Australian Counter Strike Shooters

jaronc writes "News.com.au are reporting an Australian court has been told that two men dressed as characters from 'Counter Strike' shot and killed a man during a Sydney home invasion in 2002. Let the blaming begin......"

Comments

Here's a question for you...

[Undefined Parameter]

If the accused had dressed up as characters from the Clue(TM) boardgame, would boardgames be blamed, and why or why not?

~UP

Re:Here's a question for you...

[metlin]

It's always been blaming somebody or something for the problems in the society.

During the middle ages, certain literature was deemed inappropriate and were censored/banned for being the cause of several problems of that time.

Later on, it was the radio and how it was spreading bad cultural values. Television followed, and people find the need to censor Internet now.

Games are just another target, I remember that in some Asian country, a board game was banned because there was an element where you would end up as being a junkie.

People forget that we have violent instincts within us, just because we have learnt to temper them does not mean that they do not exist. Some people have trouble controlling them, and we can try and find ways of shifting the blame, but the fact is that no matter what, there will always be someone or the other who'd do something stupid.

And with each new age, we'd find something or the other to blame it all on.

Erm... which character?

[tod_miller]

Art imitating life imitating art...

Counterstrike 'characters' are just people dressed in common attire that you would most likely see someone on a killing spree wearing...

Now did these guys play counterstrike?

As for let the blaming begin It amazes me how quick people are to strike down something they have no comprehension of.

For one thing, you strike down all media blame of computer games prompting violent behaviour (and films etc) and you simply pass it off as 1+1=3 in thier minds because you play violent games and you don't murder people.

That doesn't mean to say there is or isn't a connection, and there are no conclusive studies that some people who are a little socially eclipsed that are affected by continuous and sporting presentation of killing.

Now I am not saying either way, but I am not sarcastically throwing down the gauntlet for possible ridicule either.

These people must have been capable of this murder prior, and the fact that somehow (I do not know how, unless they jumped aorund whilst firing saying "I pwn you b1tch3s!" like most server players - or used an aim bot) the relationship between clothing attire and a computer game (shakey to me) just muddies the fact that someone got shot, and what was the motive for these people.

One day people might start trying to use computer games as a defence... or worse, it may be the cause, we do not know yet, but the portrayal of real violence and death in italy (see Gladitor flick) is sickening, and we are on the verge of that popularisation of gore and death (see Bad Boys 2, which was a shit aweful film for gratuitous violence, to an almost comedic extent)

I actually had flinching urges to try car jacking after playing GTA2 for 48 hours solid (better than studying at the time). Maybe I am weak.

Some people just don't care....

[iamcf13]

Looks like a plain case of open murder.

Too bad about the wife. Her husband was murdered and she became a widow.

The 'Counterstrike' angle was just used by the killer(s) as a disguise.

Some people cannot or will not separate reality from virtual reality in video games.

Yeah, such games can be (great) stress relievers but when you start feeling compulsion to do deadly stuff from the games in 'real life', you should think about stopping playing that particular game and play something more abstract like the (in)famous game TETRIS where nothing is killed or hurt in the game. Other alternatives would be non-violent sports games like golf, or board games. I would suggest pinball games but most of those have violent content or themes in them--however small.

Again, it is all left up to individual and what they want to do in such situations--I am only making non-violent suggestions.

PS: I am surprised the court case is still ongoing nearly nearly 3 years after crime.

Wait a second

[Lord Kano]

I thought Australia was supposed to be some kind of gunless utopia.

Where'd they get the guns to do this?

LK

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

No you are wrong, that is an very very dangerous justification of lax gun laws. It's NOT about availability, it's ALL about economics.

If you want a black market handgun in Australia, you are looking at a price tag of several thousands of dollars. The same gun in the US would be, $50 perhaps. That price tag is the key - what down and out crim can afford that? It's unrealistic to think that we'll ever remove all illegal guns from circulation, but free market economics mean we don't have to.

Yes there are still guns on the street (I've never seem one). But I'd rather live in a society where gun crimes are front page news - not summary statistics. As an Australian I'm very proud of our gun laws and feel that they serve as a good model for other nations to actively tackle this problem. Don't wait for a massacre like out Port Arthur tragedy.

Re:Wait a second

[cryptor3]

If you want a black market handgun in Australia, you are looking at a price tag of several thousands of dollars. The same gun in the US would be, $50 perhaps. That price tag is the key - what down and out crim can afford that? ... Don't wait for a massacre like out Port Arthur tragedy.

