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Doom Causes Kid to Kill
Today's idiotic lawsuit...parents are suing Hollywood and
some porn websites because some kid shot a bunch of his classmates.
Here is an exceptionally choice quote: "The lawsuit claims that confessed shooter Michael Carneal, a 14-year-old freshman at Heath High School at the time of the Dec. 1,
1997, shootings, was influenced by the violence in ``The Basketball Diaries'' and by several violent computer games such as
``Doom,'' ``Quake,'' and ``Mortal Combat.''" The Mortal
Combat techno track does make me want to kill whoever
produced it, and I've never been fond of DiCaprio, but wow.
What a great country we live in. Update: 04/13 02:11 by CT : several people
sent us this story
which says that 14 game companies will be sued. Guess who
is among them?
When you look at the amount of children which are going out and killing people lately you have to question the cause. Normal parents which raise their kids with love and teach them the difference between right and wrong have children which murder other children.
Then you look at what they watch on TV and what they play on the video games. And not just fantacy TV, you have the news which glorifies the killing of mass people showing the bombing of kosovo. You have the media glorifying violence with such programs as "Scariest Police Chaces" or "Worlds most Violent Criminals" or "Cops".....then you have gangs sprouting up everywere, and movies like 'Go' (looks to me like this movie glorifies the "drug user/carry a gun and kill people" night life senario).....Its really no wonder our kids are fucked up in the head.....then you have all these wierd chemicals running through their boddies,...some prescribed by doctors which are known to make some people become violent....and from the candy and cerials they eat....and all this fast, no worry food they eat....I mean shit, what do we expect? Kids are fucking crazy as it is,...then we bombard them with violence and feed them psychodelic chemicals....shit lets give them LSD, couldn't be any worse.
Granted, kids should know the difference between right and wrong, real and fantasy,...but when you take into account all the other crap,...well how can we really expect them to?
There is just too much of this going on for it to be just the kids or parents faults....6 year olds are drowning their little siblings,...an 8 year old sexually asaulted his little brother....14 year olds are attacking school yards with hunting and assault rifles (kids who HAVE been taught the realities of guns and the difference between right and wrong)....there has to be other contributing factors to this mess, and just blaming the parents without accounting for all the violence of society as a whole is just stupid. I am sure Quake, Doom, and MK were certainly not 'good' influences on the child....but I am equally sure that they were not the sole blame of the child's violent actions.
The plaintiffs wish to suggest that, since an actor *may* have sought out media on his own accord, and *may* have listened to the occasional utterance, that those sources then bear responsibility for Carneal's actions? The same logic would suggest that, should I hurl a television out the window out of disgust with incredibly inane programming, that any poor schmuck that I hit should sue the members of the focus groups that led to such marketing.
They have offended my common sense and exacerbated my irritation humanity, and strengthened a belief that many do not deserve to vote, make policy, or otherwise inflict their idiocies upon the rest of us. They have possibly increased my blood pressure, and have definitely worsened my opinion of the legal profession.
There should therefore be a countersuit, naming as defendants the idiots of the world -- including these plaintiffs and their opportunistic lawyer(s).
;(
Bleh.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I'm a gamer. I've played computer games since I was five with my TI 99/4a. I went through a few, morally questionable games like the Leasure Suit Larry series, the Id software titles, etc. Now, I've never felt any need to run around in a cheezy leisure suit trying to get laid while playing rambo and killing everything in sight.
After I got done playing a game I never felt like going out and emulating the game. Maybe it's because that most games are nowhere near the quality of a good action movie or maybe it's because I'm not psychotic.
Anyone who has the capacity and mental or emotional instability to kill someone cold doesn't need any help from the kill-everything-in-sight genre of games.
A game doesn't turn you into a cold blooded killer and even if it could, good parenting... or hell, any parenting at all is enough to counteract it.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Quite bizarre.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, I happen to like both their new and old stuff. Their old stuff is a lot faster and heavier, but the late-80s and early-90s stuff is good. I agree their really new stuff (post-1994 when Brett Gurewitz left) isn't that great, but No Control, Against the Grain, and Generator are great albums.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
FWIW that's the pledge of allegiance, not the national anthem. Either way, I agree with your point. The founding fathers of the country saw no reason to put "under God" in the anthem, so I don't see why some later people second-guessed them and decided to add the phrase in. BTW does anybody know exactly when the words "under God" were added to the pledge? Is it yet another stupid thing we have to thank Mr. McCarthy (the 1950s Red Scare one, not the anti-vietnam-war one) for?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Neither attorney was available for comment prior to going to press, though the Adrenaline Vault learned one of them has a history of being associated with cases supported by conservative Christian organizations.
Why am I not surprised? They should go back to church and stop trying to tell me what games I can play, what movies I should watch, and what music I should listen to.
