are their own means and their own ends. People need to stand up for themselves in the midst of this, vote their conscience with both their wallets and their ballots, and be prepared to sacrifice materialistic prestige and social popularity in favor of knowing they made the right decision and did the best they could. Corporations and government need to become more modest and come back to realizing that they exist because of and for the People, not the other way around. It seems that every day the opposite of this is actually happening, and, ultimately, people will exist miserably in a rusty machine of regulation and consumption and live in complete fear of their creditors and their own government.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
From the article: William Buckner, 16, and Joshua Buckner, who turns 14 Sunday, pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.
A 13-year-old and a 16-year-old. Now, I think the argument could be made that a 16-year-old MIGHT be mature enough to play GTA (obviously not Billy-boy, though), but WTF was a 13-year-old doing playing that game?!? To add on to that, why have I seen kids - young kids - in game stores getting M-rated games? My wife and I watched a 9- or 10-year-old kid and his mother buy Vice City earlier this year, and the mother asked him if he wanted the strategy guide! Obviously that's one smart little kid...
Now, don't get me wrong: I love the GTA series, but I'm 30. I wouldn't have let me at 13 play GTA, and I sure as hell know my mother wouldn't have, either. At 13, I couldn't handle that game, I know that.
Where the hell are these kids' parents? Is Tennessee going to prosecute those idiots (I hope!)?
25 charges of public mischief.
24 charges of attempted murder.
1 charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
1 charge of murder one (since they clearly planned it).
The statement that they were inspired by GTA is irrelevant. In the 16th century, some Catholic nuns started to walk around with heavy pelvic thrusting all the time. They claimed it was because Satan had visited their convent and ravaged them in both holes with his evil, barbed, bifurcated penis. Did Satan really do that? No, not any more than GTA is responsible for this.
An action is not the same as an idea -- it takes a diseased mind to put an idea like, "it's fun to kill people" into practice.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
title says it all...
I tried the same excuse when I bit a guy's finger off and jumped to my fiery death in a pit of magma. I'd read about it in a book and it seemed cool.
But seriously folks gun control is this issue here, not video games, or movies, or the sulky, moody, violent, careless, callous and fundamentally stupid nature of teenage boys.
America has a lot of such boys and a lot of guns. Together they'll cause deaths. They'll never be rid of the boys so they'll have to do something about the guns.
If they have to be pried from Charlton Heston's cold dead fingers I say "your proposal is acceptable".
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
I hope when I finally do something stupid and evil that there is something popular that I can blame it on.
Ehh...
Doom made me do it...
GTA made me do it...
Satan speaking through my dog made me do it...
Further proof that there should only be one punishment for violent crime; an industrial meat grinder.
and went on a fencing spree into the city and also had sex with anything i saw..
So that's why my Grandmother was walking funny
You can't blame video games for sheer stupidity.
I can tell a lot of readers have lived in/near big cities most of their lives. A .22 is a small caliber rifle, and lots of people have them. To give them the (marginal) benefit of the doubt, it was the probably older kid's and meant for hunting. These were a couple of bored kids tired of shooting squirrels or stop signs and decided to shoot at moving targets, and are now (hopefully) horrified by what happened. (That's giving them the benefit of the doubt obviously - they may only care that they got caught, not that they hurt anyone.) The mere fact that they had a rifle doesn't mean anything; the fact that they seemed to think shooting at vehicles with people in them was ok does mean something.
GTA is a smoke screen, and probably came from leading questions from the prosecutor hoping to get a name for himself or to shift blame - there is no point in GTA where you randomly shoot at trucks. You shoot at people, so if they were emulating the game then they knew full well that people could die.
The sad part is that the 'juvy' distinction should be lifted for homicides. These murdering kids will be out at 19 each, and aren't going to be able to do anything besides turn to crime.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
...or does GTA mymic real life and idiots like these two kids?
A 40 year old man was arrested in Chicago this morning:
"He started acting weird" mentioned his coworkers, Timothy Arcade 40 year old, went and bought a bunch of aspirins and throw them in the floor across all the cubicles, then he proceeded to eat them while making a "snacka" "snacka" sound effect, several coworkers and security officers tried to stop him, but he elluded them succesfully, in his way he also grabbed some cherries that were in the middle of the office for no apparent reason.