$50 my ass. If you ever buy a gun for $50, you'd better have a good emergency room nearby, because that gun is going to explode in your hand.

Incidentally, in the aforementioned Port Arthur tragedy, the individual possessed an AR-15, and an FN FAL, guns that easily command a price tag over $1000 dollars each (even in the post-ban United States). So much for a thousands-of-dollars price tag deterring crime.

Re:Wait a second

[Canberra Bob]

Lets not let facts get in the way of feeling good about ourselves.

There is a slight problem - gun related crime has INCREASED in Australia since the "tough new gun laws" were introduced. Registered firearms have very rarely been used in crime in Australia - as far as I recall only ONE registered handgun has ever been used in a murder in Australia. Generally crime is committed using unregistered (illegal) firearms, fancy that.

Re:Wait a second

[Mant]

Just goes to prove my point that people who want guns will find them on the black market anyway,

That strikes we as something of an oversimplification. You are saying that no matter how difficult or expensive it is to get a gun illegaly, criminals will end up with as many guns?

Gun control laws aren't going to stop every crinimal getting a gun, but aim to stop some getting guns.

so restricting law-abiding citizens from owning them only serves to strengthen the positions of gun-wielding criminals.

And stop accidents with guns, and stop people using guns in the heat of the moment (they may find other lethal weapons, but the victim has more chance), and reduce the number of criminals with guns.

Lets remember that outside the USA the population of the rest of the 1st world generally doesn't want guns and is largely in favour of them being heavily restricted. They like their much lower murder rates. Some criminals will always get guns, and things like this shooting will always happen. You can't look at one crime though, you have to look at the bigger picture.

Re:'Dressed' as Counterstrike shooters

[rsilvergun]

People did go crazy and kill people before computer games existed...

Yes, but they did it in a fun, Gov't sanctioned manner (wars). One of the downsides to a civilized society is a lack of good outlets for sick, chemically imblanced people to kill and maim. But hey, it's cool, the current administration is taking care of that :D.

Jokes aside, any society is going to have a miniscule percentage of really, really sick people. In the past they got jobs as torturers and executioners. Now that we're civil, we've still got those people, and they're still sick bastards. We need better systems in place to catch them before they do any harm. But damned if I know how to do it.

culture of violence

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what many people fail to see here, is that what violent games create and feed is a culture of violence. You say its sport? Entertainment? Perhaps... But ultimatly, how does a game where you imitate the actions of a commando going for the "kill" help our society be a healthy, happier place? Do games like CS/DoomIII/Unreal etc, contribute?

Yes, this is an anon post. So flame/mod down at will because I am sure a great deal of /. readers are gamers. But surely there must be something true in the above to some of us here

Damn lawyers

[affa]

Its more likely a tactical move by the defence in setting things up.... later on when it goes to trial they'll can the game as an excuse..... In years gone by people just used to claim insanity.....

I mean.... they didn't even tag the ground!!!

completely wrong

[circletimessquare]

does the violent movie turn a normal guy into a killer?

or does the violent movie placate the violent tendencies in us all?

does the pornography turn the normal guy into a rapist?

or does pornography take antisocial urges and empty them in a magazine instead of a real woman?

so i take your "media influences" and throw it right back at you: if media does influence, then it takes our violent and antisocial sexual urges and provides a harmless outlet for them

even if, even if you somehow show me some normal guy who shoots someone because of a videogame or a movie, which i don't even believe, i can still show you ten guys who would be shooting real people if they weren't doing it in a videogame

so you want a more peaceful society?

more pornography and violent videogames- I AM NOT JOKING!

human nature is not a picture of innocence that media comes along and warps... human nature is a seething cauldron of sex and violence that media placates

got it?

if you honestly believe plays ANY hands in making people violent or sexually depraved, then you are trying to tell me that before media: before videogames, movies, records, books... that we were somehow peaceful and loving

bullshit!

violent movies and videogames and pornography prevents thousands of murders and rapes every year

i sincerely, wholeheartedly believe that

Re:completely wrong

[Mycroft_VIII]

I'm digging up some old reading here so please be nice with the corrections, clarifications. But I believe you just outlined the 'contagion vs catharsis' philosophical debate from back when the ancient greek/roman philosphers had the same argument. The simple question is do fantasies/stories of unacceptable behaviours incourage them, or give safe outlet to them. I think the fact we've been arguing this since antiquity shows it's neighther clear cut nor easy to answer. Personally I think it can do eigther/both depending on the person and circumstance. Mycroft

