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GTA Blamed for Graffiti
Voodoo Extreme is reporting on a group of Greensburg, PA boys who went on a Graffiti spree and then blamed it on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. From the article: "The boys range in age from 12 to 14 and are charged with institutional vandalism, criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief and desecration of venerated objects." Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA?
The next thing you know people will start blaming the break dancing craze on Electric Boogaloo.
then the only real solution is a government ban
Oh yea, great idea, cuz the government ban on various drugs has been so successful.
No the real answer would be to stop having stupid children that are influenced by stupid crap and start putting them in jail for crimes they commit rather than allow them to blame games. Its not like the only exposure to grafitti is GTA. Its like commercial advertising, they can't sell you something you don't already want. But they can influence your descision to go with something you may otherwise have passed on. These kids are probably hoodlums with or without GTA.
"We can no longer live as rats... we know too much." -Secret of NIMH
Is there one single reporter out there who is also a gamer? If I was a reporter I would go interview the parents. So, you bought this game for your children? Do you rent adult movies for them too?
New at 10: Parents buy mature and adult video games for their children, then blame the game companies when their kids make mischief.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA? "
Well if the kids are that stupid - what are the chances their parents understand a "mature" rating?
No it's not just you. But it's not their fault either. Someone had to pay for the 50 dollar game. Where are their parents. My parents still don't like me playing Grand Theft Auto. Fortunately it's outside of their control. The parents should be out cleaning the graffiti alongside their children.
E.g., if I get syphillis from a hooker, can I sue/blame the hooker and not be arrested for soliciting? Or that is a context argument. If I was 14 and got shitfaced drunk and say shot somebody, could I "blame" alcohol and avoid prosecution?
So where is this tolerance level coming from? These kids admitted to obtaining and viewing for personal use what for them is illicit material. That's enough for a paedophile webring so why not a bunch of vandals who were too stupid to avboid getting caught?
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
the only real solution is a government ban
Sure, because we all know that there wasn't a drop of alcohol sold or consumed in the US between 1919 and 1933. (Feel free to correct my dates, I didn't thoroughly Google before posting.)
I never thought I'd see anyone on Slashdot saying (loosely translated), "The US government should force more control over our every-day lives. That would make things better." Not that I agree with all the anti-government fanboyism running rampant around here, but it's a well documented fact that such restrictions as you propose, mandated from on high, simply do not work. All it does is put a greater workload on our already insufficient law enforcement departments.
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
It's true that kids can be influenced, but so can everyone. If we want to say that kids cannot be responsible for their actions, fine. Then we must hold the parents responsible. You cannot blame a game that is designed for the 18+ crowd and shouldn't even be sold to minors.
Why do people think they can blame their actions on somthing or someone else? The only thing that made those kids pick up a can of spray paint are their own minds. Even a 12 year old knows graffiti is vandalism and they know it's wrong. Society needs to stop allowing people to scapegoat their actions. We are responsible for the things we do. Were these kids going to jack cars and run people over, maybe grab a flame thrower and torch cars and then get away with it by blaming GTA. Nobody is responsible for their actions anymore, aw jeez McDees made me fat, Smith and Wesson shot my face off while I was cleaning my loaded gun and Jack Daniels made me beat my wife.
piss off
It's not GTA's fault, but I think it's naive to not realize that the media people are exposed to does influence them. Since it's obvious that corporations have no responsibility nor desire whatsoever to maintain any kind of moral standards which might be detrimental to their profitabilty, it's up to others to mediate the development, encouragement and access to questionable content of this nature.
The reason GTA is so popular is because people have a secret desire to be anarchistic. The game gives them an excuse, and makes some, usually those on the bottom rung of the intellect and discipline ladder, emboldened to actually do some of these things in real life.
So what do you do? Blame the crappy kids' crappy parents? IMO, ironically, the parents are probably crappy parents because they too, have been influenced by the media, led to believe they have to work harder and make more money in order to be happy, therefore they spend less time with their kids and don't have a clue what they're doing. It's a vicious cycle, all perpetrated by peoples' overexposure to media.
Jesus, what a lame graffiti. They should be locked up for conspiracy to commit weak-assed self-expression.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Ok, so graffiti didn't exist before GTA came out? If it didn't or it wasn't a problem, then they might have a case.