When the police finally arrived and arrested the man, he stated he was just trying to emulate pacman after hearing this the policeman let the poor man go and went to burn down namco's office on chicago.
Later that afternoon , the police had to arrest Timothy again, after eating a large Pill in one of the corner cubicles he actually attemped to eat the coworkers that were chasing him.
In other news some other 40 year old, was arrested yesterday for soliciting but he was let go when he confessed he was just emulating Leisure suit larry. The police is looking for sierra's offices to burn them down.
VideoGames: the best way get you off the hook... always!
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
you don't see romeo and juliet blamed for suicides though.. strange that.
Are you kidding? Or just a moron? Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15 to 25 year olds. Each year, 500,000 from this same age group attempt suicide. Source: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
For ages 15-19, homicide is the #2 cause of death, suicide is #3. #1 is "accidental death". Source: Child Trends Databank.
Romeo and Juliet are definitely "blamed" for some suicides. Some teens actually recreate the scene in high detail -- others are just "influenced" into believing that their 15-year-old "love" is so important, so desparately true, that they kill themselves when it doesn't work out.
Am I saying that we should ban showings of "Romeo and Juliet"? Naturally not. We should be teaching our kids, or in general, quit having kids if we don't want to take responsbility for teaching them. Although by age 15, I would argue that kids should have responsibility for themselves, but they don't know it because their parents, teachers, and a zillion other people are busy taking responsibility from/for them.
You get to drive at 16 (most states). At 18, you can vote, be called for jury duty, and in the case of boys, be drafted by the Army and forced to kill or be killed. At 21, you can buy a drink.
So when do kids become adults? I am very very sure that they have no idea. The same people which tell them to "act responsibly" and to "be an adult" also tell them exactly what choices to make: "don't have sex", "don't drink", "don't smoke".
Meanwhile the circle of blame keeps going around and around and around. The real change which needs to happen is not in the video game industry, or the gun industry, or the media. It is entirely in the upbringing of children to become responsible adults. Something is very fundamentally broken with respect to that right now.
Anyway, no matter who is "to blame" some innocent people were shot and killed, by a pair of human beings with the ability to load and fire a deadly weapon. If you as a parent are not willing to invest the time and resources into educating your child, they will grow up and develop anyway, developing physical and mental powers which exceed their ability to decide when and what to do with it.
So please, please, stop breeding if you are a moron. There's a good chance you will raise a mindless killer.
MORTAR COMBAT!
What they are *supposed* to get is, "Busted" and the cops then take all their ammo, guns and a "fine", then they get released the next day!
Common man don't you know the legal system by now?
E.
I'm currently a free man! And I owe it to this kind of defense! I was one of the first to download that Postal 2 demo... and stabing people in the face with a shovel, covering them in gas, then lighting them on fire was the most fun I've had in years! I had been doing that for like an hour a day... every day. Well, when there was a power outage and I couldn't get my daily dose of stabity death, I took my shovel and gas and headed into the next subdivision.
Long story short, I'm free because I was "insane" and needed "help". And blaming the game helped me stay out of prison for 3 counts of murder.
For anyone who is still pending litigation and wants to go full-on for the insanity plead, fire your lawyer and defend yourself... go for the chewbacca defense. It adds a special bit of believeability.
no text
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
I had a 22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, my best friend had one when he was 16. We sure as shit never shot at anyone or even towards where anyone might be.
It's kind of funny but before we had our 22's we had pellet and BB guns. Now those we sort of abused, shot out lights, stop signs, whatever. But our 22's were "real" guns and we treated them with respect.
That's conumer tax. I don't think it costs the company anymore tax dollars than any other company though. May be wrong.
Once in a great while, a couple of nuts raised by twats go off and kill somebody. Obviously it's a very rare case. Or should we try to make it impossible? Oh, this is America, we're working for a zero-risk world. See you in Utopia!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
sorry about the "moron" barb in my other comment. a bit out of line.
