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GTA Blamed for Columbine-style Massacre Planning
bippy writes "A Miami attorney claims that a teen accused of plotting a massacre used GTA to prepare for the attack, RedAssedBaboon reports.
Attorney Jack Thompson is the same guy who is trying to link the murder of Stefan Pakeerah last year to Manhunt. Pakeerah was beaten to death with a claw hammer by a friend who, Thompson claims, was inspired by Manhunt. The uproar surrounding the case led to the game being pulled from many British store shelves and Prime Minister Tony Blair looking into a link between violence and video games. It looks like Thompson has found himself a niche." Update: 10/10 19:25 GMT by T : Peter Endean writes "It might be worth noting that in fact in the case of the murder linked to Manhunt, it was the victim who owned the game."
It was the victim who owned manhunt, not the murderer!
u rder_claim/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/manhunt_m
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I've played both GTA games and not ONE of them had a goal in the game to mow down cops in any of the levels. This is just silly. I hate it when these tight-assed lawyers are making ridiculous claims about Rockstar without even playing the game!
Why stop there? Hell, people can use their hands to choke someone to death! We should chop off everyone's hands! Oh, but wait... Then they could use their arms as bludgeoning weapons... Lop those off, too! Hmmm, but they could still bite people... Off with their heads!
What's so special about cops and why only in videogames?
Eric Clapton sang about "I shot the sheriff".
Cops are killed in movies and television shows all the time and have been for some six or seven decades at the very least.
Cops are killed in books all the time.
All sorts of people are killed in all sorts of movies, music, books, television shows, plays and even VIDEO GAMES.
** Why is it okay to kill cops in any media EXCEPT videogames/interactive media?
** Why is it okay to kill everyone else BUT cops in interactive media?
It's not like police are some high and mighty upper class that rises above the rest of the world in importance simply becuase of the authority they wieild over citizens.
There may be a link between violence and games - I don't think so, but it doesn't seem certain. Regardless, this lawyer is lying, and making obvious lies. I don't get it - how the hell does he expect to get away with this? A lot of people have played GTA, and they all know "that the tactic of luring police to a scene and then killing them" is, in fact, NOT "key to succeeding in Grand Theft Auto." What does he get out of telling such obvious lies?
Pakeerah was beaten to death with a claw hammer by a friend who, Thompson claims, was inspired by Manhunt.
Yeah, and everybody seems to overlook one fact: the "damning evidence" that the police found the game in the kid's bedroom was, in fact, found in the victim's bedroom.
That wasn't the first time Thompson has been involved in cases like this; he's a well-known crank who foists himself on the families of victims and convinces them that the games are to blame. In one case, he tried to persue a case against the wishes of the victim's family. He's also harrassed people and had restraining orders taken out against him. He's a crank of the highest order. You want to know why you hear so many stories about "evil games"? It's him and people like him.
GTA 1 ,the original top down game that started it all, had a misssion to blow up a police staion with a car bomb. Also in GTA 1 when you went on a "KILL FRENZY!" you didn't have to kill specific folks any folks would do incuding cops. GTA 3 had a mission to kill an (oddly animated) undercover cop named Tanner, by lobbing grenades through his window. Vice city has a mission where you lure two cops into a garage to stealthier uniforms, presumably by killing them.
But you are right odds are the lawyers never played the game.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
blame the tool blame the carpenter!!!
using this logic the boxcutters company that built the ones used in 9/11 would be charged as well
back in the day we didnt have no old school
If I print out the Patriot Act and beat someone to death with it...
Hate me!
All I can say is that the murderer was obviously *not that much of a friend* if he killed his so called "friend"
"lack of quality control is one of the pillars of slashdot"
Turns out the crusades happened before violent media even existed, and lots of people died!
SAILING MISHAP
Ok the kid's claim is bullshit anyway, and we all know that. He's trying to pawn off responsibility, and the claim probably came from his parents or some shit anyway.
Fact 1: The game has an MA rating, so any kid under 17 or 18 is not able to buy it (ideally). So how could he even get such a game? Well in all probability his parent's bought it for him, so even if this was some derranged world where his claim was true, it's the fault and responsibility of the parents for knowing what this kid is playing and making sure he isn't playing things he's not supposed to.
Fact 2: The average age of a video game player is 28. You cannot tell a 28 year old what they can or can't play, so they can't get rid of these games. It's not our fault that stores and parents don't enforce the rating system, it's their responsibility.
Pac-man Blamed for Obesity
That Blair didn't find any fault with anyone in the Manhunt case either, thanks to ELSPA and some common sense.
The article shows that Jack Thompson says:
I've played the newer GTA games, and critical to winning the game is to avoid killing civilians or police, as the police will come down harder on you if you do. Mr. Thompson may have a valid point in linking video games to violence, but this outright lie undermines his credibility.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
All kinds of BS, and people tend to quote those studies that verify their existing beliefs. I have this same problem, of course, but I did see a study done on children that surprised me with its originality.