Graffiti has been a problem for decades. To blame it on a game is as ignorant as it is outrageous. I remember when some kid shot up his school and the media was all set to blame that on video games. The problem isn't the games, it's that the world that the games are based on (real-world) sucks.
Murder happens. Vandalism happens. Playing a game that incorporates this and then going out and doing this stuff doesn't make you any less of a murderer or vandal. These kids will most likely get sentenced as is proper in PA law.
The GTA angle is just a sad attempt to push a political agenda (far-right tightwads). I'm tired of conservatives thinking they have the right to tell me and whoever else what I should be able to buy. If they had their way, there wouldn't be any games with a hint of violence.
Where would that leave us? I dunno, puzzle/board/card games, I guess.
Tetris and Solitaire.
Yeah.
Right...
These kids are probably hoodlums with or without GTA.
Agreed. People who want to do bad or dumb things will do them no matter what. There was _plenty_ of graffiti long before Pong hit the market and the alleged warping of America's youth began.
GTA didn't make stupid kids vandalize things.
Beavis And Butthead didn't make stupid kids set their house on fire.
The Program didn't make stupid college kids lie down in the middle of a street and get run over.
Notice the recurring theme, anyone?
they can't sell you something you don't already want
You put very simply what is probably going to end up being one of the best points in this thread. GTA didn't make hoodlums, hoodlums made* GTA.
* No, not the programmers (though I don't know any of them personally), the general population craving the "mature" video games and shelling out big bucks for them.
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
Agreed. Stupid Irresponsible parents breed stupid irresponsible kids who need to be punished realistically.
The legal system in the US is an F'n joke. We've got people facing 15 year sentences for illegal downloading while a rapist serves 2-5 years. Where is the logic in that. Who would you rather have on the street, a Rapist or Software Pirate? The choice is clear, our legal system does not consider common sense punishment.
BTW my common sense punishment for these kids would be to kick thier asses.
But couldn't the same argument be made for adult movies that they will get in the hands of kids, so they should be banned? This line of logic can be continued indefinatly. There are many things in this world that are dangerous to children, parents have to take responsibility, end of story.
Personally I know of a woman who rented and allowed their 8 year old daughter to watch "Saw" now thats some sick twisted stuff. Either way I still wouldn't ban the movie, just really really wish parents would use some common sense, but then again maybe this kid has proved they can handle movies like that well. On the other hand noone knows what the long term effects are. So I guess my argument is circular, all this stuff is tragic, but its not new, and we can't just go around banning things we don't like.
I grew up near Greensburg, they're now putting in the largest Wal-Mart in the world there. Not much to do in the area except go to Westmoreland mall. Kids get quickly bored in that area. I wouldn't say GTA: San Andreas is to blame. I'd say corporate commercialism and liability is.
If there were places for teenagers to hangout, like skateparks, there would be less influence to go out and do stupid things. Any time a teenager brings a gun, drugs, or hurts himself on your property, you lose your property to lawsuits. So no one caters to making fun places to hang out, its nothing but people's houses and stores out there. Maybe its like that everywhere now.
God spoke to me.
could be worst... ever talked with a real graffiti "artist" about their "craft"?
They would have you think that they are the great revolutionaries, fighting the supression of the individual by putting their tag everywhere and thus destroying the mindless uniformity and attacking the collective subconscious or some such.
Now admittedly I like some graffiti.... theres some absolutly beautiful peices of artwork that people have illicitly put up in backalleys on walls. Stunning stuff. Of course thats the stuff that doesn't get washed off, because well, it really does make the place look nice.
If this was what they defended I might be with them, but the vast majority is just a bunch of silly words written in paint marker or scratched into a plexiglass bus window. Crap. Nobody appreciates it but them, it just makes a place look run down and ugly.
"Yah I am a counterculture revolutionary because I can write a word in really funked up letters that nobody can read"
At least these kids if they blame it on GTA, probably wont do it again
Dumbasses.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I was playing Mortal Kombat when I was 12 and still I wasn't thinking on ripping people's head apart off on the street.
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Here we go.
[ballmer]
Parenting, Parenting, Parenting, Parenting.