"Please give a 10, 25, or 50 dollar tax-deductible donation, and I assure you, your modest pledge will be used to censor TV and radio, ban questionable books, and contribute to many other Godly services. No longer will young Christian Americans hedonistically indulge in masochistic submission to rhythmic music, for with your monetary support, there is no end to what we can achieve in this country!" -Bad Religion, "The Voice of God is Government", 1982.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This has everything to do with religious fundamentalism. From the beginning, the parents of the victims tried to paint it as a work of evil godless atheists trying to destroy Christianity by shooting at a prayer meeting. Then they found out the shooter was Christian. I guess that sort of ruined things, so they're looking for a different scapegoat. Instead of the evil atheists, it's now the evil game, movie, and porn industries.
In case you have any doubts as to their motives, take a look at a quote from this article:
Neither attorney was available for comment prior to going to press, though the Adrenaline Vault learned one of them has a history of being associated with cases supported by conservative Christian organizations.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yeah, because they can trademark "Mortal Kombat" much more easily than the common english phrase "mortal combat."
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The following is an incomplete list of the negligent people responsible for this tragedy, who should promptly be sued:
ID Software, for making violent games
Intel and/or AMD, for providing the processor to play aforementioned games on
Any other hardware manufacturers whose product was used in the playing of said violent game
the store from which the game was purchased
The school district
The school administrators
The kid's parents
The gun manufacturer
the bullet manufacturer
the store from which the gun was purchased
the distributor of the firearms
all movie theaters responsible for violent movie production
all the actors
the movie theaters
the television stations which advertise the movies
the newspapers which advertise the movies
the porn sites
the US Government for creating the internet on which the porn sites are located
CERN laboratories for creating the www
The scary thing is that they actually have sued a large number of the above listed entities.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Porn on the Internet is responsible for the decline of Western civilization...didn't you know? (sarcasm)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/l
Why take responsibility when you can sue someone? Now, I'm starting to sympathize with the tobacco companies.
I fully expect to hear someday that his parents will join in the lawsuit (after all, he was a victim too!)
Sue the families of the children who were killed. If they (the children) didn't get in the way of his bullets, he wouldn't be in so much trouble now. Sheesh.
I'm rather suprised (or not) the parents didn't express their concern about these games earlier, or prevented him (through any of the many programs available) from going to porn sites.
Oh, and someone already sued God and won (He didn't show).
I heard a rumor that if you inserted the Super Mario Bros. game cartridge backwards into a NES then you got to play the XXX version. Luigi humps the Princess or something like that...
Pu-leaze! This kind of thought is bringing us back into the stone age.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I have friends (and family) teaching K-6. If a child can't distinguish between fantasy and reality by the time they're 5, it's something that's noticed and responded to. It is not, then, too much to expect from a 13-year-old.
Would you say that playing with squirt guns and water baloons predisposes kids to play with guns and bombs? Wargames and sparring have been around forever; As long as it's known to be nonlethal, it never has had or will have a serious detrimental effect.
Distinguishing between things happening inside a screen and things happening in the surrounding world really isn't that tough. Heck, the (excessive, very-very-bad-thing) TV watching by most children prepares them for that just fine.
Speaking of which... TV and video games are not nearly the influnce they're blamed to be in terms of violent behavior (general stupidity, yes; cynicism, yes; apathy, yes; violence, no). Proper parenting is much, much more important. These folks are in no position to file lawsuits; The blame lies first with the child himself, and second with his parents.
---
Re "where's the skill?", you obviously haven't played Team Fortress or a similar Quake mod where actual teamwork, strategy and planning is neccesary. If no skill were neccesary, do you think folks would find these games fun?
Re the video game age ratings, they already exist and have been in use for quite some time. Quite ineffective, though.
Posted by The Orge Captain:
So everyone who listens to those types of music does drugs and the drugs make us murder people? Thats interesting cause then i can argue that the prerpy little momie dressed me i never do anything bad, staright a kids who listen to there one hit wonder backstreet boys or spice girls or whatever have an excuse to go out and rape people ? Well all the songs are about sex so it must make there hormons build up to the point where jacking off does them no good so they go and rape someone.
As for are music tastes ? anybody who listens to billy joel or john tesh or anything equally queer should really think about what your tastes or maybe you'll find they arnt as good as you thought.
As for the loss of human life the world could live without another 14 potential yous. You know small minded, sterotypical, unintelegent, and totaly useless.
And like you i have the cajones to post as someone other then "Anonymous Coward"
Posted by alcohol:
1. Do not let your children look at pornography if you think it will make them kill.
2. Do not take your children to movies if they think they will make them kill.
3. Do not buy your children computer games if you think they will make them kill.
4. Do not start up stupid lawsuits.
5. Pay attention to the RATINGS on the videos and video games.
6. Do not let your children have guns.
If you were to kill someone with a gun, would the person's family sue the gun company or the bullet company? It was the child's choice.