Basically what they did was monitor several classrooms of children (a variety of age groupings) and recorded all physical interactions (shoving, head-bonking, grabbing, etc). Then they showed movies to the class depicting violent activities. They continued recording the physical interactions and what they found was that only a few of the children were affected. Most kids experienced no change in behavior, but some kids had a large increase in attacks on others. The ones who increased their atacks were children who it later turned out were already diagnosed as disturbed children.
The study was somewhat more complex than as I describe it, but the conclusion they drew was not what they had expected to find. The conclusion was that viewing depictions of violent behaviors did not affect healthy children, but that it did affect disturbed children, and it affected them badly.
So what do we do? How can we regulate a product that causes no harm to healthy people?
We have the same problem with drugs: most people can do recreational drugs from time to time without harm; they can regulate their usage and have sense enough to not drive doing while doing LSD and meth. The same can be said for alcohol - some people become destructive when allowed to drink alcohol.
It appears that the percentage of people in our population who cannot drink is small enough that we can tolerate the side effects of those who cannot handle it. On the other hand, it may be that the number of people who can use heroin or cocaine responsibly without becoming lost to it (and there are those) is small enough that there is a significant danger to society from the side effects. Imagine what life would be like if every fifth person at work was coming off a 2-week meth run.
There are patchwork solutions in place. For example, it may surprise you to learn that convicted murderers in the United States are forbidden from owning guns - even after they've completed their prison sentence!
Another solution is that we don't allow children to purchase or operate dangerous products such as alcohol, guns, automobiles, and voting machines even though many children do have the skills and judgement to use these products.
So we ask ourselves are violent video games dangerous in that they may affect unhealthy people in such significant numbers that society is endangered? It seems unlikely to me to be a problem, but it has been shown that it's bad for some people such as the disturbed children above.
What bothers me about kill-games is what makes it different from watching killing on TV. You're actually practicing the very thing that we don't want you to do - going through the motions over and over. No prob with healthy people (I must not be one because although World of Warcraft has no effect on be besides exhaustion, Counterstrike leaves me with a very itchy trigger finger)
So, our compromise in these cases is to prevent the acquisition of these products until the children are of an age where their judgement has matured to dampen their urges (I want to kill the teacher, but then the police will then kill me if I do that).
Officer 1: "Lieutenant, I searched the house, it appears to be clean. The only suspicious article I found was the boys prescription to prozac in the medicine cabinet. As many of us know, prozac has been found to cause psychotic and suicidal tendencies"
Lieutenant: "Officer Downing, may I remind you that the media is waiting in the front yard. Check the game console and stop wasting time"
Officer 1: "yes sir! hmmm, Looks like he was a fan of Mario Cart."
Officer 2: "Sir, his little sister has a copy of Grand Theft Auto in her Playstation!"
Lieutenant: "Call it in boys.. I'll be outside making a statement."
This kind of shit has been happening ever since kids starting playing games that involve some degree of violence. Remember the big Dungeons and Dragons scare in the early 80s? People were blaming their fucked up kids' violence on that rather than their own horrible parenting / child's mental illness.
No one wants to admit that the problem might lie with someone they can't sue.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
One can thus conclude that he must have really sucked at it.
Chris Rock said it best "What happened to 'crazy?' What, you can't be crazy no more?"
Since the teenager apparently stole the idea/drew inspiration to plot a mass murder, Rockstar Games should counter-sue the teenager for theft of intellectual property and breech of copyright.
Or, if you prefer a more direct approach, he can be reached via phone at: 305-666-4366 or by email at jackpeace@comcast.net.
And finally, if you really feel like you need to meet him and tell him how much you agree with what he preaches, feel free to visit him at his office located at:
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, FL 33146
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The problem with kids today, is not that they are playing violently realistic videogames, it is that total and utter lack of fear. Nobody today beats their kids anymore, and I'm not talking about abuse. I am the person who I am today because when I was bad, my ass got beat. I was beat by the nuns, the brothers of the sacred heart, my mom and dad, uncles, etc. I deserved to get beat, and it put the fear of God into me. It takes a cold blooded person to pick up a CLAW HAMMER and beat someone to death. The lack of fear, or consequences is one of main contributing factors to this murder, not GTA. I have to also put the blame on the parents. A lot of parents today are "ghosts" and you can't let your kid run free without any checks or balances and expect him/her to not turn out maligned. Still, it takes a ruthless bastard to kill someone with a friggin' hammer.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Actually, the thing I find most frustrating about this is that GTA was pretty low on the list of things he had to plan with. Instead, if you read the article again, you'll notice that it mentions several times that he was going to emulate the Columbine massacre on the anniversary of the massacre. It seems that Columbine is responsible for this Columbine-like behavior, and GTA was just what the guy played when he wanted to fantasize about killing people.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.