[/ballmer]
Plain and simple. If the kids got the game from one of his friends whose parents purchased it for him, then the other parents involved need to get on their case.
And age doesn't mean a damn thing. I was playing Wolfenstein 3D when I was 12, and for all the screaming and ranting of "concerned" groups, I didn't end up a violent psychotic. You can be mature enough at a young age to grasp such concepts as fantasy and reality without difficulty.
I personally think these tools used GTA to avoid getting in any real trouble themselves. Why take the blame for your own actions when [controversial_game_of_the_week] is there to take it for you? Why bother finding the fault in parental responsibility when you can just sue your problems away?
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
Kids spray paint shit. Most stores won't sell spray paint to you if you're under 18 to help mitigate this problem. I had a friend who spray painted his middle school and almost got caught. His parents have always thought he was the golden child, he just never got caught doing anything bad. The funny thing is they always thought I was the "bad influence" when we were kids, the opposite was sometimes true. We were both hell raisers, he just played the "good son" part better.
GTA: San Andreas sold roughly 2.1 million copies in the first 4 days. Lets say in all there were 10 million copies sold in the US (probably a conservative estimate. I can't seem to find solid numbers, even in take2's financial statements)
Now, if 1% of the copies caused people to shoot another person, that would be 100,000 murderers created by the game since its release at the end of October. A crime spree like that would be front page headlines across the country!
So lets say 0.1% of them became murderers. (We're already below the margin of error for most polls and quite a few research studies) That would be 10,000 people out of ~291million (in July 03). New York City had a population of 8,085,742. Assuming an even distribution, that would be 270 murderers in New York city alone, half of the murders for the year of 2004 (which was the lowest rate for the city since the 60's).
Below 0.1% you're no longer arguing statistical correlation vs. causal relation, you're talking about coincidence. Or in this case, the kids blaming their bad behavior on anything but themselves.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Blaming GTA for a graffitti is on the same line as blaming Marilyn Manson for the Columbine Massacre... Complete nonsense... If a person is involved in a car accident, are we going to say: "OH, he crashed ... that's because he's arround too many Windows Boxes"??
I painted 100 "Grove 4 Life" tags all over the town, now where is my AK 47? :(
I just thought they had dumbass parents who don't give a shit about their children and let them play violent video games and run the streets with weapons and spray-paint.
But now I realize, no one can control these children. At 12, they are so intelligent and powerful that parents are helpless to stop them from doing whatever they want.
FYI, there's a 12-y-o under my roof who watches nothing pg-13 or above (because he's obnoxious enough as it is, that's way). He also doesn't buy spray-paint.
Changa hates change.
And can already get a headshot in UT2004. She loves to watch me play Doom3, and as a result has ceased to be afraid of the dark. Granted, part of my duty as a parent was to explain to her in depth that John Carmack is just a mere mortal (let the flaming begin!), and I also used it as an opportunity to show her how many wonderful opportunities there are for her in CG and technology when she gets older. True, I've taken some of the magic out of her childhood, but I also feel that I've given her more of a pragmatic outlook on life. She's watched all 3 of the LOTR movies, Matrix movies, X-Men movies and Spiderman movies, but I've also made sure she's seen the 'Making of' portions, so she can see things like the good guys and bad guys hanging around the makeup trailer together, the CG used to create Gollum, etc. In a nutshell, we refuse to shelter our daughter from what the world has to offer, and not only has it made her smarter and more critical as far as her thinking skills go, but I believe it has given her an advantage her classmates haven't been afforded the opportunity, and her counting, reasoning verbal, and reading skills prove it.
End of Line.
is the media.
How else would the kids know they can deflect blame by blaming something else?
A proper corrective measure for these kids should be a 48 hour marathon of every 'positive/inspirational' TV and movie in existence (disney, care bears, etc). That way, since they are so easily influenced, we will have happy, sharing, giving, happy members of society as a result.
THEN they can go to the media and say "its a wonderful life" inspired me to help my community'.
So you can spray paint graffiti too in GTA:SA ? What doesn't the game have?
I've got to get this game when it comes out on PC.
Things were so much easier when I was growing up. If I shoplifted a can of spraypaint and desecrated the walls of my school it was because I was a dumbass, not because of playing too much Donkey Kong.
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