Posted by alcohol:
too bad it happened in AMERICA? i think that he should have been dropped in KOSOVO. damn, he's a stupid kid, who gives a shit, is there a difference if he is 22 or 12? he's gonna go postal anyways.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
If we allow lawsuits for this kind of stuff, what's next? Movies and video games are not the only violent medium. How about books? Take crime and punishment- it involves a number of axe-murders. What if someone read this book and committed an axe-murder and the book was subsequently banned? Where does this end? It doesn't, until we live in a bland homogenized society where everyone kills each other out of frustration and inability to express themselves.
The parents of this kid need to grow up. Maybe they are so desperately sad from the pain that they can't think of anything better to do than hurt others. But judging from their obvious lack of parenting to this point, they are probably pretty immature.
Anyway I hope the legal system swats this shit down. Its a shame that so many companies will have to waste money on their defense.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
They're probably laughing all the way to the bank. I bet the second the cameras leave they wipe off the false tears and break out the champaign. Well, at least the parents of the kids who were only wounded. But this raises an interesting point. If your wondering how to pay for college, just have one extra kid, get him to kill a few friends **insert gunshots, screams and cash-register noises** , and cash in on a settlement.
What I want to know is why the parents of the shooter Michael Carneal did not do anything to control their child's access to materials containing pornography and violence. For the parnets of the victims to blame the entertainment industry, and especially the computer game industry for a child's actions is absurd.
:) At least this way, if I'm going to be violent, it's going to be with a mouse and a keyboard, not weapons by any means. Frankly these games have done more good for my demeanor than anyone telling me I can't have them.
I liken it to this: trying to sue the crack because your kid smoked it and it killed him.
The drugs aren't the problem, the user is for not informing him/herself to smoke them. In this case, the role of the parent is to be the decision maker/moral guidance for the child, and if they had done their job right, they would have kept open communication with their child and would most likely have noticed the problems he was having before this ever became a problem. Just a simple acknowledgement and communication about an alienation problem can be enough to curb it at times.
Generally when I play these games (quake, sin, etc), it's a stress release. I just simply think about whatever problem I'm having, layer it over another player in DM, and chuck a few rockets at it.
-Erik-
The media clearly influence behavior. Otherwise, advertising would be pointless. There is not a hard cause-and-effect relationship though. I, for instance, have seen many thousand Coca Cola ads in my life, but I have never bought Coca Cola. People as a group however are more likely to buy Coca Cola if they have seen Coca Cola ads. The fact that many people here claim "I have played Quake all my life and have never killed anybody!" is completely irrelevant. The relevant question is: "does playing Quake increase the likelihood to kill?"
Advertising is seldom a means of harboring influence anymore. No one buys a Coca-Cola because the advertisement convinces them to buy it, but because they hear it and think "gee, I want a coke", or "i wonder what coke tastes like, maybe i'll get one the next time I buy a pop". They don't like Coke, they will never purchase it again regardless of advertisement.
Same goes with Quake. No one plays quake thinking "wow, I want to kill people, I think i'll do it on my computer", nor does anyone think "this is so easy in quake, maybe the next time i'm out i'll try killing a real person". AÎdrenaline from playing the game may easily be a factor in aggression right after playing, but it7s just not plain logical to suggest that a computer game (and even less so a movie) is suggestive of killing real people.
The fact is, the kid was disturbed, alienated, and depressed. I personally think that the society around him was directly responsible, and as much as I hate to suggest it, the kids that were shot themselves were probably most likely to blame.. After all, i'm imagining he had a goal on who he was going to shoot. I'm not saying they deserved it or anything of that sort, but kids are very cruel little shitheads and a lot of school teachers aren't of the highest caliber when it comes to "giving half a shit about their students".
The kid had prior problems in school, and they obviously were not addressed very well. I imagine, that in class, some of these kids may have been bothering/teasing him, which might have created the alienation. It's the teacher's job to maintain a classroom for all the students. This happens all the times, and sometimes, I've even seen teachers get into the act themselves, lowering to the social graces of an 8 year old.
And not every kid has the ability to defend himself or just ignore the problem. This is how defensive mechanisms start, his was a one time shot with a machine gun. (no pun intended)
Most likely the kid has had multiple nervous breakdowns that have not been treated properly. The parents, the teachers, the school, and the kids are to blame, whether they intentionally did it or not.
-Erik-
i'm sure it was john Carmack's intention to make thousands of crazy teen's go out with assorted weapons and kill other kids. I'm sure that was his intention. Everyone always wants to blame somebody else for there fuckup. John Carmack is a great human being....he brought us doom and quake...and is making OpenGL and industry standard for 3d graphics (not directx). What can i say...he's John Carmack, leave him alone
:)
You're right! After all, we all know that Commander Keen is the antichrist.
