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Games Seized Following Murder
GamePolitics reports that M-rated games have been taken as evidence a case involving the death of a 55-year old man in Louisiana. The connection? Jack Thompson says: "Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hitman or a videogamer." GP goes on to point out the lunacy of this claim. From the site: "Funny, that. A quick Google search on 'shot in the face' turns up 921,000 entries."
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There are clearly some unrelated results from Google search - if you turn off SafeSearch.
So what if "shot in the face" turns up 900,000 hits (it only shows 13,000 hits in my browser). "Jews did 911" turns up almost 900,000 easily.
The point of this is that you can't extrapolate something like a Google search into evidence. Police who have experience with crime probably have a somewhat better perspective on the hows and whys of crime than you Joe Searchbot does.
Hitman, or gamer? Hitman might be pretty accurate, I guess.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A real gamer wouldn't even be strong enough to lift the gun.
But how many are "gun-related"? I can think of a 3 letter word that would precede "shot" that would account for that number of hits.
Every gamer and hitman knows you shoot in the BACK of the head!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Since when do hitmen execute people by shooting them in the face? Back of the head/neck is traditional.
Jack don't know anything.
You can't take the sky from me...
A videogamer could never shoot someone in the face - there isn't a "crosshair" to aim with in real life....
"But this one goes to 11!"
Most hitmen avoid headshots. Very messy and often with a good chance of survival of the subject. Load the brain with 5 bullets and the victim may still live, despite losing the ability to speak spanish, tell apart apples from oranges and move left leg. They will likely enter a coma though, which looks very much like they are dead, and they will come to and start talking at the least convenient moment. Real hitmen avoid headshots (from close distance at least, sniping is a different thing) and definitely prefer going for the heart. Nobody survives a hole in the heart and placing the third bullet precisely in the heart from a short distance is quite easy once shock from the first two paralyses the victim.
;)
On the other hand, most games register heart shot as just another chest shot, scoring pretty low damage, while headshots, from any direction, including the face count as serious damage multiplier.
That would narrow it down...
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
You just hit the nail on the head. If gamers shoot people in the face, why is it that there are hundreds of millions of gamers and only a handful of them have murdered someone...let alone by shooting them in the face.
One Question: when is Jack Thompson going to prison? His abuse of the legal system and profound negative influence on society has to end.
The surest sign that the litigation indust--, er, justice system in the US is broken is that this guy hasn't been disbarred yet.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Agreed. Does that mean we can shoot Jack Thompson in the face? Maybe this is his way of expressing his need for this. Any takers?
I can imagine a mob of gamers swarming this guy, all shooting him in the face with those Nintendo light guns.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
So what's our best defense against him? Frankly, I think the last thing Jack Thompson would want is to be ignored. He probably likes the animosity he's building with the gaming community, and he'll like making headlines many times more. Let's just ignore the fellow, and at some point he may start campaigning against diet sodas or the ulterior motives of figure skaters ("Nobody wears blades that sharp...unless they want to kill.").
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
This just in: While searching a murder suspects home police have come across various boxes containing data discs. These boxes are covered with violent imagery and words like "Hitman, Grand Theft Auto, and True Crime". While authorities have declined to comment on any connection, we here at the Associated Press feel that without the help of one Jack Thompson, the police officers would have completely overlooked such obscure and truly puzzling pieces of evidence and would have never drawn any connection between them and the suspects alleged violent behavior.
Also from TFA: "I think (the murder) goes beyond video games, but who's to say?," Dilworth commented, adding that the question of whether video games lead to youth violence might be "more of a debate for the living room rather than the courtroom."
Doesn't sound like the local police are too amused with Jack Thompson's "theories". Once again, this isn't news because the games that were siezed will play no role in the murder trial. The cops are like, "Yea we found M-rated video games, who cares? The kid confessed."
Jack Thompson is a crackpot and the only reason he gets any attention at all is because people see his name in an article and suddenly its a top story.
Google trends shows that there is no correlation between video games and being shot in the face. I rest my case.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
The stats are very much skewed: Stealth games like Metal Gear Solid are getting very popular, so they clearly still go on random murdering sprees; they just got -alot- better at disposing of the bodies/evidence. :D
Off topic; The [p] -tag now just acts like putting in a linebreak [br] : Weird stuff.
The problem is that if we (as gamers and other computer users) ignore him, he'll manage to convince people that he is right and we won't be there to provide the counterbalance.
We can't afford to ignore him, but we CAN afford to make as much fun of him as possible and make sure EVERYONE knows just exactly how preposterous everything he says is. This means everything from simple 'gamers have a tendency to copy their games' to 'gamers are evil, disgusting creatures that would as soon shoot you in the face as look at you' and everything in-between. His tamest-sounding speech is poison to the minds of anyone involved with law. Every single thing that he gets someone to believe is a blow to the freedom of gamers around the USA. (Luckily, he hasn't spread world-wide yet.)
We cannot afford to be lax because the only 'experts' in this field are us. If we ignore him, he gets to run rampant.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hitman or a videogamer."
And no one utters anything that fucking stupid unless they're pushing an agenda, or a lawyer, or both.
Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
Jack Thompson shoots himself in the foot all the time.
The better question is: How did the murderer lug around 921,000 rounds of ammuniition without being noticed?