Re:'Dressed' as Counterstrike shooters

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me crazy but I don't believe you can really be born a murder. Granted their are neuro-chemical imbalances and all that would increase the likely hood. But I have to say pointing a finger at even an implied reason is just as silly as blaming CS. Ridiculous.
I believe there always is a slow degradation of mental balance that accures that everyone just writes off as them having a a bad day or moods. Slowly the mind folds on yourself and you become retrospective with your mind focused on one thing. Logic goes, if you ever had it, then ethics and finally morals and you've draw in on yourself with a focus like work or t.v. or games.
Nope, it always comes down to his enviroment forcing stressors on them they make small innocent bad decisions, like withdrawing from conflicts, which build until they overwelm the person. It's very sad cause it's not that hard to spot if you just take time to look at someone else. A little help at the beginning can save lives.
Life is exponential... one factor multiplies and multiplies and multiplies......

Re:'Dressed' as Counterstrike shooters

[oakbox]

There IS a test for this, it's called the Hartman Value Profile. It's basically a test to see if you are evil. The Nixon administration was planning on implementing it to test kids to see who would end up going to jail later in life.

The test was accurate, and unchangeable. If you were a sick person at 8, you were going to be just as screwy at 18 or 28. It looked at your world view.

Anyway, telling someone, "You're values are screwy, you'll end up in jail or as a burden to society and there's nothing you can do about it" lacks a certain . . . niceness. So the idea was killed off.

Now the test is used to see if you would be a good salesperson :)

Re:That's Nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

this gets modded flamebait ?
hah, flamebait for telling the truth, the army is just a legalised form of what those wannabe counterstrikers did: killing innocent ppl for no valid reason whatsoever

it's a hypocritic and biased world when all sorts of arms (guns) are legalised but plants are illegal, when someone mentioning sarcasm about 'american's army' making publicity for legal killing under the myth of a divided corrupt nation, is being moded flamebait

Acceptable levels of violence

[panurge]

Once upon a time the British had an empire (bear with me, this is relevant). This meant that all the mindless, violent thugs thrown up by society could be drafted into the army and sent where most of them would die of disease, some would die in battle, and some would grow up to be Imperial administrators and complain about the low level of troops we got nowadays. This kept the violent thugs away from civil society and enabled political and social development in the UK.

Learning from this, the US did the same for many years. There was a nice big civil war in which all the people too aggressive to survive in a developing civil society obligingly killed one another. Then there were gold rushes and the development of the West, and the antisocial thugs were able to go and fight one another over land and gold until eventually civilisation caught up with them.

And now? The thugs are too dim bulb to get into the armed services, which don't work by getting killed en masse any more. So they hang around civil society and become gang members and drug dealers, and we have to catch them and lock them up. Some of them grow out of it and some don't.

Games are an expression of the way homo sapiens sapiens was originally designed to work. Blaming them for our lack of ways of dealing with psychopaths is easy because actually fixing the problem is very hard. Never before have we had a society where the majority of sociopaths and psychopaths aren't simply killed off before they reach the age of 21 or so.

Sometimes I wonder if the answer isn't simply to execute not only all killers, but everyone who commits an unprovoked violent assault on another person with a weapon. The effect would be much the same as the policy that built the British Empire and the US.

I'm not really putting this forward seriously, but what are the objective reasons why this is a Bad Idea?

Healthy, happier place?

[Lifewish]

Well, if you assume that a world in which I don't beat my sister round the head with heavy objects is healthier...

Computer games have saved me on two occasions when I was literally seeing red. It doesn't happen much but, when it does, shooting the proverbial out of a terrorist bot is about the best therapy I've come across. For comparison, the time I didn't manage to get to a computer resulted in a big hole in the plasterboard, which was certainly not healthy for my fist.

I have a very irritating sister. Thanks to computer games, this state of affairs continues.

2002 ?!?!?

[thygrrr]

Errrm, why does the article stat that this happened in 2002? A murder trial that takes so long is suspicious, isn't it?

Re:'Dressed' as Counterstrike shooters

[BrokenHalo]

I know you got modded "Funny", but I also live in Australia and I find my sense of humour has taken a bit of a battering over the last couple of weeks...

Re:Online version

[Morosoph]

Extremely interesting. But in section two: I love what I do, and I love nature, but I don't see the two being especially well interrelated. It's a bit like trying to rank libertarians against greens.

I feel that it's really asking me "do I believe in god?".

I seem to have scored okay, though, but I feel that many with still more developed traits will do worse. For example, a physicist might score worse than a cultist who saw design in the universe.