-Erik-
And it makes as much sense as the other lawsuit we're discussing.
But this suit, and the lawsuits going after the gun manufactures, and the lawsuits going after the tobacco companies, are really all about one thing: money. The big payoff. They're going after the guy with the biggest pockets.
It's just abuse of the legal system, plain and simple.
Microsoft products really make me want to hurt, kill and mutilate people.
The whole feminist movement is a joke. What has it solved? Men still rule 99% of the world. And there's no Germaine Greer or Andrea Dworkin who will change that.
Giving up on social progress so easily?
Feminism is a relatively new thing. It will take time to get rid of sexism. But (generally) every generation is a little more open-minded than the previous.
TedC
BTW - they're absolutely right when they say "There are more serious dangers in restaurants." What next? Taking care of the one in a million moron who pokes himself in the eye with a fork?
Rob's word wrapper appears to wrap URLs, too. That should have been http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/04/12/20172 09&threshold=0&commentsort=3&mode=nested &cid=2890 without a space between mode= and nested screwing it up.
This is the same problem so many ligitation-happy people forget - the people who will follow a new law are the kind of people who wouldn't have been causing problems in the first place.
Without responsible parents new laws will be about as effective as the 65MPH speed limit unless you carry enforcement to Big-Brother levels. Of course, it's easier to pass a law than do something that actually works...
I wonder if the companies being sued can file a countersuit for poor parenting. I'd be amazed if those porn sites didn't have some sort of "You must be old enough to legally view the contents of this site" verbiage up - couldn't they sue the kid for violating their terms of usage? Besides - aren't those the sites that are supposedly making tons of money on subscriptions? What's a 14-year old doing with a credit card?
Well, maybe not that much off topic, but Rob, I noticed Today's Weather in Hell no longer shows up on my custom page. I looked around the Brunching site and found it
here
BTW, Today's WIH is detatched eyeballs.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Have you seen the inside of a prison lately? They aren't there for reform. They don't even pretend to be.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In which case the blame still falls on the parents. Either way it was their responsibility to raise him to be a decent human being.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This suit is typical. I don't know how they will prove any of it in court though. I've watched the movies. I've played the games. I've seen internet porn sites. I haven't shot anybody at any time to my knowledge. Now does that mean I am abnormal? Should those things have caused me to do something that my parents taught me was wrong?
If they should have, then perhaps I need treatment. Otherwise, I'd say the child who shot those people is the one who is in need of treatment as well as a set of parents who are willing to accept the responsibility of raising a child. I think those defendants should countersue and bring in witness after witness who will testify that they, like me, have been subjected to all those things that the parents claim turned their son into a killer, and yet they have not killed anyone.
The simple fact is that when you look at the big picture, there are vast numbers of people who have seen the violent movies, played the violent games, and visited internet porn sites, and have not committed a violent crime. The parents will probably be hard pressed to come up with more than a handful of people to testify otherwise. In that case, I would say that those who blame their crimes on movies and games and such are the abberrations and there is probably another factor involved. It could be something as simple as bad parenting, or it could be more complex. Either way, frivolous lawsuits aren't going to fix the problem.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Interestingly enough, the local newspaper in San Antonio, TX just ran a story on GNOME. It was on the first page of the business section. Had a picture of Miguel and everything. It was titled something like "Open Source Software Looking to Invade Microsoft's Turf" or something to that effect. Nice to see it getting some notice even at the local level now.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I guess that's what people must think. You can't limit someone's right to reproduce because you would have to impose on their religious beliefs, their cultural beliefs, and/or alter their body or lifestyle drastically. You can't tell someone not to do it or you end up with a situation like they have in China. One child per family. You go to the clinic 4 times a year and if you're pregnant, you get an immediate abortion. If you break the law, you go to jail. While I understand the problem of overpopulation, it doesn't make the solution very palatable. Of course, people seem to understand the problems of having too many animals and generally aren't against controlling the animal population. Why is it that the human population should be allowed to grow unchecked? Don't some of the same problems show up?
Who would get to decide who was fit to have a child and who wasn't? What if standards keep rising? Maybe we should only let reasonably intelligent, AND athletic people have children. Maybe that would cut down on deaths from heart disease, cancer, smoking-related ilness, drug-related ilness, etc. The bottom line is that someone would get the role of God in determining who would live and who would not.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
While I don't share your view that these games will warp a kid's mind, I do believe that a rating system for games is a good thing. I think it should be up to the parents whether or not a child should be allowed to play a certain game. A rating system would help them to decide whether the game is something they want their kid to play or not. It's as simple as that. Don't sell games with a 17+ rating to a kid unless the kid is at least 17. Just like going to the movies. No big deal. Once they are old enough to be held fully responsible for their actions in a court of law, then let them buy what they want and do what they want and pay the price if they do something stupid.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Even though I had read otherwise in the article, after reading the previous posts here, I started thinking that it was the parents of the child who were suing. This is not the case, and so I must correct my post.