MORTAR COMBAT!
...can a pair of stupid kids play a game, get a gun, and start shooting people... ...and have people immediately jump on the fact that they played a game instead of HAVING A FUCKING GUN!
It's:
"Guns don't kill people. I KILL PEOPLE"
- Dude on UHF (Movie starring Weird Al Yankovic)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
One of the first times I've laughed out loud from a /. post
My cousin's oldest kid is (I believe) 16, or turning 16 soon.
He has full access to all of the guns (whether shotgun or rifle) on my aunt's farm, and goes hunting on his own often.
That said, he's extremely responsible with the guns. Nerf weapons... YIKES. But real firearms, he's *damned careful* with.
Yes, they live out in the country. Kids with guns are a normal thing in many parts of this country, and it's normally not considered a problem.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
I think you're right.
I'll have to watch it again sometime this weekend to confirm.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Damn, everything's emulated nowadays! Did they add a MAME driver for it, or what?
Everybody knows in GTA3 you can only fire uzi's out your car window, and unless you are doing a job, you can't pick up anyone else.
Amateurs.(Vice City was in the past, doesn't count)
Of course bunny hopping is the way to get around in real life too ;-)
Speed Demos Archive - Lots of speed runs!
Rich*, bored teenage kids with access to guns.
;)
I'd love to see what the parents are like.
Perhaps if some other teenagers (who never played the game) go out and do this, they will claim to be emulating those boys in tenessee that they heard about on the news.
Do you suppose if they did, people would take it seriously like they do the influence of games, or would they just shout "copycat killing, personal responsibility"?
Interesting to think what would happen if they DID view it in the same way. Perhaps the original teenage boys would face additional charges for influencing the actions of the other teenagers.
Or maybe we'd just stick a warning label on their foreheads.
- - -
*They live near a country club, and presumably they walked or biked a short distance to get there, and we know they own the latest video games, so I think it's a safe assumption.
Some people love their country as a child loves a dog. As far as the child is concerned, the dog can pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, and bite the neighbors all it wants -- the child does not see these flaws, and continues to love the dog unconditionally.
Some people love their country as an adult loves a dog. The dog shouldn't pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, or bite the neighbors, and the adult gets mad at the dog and does what they can to stop the inappropriate behavior -- but at the end of the day, the adult loves the dog, too, as much as the child does.
- - -
I am not calling anyone a child here, but simply making an analogy. I believe that Michael Moore, myself, and many others love this country as adults love a dog, while a whole lot of other people love this country as children love a dog.
Here's the good news: at the end of the day, the dog is still loved, and neither type of love is a threat to the well-being of the dog.
Here's the unsurprising part: those that love this country unconditionally believe that pointing out the flaws of this country == not loving this country. That is simply not true, and while you can shout us down all you want, we're going to keep on pointing out the flaws, for one reason:
We want to fix the flaws so that the country, like our dogs, can live a long and healthy life. I think we can all agree on that.
-Dave
if he was emulation the game, it would have to be the game boy version (or the japanese gba version because those roms can be abtained easily.
i am the self-proclaimed king of free stuff
Did you just finish reading the Crucible? =P
-insert a witty something-
I suppose now Laughing Boy, or Smiling Worm Boy, the blaster worm idiot, is going to blame his despicable, heinous crime on Core War.
When I say heinous crime, I mean it. Did he cause billions of dollars worth of damage, aggregate worldwide? That money could have been spent feeding poor people.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Wait a second, this is sounding like the FBI profile they always turn out five minutes after they find out there's a serial killer of any kind.
So, who wants to place a bet on how long it takes for reports of kids running around flinging frisbees or saw blades at people and emulating Tron?
'But...I thought they could be reloaded...'
The chapter listing is on this website.
I lost my copy of the book years ago, though, so I can't look up the source of that reference.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Yes, I agree that the parents probably weren't doing their job. But at some point you have to blame kids for what kids do. These weren't little 6-year-olds with no conception of the permanence of death, or the lethality of bullets. They were teenagers. They knew what they were doing, and they did it.
