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Grand Theft Auto Led Teen to Kill
Varg Vikernes writes "FOXNews reports on a lawsuit that claims the video game 'Grand Theft Auto' led a teenager to shoot two police officers and a dispatcher to death in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game. 'What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin... to kill three men,' attorney Jack Thompson told The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the suit's filing. Thompson is also filing suit against Wal-Mart, Gamestop, Take-Two and Sony." Gamespot has coverage of this story as well. Thompson has made something of a career out of lawsuits of this nature.
Parents allow video game to raise child
Seriously, I mean next thing you know we're going to start blaming homosexuality on Will and Grace. Give it a break people. Or rather, get a dining table and stop eating your freaking meals in front of your TV. It's a form of entertainment, not a shrine.
Faux news reports on thousands of Iraqi families bringing lawsuits against the US government for sponsoring and developing PS2 war games and using these games to induce young US recruits for a glamarous battle in Iraq and soon to be Iran (TV schedules are already penned for an october suprise!!).
Do other countries have frivilous lawsuits of this sort, or is it primarily a US-only thing? The idea that you can get rich by suing someone, or that misfortune entitles you to not just fair compensation but riches, is one that I wish could be changed. As an example of how these suits affect me personally, I hate that my health insurance costs are so high; perhaps the costs aren't all due to malpractice suits, but they definitely make up a significant part of it.
One thought I've had as to how these suits could be curbed is to allow judges in civil cases to set a bond, similar to what is done in criminal cases. Since lawyers currently take any case based on the fact that they get a (large) percentage of the settlement, there is no cost to sue, and a huge cost to defend. The person bringing the suit would have to put up the bond, and they would get it back when the case was settled or went to jury. If the case was later thrown out by the judge then the bond would not be returned, and might even go to the defendent to help with legal costs. In cases where obvious harm was done the judge could set the bond very low, but for trivial suits this could become a disincentive for bringing the suit in the first case.
Does any other country do this? How do other countries prevent frivilous lawsuits?
JAMWiki Java-based Wiki engine
Proposal: if your minor child is convicted of a crime you get hit with a proportion of the sentence dependent on the age of the child. (100% at 5 years old, 0% at 18, not sure what the interpolation function should be).
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
People are so quick to blame the parents, and in most cases I think that this is true, we need to place blame on parents... especially for smaller things.
But in cases where such an extreme act has occurred I don't think that parental upbringing is the totality of what's going on. Sometimes parents do everything right and still end up with a serial killer.
There's a thing called free will, plus the randomness of genetics. You can't always blame the parents. Just wait till your kid shoots someone and see how you feel about being put on trial for the murder even though you had nothing to do with it and you were a model parent.
And just so you know, if you ever spend any time in a mental institute for children you'll know what I mean. This happens a lot, sometimes it's the parents fault, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's them having been born into a society that just doesn't support them, and other times it's just a crossed wire in their brain... maybe one that didn't short circuit in day 43 of year 15. Who knows, but the point is -- you shouldn't be so quick to judge!
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There are also first world countries where the kids play violent video games all day long and never ever go out a kill people. It called Japan. The problem here is at least three fold.
1. Questionable Parenting.
2. Culture of violence.
3. Easy access to high level weapons.
Remove any of those legs of the tripod and you can reduce this kind of thing to a manageable level. Not to say I don't feel for the argument. After playing GTA for long enough you do start to see the world in GTA. No would I go out and get an AK-47 and some body armor and start going postal on the world? No, why should I? If I had been ass raped by my red-state Nascar dad and ignored by my Meth addicted mother, only to go to school to get the shit kicked out of me by anti-intellectual assholes and had access to the ammo dump I might (not)think a little differently.
Do you really have to ask? It's all the things we are not allowed to do. It's an action movie, it's every car chase, it's every gun fight and every mob war you've ever seen on television or in the movies.
GTA is a role playing game, but instead of traditional iconography you freely roam mythical American landscapes and slay the dragons of every Cop show or mob movie. So if you really want to know from whence GTA gains it popularity figure out why car chases, gun fights and excessive violence is an inseperable part of worldwide pop-culture.
It should always be stated when referring to GTA that it is also a game of free will, you can kill someone with a baseball bat if you want to, there are no real rammifications to this action other than getting "arrested" losing your money and getting your weapons taken away. So far as I have seen, the only time when it is necesarry to kill another in-game character is when the plot has morally justified their extermination to the gamer, you are not obligated nor rewarded for killing "non-guilty" NPCs.
crazy dynamite monkey