I think those defendants should countersue and bring in witness after witness who will testify that they, like me, have been subjected to all those things that the parents claim turned their son into a killer, and yet they have not killed anyone.
The above should read:
I think those defendants should countersue and bring in witness after witness who will testify that they, like me, have been subjected to all those things that the parents of the victims claim turned the child into a killer, and yet they have not killed anyone.
There. All fixed. I promise to try harder in the future :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
``We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt sex porn sites'' on
the Internet, said Jack Thompson, one of the parents' lawyers.
Is there some other type of porn that I should be aware of?
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
He actually seems pretty well adjusted.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
After a day of many annoying things going wrong, and having to correct other people's stupid mistakes, it's either gun down a bunch of CyberDemons or whoever happens to be on the crowded train.
Seriously, for every study that claims violence in media leads to violence in reality, there is at least one that says not.
Time to round up laywers everywhere and put them in deep space...
(especially disney laywers)
How true! I gave up looking for a bootleg version of Win98 (don't flame me, please - I've since seen the light and converted to Linux) because of all the porn crap at virtually every warez site.
Who bought those games for this boy? Who gave this boy a computer and internet access without supervision? Who enabled this boy to have access to 6 firearms without being locked up? Was the id programmer sitting behind the child in his room, telling him to go out and kill? Was there a scantily clad woman handing him his grandfather's pistol, and telling him to go kill the little church girls? Lets say there was an id programmer physically there and encouraging the child to murder people in cold blood. Where were the parents?
Lets put the blame where it fully belongs. Lets stop parents from blaming their lazyness onto the backs of the media.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
One caution: Be careful just which politician it is, and listen to exactly what he's saying. Most of them are lawyers themselves, and would rather masturbate naked on CNN than do something that could be percieved as harming the legal profession. Most of them talk a good line, but few actually follow through. You have to get a running start to take on a well-funded and strongly placed behemoth like the American legal system.
As an example, during his tenure as vice president, J. Danforth "Dan" Quayle (himself a lawyer, as is his wife--they met in law school) made tort reform one of his pet issues. As far as I know, Dan got about as many reforms enacted as miles he walked on Mars.
But if I thought that goofy sumbitch had a goat's chance of actually getting something done, hell, even I'd vote for him!
Really, what else is there to say? If a person is so unstable that they're going to imitate a game or a movie, you need to look back earlier to the real cause of their problem. Such a person went over the edge long ago and would probably react negatively to pretty much any random stimuli.
The last time I played quake I don't remember any body parts flying.
Note however that Coke ads never mention the taste or the ingredients of the stuff. They desperately try to present the drink as "cool". In other words, they try to trick people into buying the stuff for reasons completely unrelated to the product. And people don't see through this, they buy Coke like sheep.
I don't think anybody knows precisely what goes on inside the advertising victim, but it is clear that the probability of buying Coke goes up after having seen a Coke ad, for whatever reasons.
The question to be answered is: Does the probability of violent behavior go up after having played a violent video game. I don't know the answer, but I suspect it is yes. If it is, and the game manufacturers know about it, then they are partly responsible for the violent acts since they are consequences of their actions. The people committing the violent acts are of course also responsible; "I played too much Quake!" is not a valid excuse.
--
People are probabilistic information processors. If you change the input, then the probability distribution of behavior patterns will change.
The media clearly influence behavior. Otherwise, advertising would be pointless. There is not a hard cause-and-effect relationship though. I, for instance, have seen many thousand Coca Cola ads in my life, but I have never bought Coca Cola. People as a group however are more likely to buy Coca Cola if they have seen Coca Cola ads. The fact that many people here claim "I have played Quake all my life and have never killed anybody!" is completely irrelevant. The relevant question is: "does playing Quake increase the likelihood to kill?"
Everybody is responsible for their own actions. If you knowingly do something which increases the likelihood of somebody else killing someone, then you are partially responsible for the killing, along with the killer.
It is not at all far-fetched to claim that violent media are partially responsible for these highschool murders.
--
I feel sorry for the poor schmuck named Leonard DiCrapolio who gets killed by accident ;^)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Furniture porn? :^) Lotsa naked chairs out there...no telling what they're doin'...
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I currently live about an hour away from where this happened. My family is from Kentucky. Your suspicions will now be confirmed...