You say "people are once again looking for the scapegoat to blame" yet yourself blame the parents. Sounds like scapegoating to me. The blame for this rests on the shoulders of the perpetrators.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
This is rated funny, but it does raise a valid issue, namely, it's only because parents' groups raise a big stink about the newest violent game that comes out that kids think they can get away with blaming their actions on the game(/tv show/rapper/whatever). If people would just stop claiming that games are going to make kids violent, kids would stop using it as an excuse and probably not pull this shit half as often.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
1. Completely ignore your children, get drunk doing the stuff you like to do, and let them entertain themselves;
2. Let them have guns;
3. When they kill folks, sue the games/movies/TV/rock bands for turning their little angels (as if the parents knew what their progeny were actually like...) into callous murdering bastards;
4. PROFIT!!!
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
That perhaps somebody could blame serial killers on Microsoft, or perhaps SCO? I mean, it seems that everyone out there has a scapegoat for their own actions, so perhaps at least we can find somebody we don't like to blame too.
I'm sorry mommy, I didn't steal that chocolate bar, since name is "Henry" it is obviously my intellectual property and I had a right to it!
*I* do.. (From Weird Al's UHF)
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.
ABC news burns me up. I hate their spin^H^H^H^Hreporting. If these kids were using shotguns then they must have been leaping onto passing autos and shooting point-blank into the windshields. ABC's anti-gun editors are using RIAA math, where .22 caliber is the "equivalent" of a shotgun.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Super Smash Bros.
Also, you have no idea what the tax burdens of Rockstar and Nintendo are, respectively.
Also, would you include Teletubbies on your list of "things that cause no harm"? I'd argue with you on that one.
In America, we tend to believe that adults are responsible for their own behavior. And this is a good thing. As a poster said above, if everything is driven by what is safe for children, then there will only be things appropriate for children in the world. No cars, no television drama, no mystery novels, no CNN, no police, no firefighters, no electricians (electricity is dangerous), no exploration, no shark research, no humor aimed for the minds of adults-- no jerry seinfeld, because he grows out of an adult world, not a child's.
There are problems in the world, sure, but infantilizing everything on the planet isn't the cure. Teaching people to be responsible for their own behavior is a step. Teaching our children to recognize duplicity, to THINK CRITICALLY, and to make wise decisions, is the cure.
What the heck is this post modded Informative for?
I can't believe the words i'm hearing out of my fellow slashdotters. I'll grant that the videogame industry has been taking some unjust slander over the course of the last few years, but this is an instance where I think there may be a little something to the issue at hand. Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City is one of those ultra-rare titles which blends a ruthless, cold, criminal element with unrestricted action/motivation in the game, allowing for someone to be as sadistic as they see fit to. For a responsible adult who has clear definitions for right and wrong, and a healthy respect for the law, this isn't such a problem. However, we're not talking about adults here. We're talking about children playing a morally reprehensible game - children who clearly lacked adequate and proper supervision/rolemodels.
This game should not have come into the hands of kids. The videogaming industry has a ratings system for it's titles, just as the movie industry does. Is this to be taken any less seriously just because they're videogames? No. The problem is not always irresponsible parents who aren't keeping tabs on their heathens. I gurentee 84.6% (being -conservative-) of the people who have made that statement commenting on this story do NOT have children, or any experience with which to comment from related to delinquent children.
Is the problem that the videogame industry is producing "too violent" titles, causing ethical and moral dillemas for today's videogame afficinados? Partially. Don't dispute that, otherwise I would be tickled pink and obliged to hand your 9-year-old encouragable son a copy of GTA: Vice City and show him how to pick up hookers and get some action. Oh, you don't want that? Why's that? Because the game is -morally reprehensible-, it advocates murder, larsony, and other thug-like behaviors typical to an aspiring mafia syndicate lord.
So, where does the real problem lay? Somewhere between the industry and the public perception of the industry. Videogames have long been thought of as devices for children. The audience has changed, however. The kids who played Excitebike, Mario 2, and Marble Madness into the wee hours of the night are now adults. This, combined with the natural evolution of technology (read Moore's Law), creates a scenario where more sophisticated/adult targetted titles are coming to pass. The problem is that the naive public still perceive videogames as a child's sport, and those who've been playing videogames all along are so threatened by the notion that videogames can cause detriment to a person's logical synapses that they'll blame anyone/anything but the game itself.