...Kentucky suffers from extreme inbreeding.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
What a sad, sad world we live in. My mother's a lawyer, my partner is about to qualify as one and I know that some (most?) lawyers are decent people, but when you read of cases like this it makes you lose faith in the whole profession.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
They probably will want to sue for the pain and suffering experienced while listening to the MK background music... :op
Now, seriously, this is nuts. A great number of school kids play MK/Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem/Wolfstein 3D with the Barney patch/etc., and visit pr0n sites all too frequently, however they continue living normally. This particular kid just isn't sane. And if his parents want to do something about it, they should've prevented their kid from using the computer/video game in the first place!
It's interesting to see how families expect to blame others for their own mistakes...
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Assume the parents are clueless (which they seem to be). Accordingly, they don't have the capability to do that. The only thing left to do then is to close all possible venues of deviant behaviour.
But, who knows; maybe they were trying to do that and the kid found a way to circumvent his parent's watch. Oh well...
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Last time I shot someone I didn't see any body parts or blood fly out all over the place.
Please people be serious.. ever since the dawn of freaking humanity kids have played "war". It was no real then as it is now. For everyone person who can't tell the differance between a "game" and "real-life (tm)" there are 100000 who can. Is it fair to punish the majority because of a flaw in one person? or should we address the real problem.. the ONE person that HAS the problem.
-Ex-Nt-User
"Stand Back -
I may be dangerous!"
Heheh.. that's a really nice quote for the back of a t-shirt.
-Ex-Nt-User
I bet the reason why the parents of the victims are not suing the parents of the shooter is because they have no money! It has nothing to do with right wrongs, it just makes them look greedy.
I wonder how long until this lawsuit gets dismissed.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Yeah, but PV=nRT is an ideal gas law-- it doesn't take into account various other forces that make almost all materials deviate from the ideal gas law. If it wasn't for non-ideal gases, modern refrigeration (based on the fact that some gases absorb heat upon expansion) would be impossible.
Now an ice cream bar served as Bose-Einstein Condensate might be interesting...
i remember that one....
the laywer (steve was it?) got beat up by sean penn and was trying to determine who to sue.
didn't want to sue sean penn or madanno out of fear of retribution, and couldn't sue opus (his companion when he got beat up) because opus was broke.
in the end it was decided to sue the manufacturer of the camera he was carrying at the time, since everyone knows corporations have huge dough....
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Approximately quoted from Calvin & Hobbes:
Not that I think these people should win the lawsuit, but I don't think that media culture in the U.S. values human life too much, either.
--AlexCausation can cause correlation
How many of you have seen "A Clockwork Orange"? Good movie, wasn't it?
Remember when they took that criminal, strapped him down, made him watch all sorts of rapes, beatings, murders, etc. They gave him drugs to make him feel sick while he was watching these. As a result, he would always feel violently ill whenever he thought about rapes, beatings, and murders, so he would not rape, beat, or murder.
Let's just try to set this up in reverse. That is, while exposing the subject to scenes of violence, we give him the company of friends/family/significant-others, the delicious smell of popcorn, a soda, or a good beer. We don't even have to strap him down, because why would he leave? What do you think the result will be here?
I'm not saying that we are all as perfectly trainable as Pavlov's dog, but I think that such associations do have the effect on our actions. But it is something to think about....
-Chris
The families of the children that were killed are the ones suing. Not the parents of the shooter.
Can commercialism be blamed for lacking parenting. I see this too much in the news. Everyone wants to put the blame elsewhere, such as the media, or software developers, but god forbid should they look to themselves for a little reponsibility. It is NOT the fault of the Media, the software companies, the porn sites or anything else. The blame in this case lies directly on the parents in this, and almost any other case of "Doom Did It".
Let's not get into "what if" about the parents. It's not a case of "what if" any more. It's a case of "They are bad parents."
Isn't it interesting... the damn kid who did the
shooting doesn't make the list of responislbe parties.
They should not keep him from using anything. They should have raised him with a sence of right and wrong.
No, I don't think the companies are to blame. It's completely bad parenting. "Mommy mommy mommy! Can you buy me this cool game in which i'm some dude that kills everything in site with shotguns, grenade launchers, and nail guns?"
"No problem, honey"... If parents think their kids are going to say, download porn, there's dozens of options available. However, playing shoot-em-up games is ok? Wouldn't they notice that the kid has become a social outcast because all he does is play quake all day in his underwear? But of course, this is freakin' America, where everything is always someone else fault.
Take some freakin' responsibility for once. The shootings were blamed on the game.
Funny.
Aren't parents supposed to teach their children right from wrong?
Hollywood & game companies = Freedom of Speech
Parents = parenting
parenting = restricting and advising the kid on what speech they 'should' hear based on the values they, the parents, want to instill in their child
Clear cut case. They probably won't get very far with Hollywood and the game companies.
I can't remeber the hundreds of times I've felt like whipping out my bazooka and taking out everybody in sight because Quake told me it was ok and fun to do so.
If only bad parenting was a crime today, or if you could at least sue for it. Every parent nowdays is going sue crazy because their kid did something bad, it must be everybody else's fault, or just blaming the music or the video game, etc. There should be a law against this kind of behavior. Parents should need licenses and certification.
Any idiot with dick or an uterus should not be able to parent a child. This is protecting the rights of the child.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
I've been reading Pat Califia's stuff lately. IN her book "Public Sex", she rails on Dworkin. Curiously, she points out, Madonna's "Sex" book wasn't prevented from being shipped into Canada, but some of Califia's books were, and (get this), so were some of Dworkin's!
People who are trying to radicalize and keep disassociating make me angrier than anything M$ does. This case is dangerous because of these reasons. And IMO, the real problem isn't video games. It isn't porn. it's the lack of parental guidance, oversight.
Not constant vigilance and passive nonsense like filtering software, but active monitoring of what the child's playing with. That is to say, the parent should be with the child as they learn about the world. Don't hide the real world from them. That only makes it work when they inevitably discover what it really is.
Anyway. Reading Califia has been really eye-opening, especially as a well-off white guy. I don't agree with everything she says, but I've learned a lot about marginalized people's lives and how people like Dworkin only make it worse for them. How does it protect children to stop informative newsletters and magazines that can help educate people about HIV?
Repression hurts everyone, especially in times like these when repressing information can get people killed, directly or indirectly.
-- haaz.
Good comments.
IMO, it's not the games, or the movies. It's that parents don't care and get involved in their children's lives. They think involvement is getting a bigger SUV to protect their children from those evil bastards with small, fuel-efficient foreign cars. (e.g. me.) Or getting filtering software. NO!
The Ministry song "So What" sampled an old movie about teenage violence, which said "When children grow up among adults who refuse to recognize or teach them.. respect.." (or something like that.)
The problem is not with the games. Yeah, they might be too violent. Yeah, TV might be violent. But I bet the same people filing these frivolous, dangerous lawsuits soak up that same glorious TV violence and abuse of others on TV.
-- haaz.
Wasn't there an IgNoble prize (or some other booby prize, appropriately enough) given out for this very matter?
Anyone care to look up the details and post them?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Sometimes when walking down the street I imagine myself firing a railgun at passers by. I picture the blue spiral and try to imagine how it feels to hold that massive barrell as the shot goes off.
I'm not mentally ill, really!
However, I wouldn't tell this to the social worker charged with deciding whether I was allowed to raise children or not.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
In a thread about emulators (I think) I made an analogy with guns. I said something like "When somebody shoots your sister you don't blame Smith & Wesson". (Obviously that would be ridiculous.)
The following week I read about exactly that happening.
I don't live in a crap-free country either, but this is a class of crap above anything that could happen elsewhere.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
That would imply that the moderators read the article in question and didn't just agree with the knee-jerk reaction to the snippet.
I read it... I liked Scott Miller's response. Nobody wants to take responsibility, so they just find someone or something to blame.
Hey, I bet this kid ate BREAD Everyone who kills people eats that evil BREAD! We should ban BREAD, that will save us all!
--Dan
Sure, what happened was horrible, and I am sorry for all families, friends, and relatives involved, but will suing Company X really help?
Why don't these parents start a fund raising effort the help establish a parent/child class on media/video games/internet issues. Teach the parents how to talk about these things with their kids; discussion always helps things. Sure there are bad things out there, but you can get alot more done by teaching than by trying to strike back in retaliation.
It's kinda of ironic. The parents want the violence to stop, yet they're trying to "hurt Hollywood, hurt the video game industry, hurt the sex porn sites."
Why don't they just help?
--BigDave--
- Naming Nintendo, Sony, and Sega because the kid played violent video games is like naming Phillips because he watched his movies and played his games on a Magnavox TV. They'll probably be dropped from the suit.
- There are rating systems for movies and video games. The Basketball Diaries was rated R, and, IIRC, the games in question were not rated "Everybody". Did the killer's parents even know what this kid was watching or playing?
- There are filter programs for web browsers. Granted, they can be circumvented, but I'd bet good money that they weren't even installed on any computers this kid used.
I don't think right-thinking Americans have anything to worry about. This case reeks of Lawyer Greed and Parental Blame Redirection.</rant>
Keith Russell
Whatever happened to peaceful coexistance?
This sig intentionally left blank.
Of all the hundreds of comments, just *three* even play with the idea that there may be a cause-and-effect relationship between lax gun laws and kid serial killers.
Puke.
-- LaTeX, The Best There Is
I'm with most of the people here in that I don't side with those who believe that the games do much harm. It does kind of disturb me that people think of "The Basketball Diaries" as being a movie only, when the book is so much more potent, and likely to (in certain cases) cause harm.