Now recently, there's been some amount of headway into truly 'adult' (X rated) console titles. Maybe when you irresponsible videogame addicts see your offspring commanding Tommy Vercetti to bang a hooker in full, graphic detail in GTA: 5, you'll stop being so selfish with the content of your opinion.
Until the public starts taking videogame ratings a little more seriously, expect these trends to continue.
Until the legions of videogame-going adults see that children aren't growing up on Mario anymore, but more thought-provoking titles, expect these trends to continue.
Until someone perfects a method (or device?) for controlling delinquent children who do as they see fit to, expect these trends to continue.
Oh, and who am I to speak about all this?..
Just someone in the 'biz.
They came, they saw, they left, disguisted.
I'm sure there is a joke in there somewhere ... or the next video game title from Sierra, oh wait that was Redneck Rampage...
;-)
but seriously whatwere the kids doing with a Game rated NC17 and with guns? My suggestion-- castrate the hillbilly parent by kicking his sister on her chin
...growing up playing Madden '93. Now I'm a professional football player!
these boxen have no names
If apes "exhibit better social structure" than humans, what makes you think we are a notch above them at all? Can you honestly say that human society is more advanced overall (not just in technology) than it was five hundred or a thousand years ago? Sure, some advances have been made. People are freer in some ways, but less free in others. We have better control over nature, but we damage it more. Power concentration has shifted from kingdoms, empires and corrupt religious institutions to superpowers, global corporations, and global diplomatic bodies. Instead of arbitrary prosecution by land owners, we now fear arbitrary prosecution by "intellectual property" owners.
Human civilization is not advancing. At best, it's staying at the same level. The basic problem is human nature: it's corrupt. That's why, 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men' (Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887.)
Where do you live? Kenya?
Besides, everyone knows spears are primarily a hunting weapon.
that this sort of thing will spread around the world. People, not just kids, doing horrible things like that and entertainment, in whatever form, getting blamed for it. It's the parents who are responsible for the right upbringing of kids. Teach them morals and values, make them understand the results of the actions they do. A simple letter of apology, obviously dictated by an adult as someone metioned before, won't help the victims and the victims family in any way. Not only should the kids get a decent punishment, but the parents as well. They are the ones responsible for the behaviour of their children. It's about time people start taking responsibilty for the things they do. Don't know how to raise a kid, don't start on one. And of course the gun. Where the hell did they get the gun!? The days of revolution in the US are over. Everybody wielding a gun is dangerous as shown here. No wonder there's a lot of crime because any two-bit criminal can get his hands on one and start a massacre if he wants to. Now I'm not so much afraid of Europe allowing everyone a gun, as the people slowly starting to act in the same way and putting the blame for their faults on tv/games/movies/whatever... I hope this gets a lot more coverage than the average soapseries and it'll teach some people to think about what they do. But then I read more often how the educational system isn't teaching the youth to think, but to do as they are told like good droids, so it'll be forgotten soon.
home
Then issue a public statement reminding all of the importance of thought, the importance of responsibility, and the importance of making good choices. You can even admonish the game makers for being slime. GTA is a slime piece of trash... don't you just love it when music and games focus on killing cops! Yay! Lets make games where you rape little girls next! YAHOO!
However, the slime of the GTA dev's is irellevant to the issue of blame in this crime.
It makes me want to shoot the king and overthrow the government...
"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary...
Play that sweet home alabama and start blasting away!
This is my sig.
There is no way Take Two should be responsible for the idiocy of these kids (and their parents). Violence in video games has been around forever, and they have been blamed forever, so this is nothing new. Having said that, stupidity can almost be predicted.
We have seen how many people copy Jackass. It may be time to put warnings on video games like, "Do not attempt to fly, become invisible, shoot things, shoot people, become a robot, jump on floating lillies, or anything else you see in this not-based-in-reality video game"
Yes, it is stupid that such a warning is even necessary, and it will suck to see a screen like that everytime you play a game, but unfortunately one person is dead and another seriously injured. If it can be prevented, it's worth it.
BTW - I have never played GTA...is this warning already on there?
Standard equipment for boys as young as 8 years old throughout much of the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the 1st world where guns haven't been banned.
Many, many summer camps and high schools still teach the use of the gun, and students often compete in intramural sharpshooting contests.
The bullets are quite small, and the most popular kind is the soft "target" variety for use on paper; however, HV and hollow points are suitable for things like squirrels and skunks, and can severly injure a person.
I have to agree, where are the parents. But I will say this....don't drive a car shortly after playing a game like Carmageddon....I found myself speeding and looking for other cars to smash into. Creeped me out. I now wait at least 30 minutes before driving.
It sounds to me like the car's what did them in.
=)
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
...because in the UK, although we do have violent video games like Grand Theft Auto, we don't hand out guns like choc-chip cookies and we especially don't let them anywhere near children. Especially children with IQ's somewhere in the imbecile range.
On the other hand it should come as no surprise that this sort of thing would happen in the US where guns are objects of worship and virtually anyone with a few dollars to spend can have one for the asking. Even if they are the sort of cretin who would leave a gun lying around for kids to play with unsupervised.
Those of you who are about to jump in here with the usual empty hypocrisy about nonexistent militias and duty to defend against government tyranny, you're all in denial about this gun thing. Get over it. You've been living under a tyranny since GWB stole the election and I still don't see any militias forming up to defend the people's freedom. I do see plenty of ordinary people getting shot though.
People with guns shoot people. If you let people have guns, people will get shot. Yes, it is as simple as that.
For those of you still living in 1890: don't you dare mod this down as a troll. It's fair comment and you know it. It's time you lot started thinking about what kind of society you really want to live in rather than clinging onto some outmoded romantic ideal of the brave homesteader defending his land. You're supposed to be a civilized people, for heaven's sake. Get this: civilization means not having to rely on the threat of armed force in the course of your daily life.
You shoot someone in GTA, what happens? they disappear, u think nothing of it, get caught by the police, reset the game. You shoot someone in REAL LIFE? they die, people cry, funeral is arranged, you goto jail. Does it actually take that much logic to know this? This is not only a fault of video game makers. Its a fault of the way our society is. Even then, video game makers should not be blamed for their art, even if it is sensless.
That's right..I read that David put a rock in a slingshot and killed a guy seven feet tall. So I went out and started shooting rocks at tall people.
Kids, and everyone else, for that matter, are most heavily influenced by those around them. There is nothing nearly so strong as the contagion of ideas created by physical proximity and interaction with others. Video games and media simply do not generate the type of bond required to exert a strong influence on behaviour--unless they are the only influence--in other words, unless the kids are socially isolated, with little or no family or corrective influence. This can only happen if the parents either can't be bothered to pay attention to their kids, or simply don't have the time due to other commitments, usually job related. And classrooms with fifty pupils in them, where the teacher can't even remember half of the kids names, don't help the situation either.
So if a kid is shooting at other people or property, it is either because this is what he was taught by his parents, or because his parents exert so little influence over him that even the weakest prevailing breeze can bend him this way or that. So maybe the parents are at fault, or maybe the parents are just never there because their economic situation requires them to commute five hours a day to work for another twelve hours. And usually they do it to provide for their children.
And yet the very people who so often cry in outrage against the media for it's effects on children will not speak a word on behalf of the working poor, and have little or no concern for education. If they want family values, maybe they should serve Mammon a little less and the God they claim to serve a little more.
I am really sad to see most people making fun about this story. For god sake, someone has died, please show a bit more sympathy.
Glad to see you read the whole thread so as you'd understand the context of my rant.
Off-topic would have been appropriate, but modding this to Flamebait just proves what is wrong with this system.
(Yes, I know, another Flamebait or Troll mod coming down the pipe!)
No Comment.
Hmmm... mayb we should create a game that rob the banks then we can have some cash from the bank.