Most of these "my kid read comic books, let's ban Superman" lawsuits seem to revolve around situations where the parents really have no idea of what their kid is doing, other than holing up with a handful of idols drawn from media that they don't (or don't think it worth their while to) understand. Having had a set of nightmare parents myself, it's easy for me to see how his world might have shrunk into a tiny one of obsessive game-playing and fantasy violence where the hero emerges not a convict but a charismatic Wild Boy poet/counterculture hero, with scarred veins and a pure face, an archetype that a sensitive parent could well turn around into any number of productive role models, up to and including an interest in a real-life military career. (Hey, someone's got to do it.)
An insensitive parent only sees a retreat into what seems like trivialities, and shrugs off all this as being "what all kids do", maintaining that one day, he'll magically become a chip off the old block overnight. Until something like this happens. Then, with everyone saying "You idiots! Couldn't you see what they were doing?" every bit of their kid's environment becomes suspect: it must have been those video games. Or that terrible book, "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (the original Goth suicide novel) that all the young folk are reading. My, Doctor, if I'd only known...
teleny, friend of cats.
This is a letter that I sent a while back in response to the "Report Card" on the video game industry. I thought it was applicable here. Sorry if it is a little long.
To whom it may concern,
The purpose of this message is to try and break through some of the fallacies involved with the analysis of the video game industry as one of the causes of violence and violent incidents in young people and teens. This "Report Card" can be viewed at http://www.mediaandthefamily.org/1998vgrc1.html
The proponents of the Report Card on the video game industry argue that the violence portrayed in video games, which children and teens can be subjected to, is one of the main reasons for violence from these groups. This argument has been used many times in the past to explain away the failings of parents and parental figures to instill in their children the proper morals and respect for individuals. The culprits have changed over the years though, in the past the blame was laid upon role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and musical influences such as Heavy Metal (Judas Priest etc).
Once again the blame falls on entertainment media for the failings of parents in raising their children. Let me ask you this. Do inner city kids have these video games? Is there gang warfare and violence? Yes! Where are all the video games? Somehow it is assumed that when violence occurs in middle and upper middle class sectors of our society that someone or something other than the parents and parental figures must be to blame!
How is it that inner city parents are to blame for the acts of their children, but when it comes to the middle class it is something else?
Senator Lieberman is especially guilty for perpetrating this fallacy with this statement.
"How many more brutal killings must be committed by kids barely old enough to shave before we confront this connection?"
Confront what connection Senator? That parents can't be bothered to pay attention to their own children long enough to know that they have developed tendencies towards violence and murder? Do you honestly think that playing a video game will cause a person to commit violent acts? That the hatred, apathy and lack of respect for life that causes people to commit murder is instilled in a child by a video game? It takes years of neglect and/or abuse to create such a person. Did the parents of the children that committed these acts honestly know their children? I can tell you that my parents knew me like a book when I was a child! I knew what was right and what was wrong from a very early age because they were there to tell me! Where were the parents of these children, what were they telling their children? Do you honestly believe that a video game has more of an influence on a child than their own parents? The parents of these children would have had to be non-existant for this to be the case.
If a parent can't be bothered to find out what a child is doing on a computer or while they are playing a video game then maybe they should not have had children! Learning for the sake of the child is the parent's responsibility! Educating the child is the parent's responsibility not the entertainment industry's!
I have played video games since their very inception including the very latest (including several on your list) and I can tell you from first hand experience that it never once occurred to me to commit violent acts based upon what I have experienced. Can the Senators involved in this say the same? Have you ever once played any of these games from an unbiased perspective, or at all? This is entertainment, not life! What children experience in life, in reality, is what shapes their minds and hearts!
Please, don't make excuses for bad parents. You are doing a disservice to the children and to current and future parents with your messages.
Uhmm... that's just stupid. Linux rules, hands down. If you don't like the lack of free time, (which we high-school students know nothing of anyway), then that's your problem. Linux is not for newbies (not that i'm saying you are one); it offers much more hands-on experience with configuration and such, which IMO is cool. I guess what i'm trying to say is that what you said is just ... crazy and stupid?
- webfreak
One more comment... this bit about the kid being influenced by violent games and such, that's just hillarious! :) I mean, i play Quake II and have played Doom before, but they don't like influence my mental thoughts and actions. That's like a sign of a psycopath or whatever.
- webfreak
This really just shows how much of a shithole of a world we all live in - It seems we now have an attitude of 'it cant be my fault so it must be someone elses'.
In fact its almost the opposite of anarchy, everyone wants the freedom part, but noone wants the responsibility.
yeah but when you shoot someone with a squirt gun, does blood and body parts fly out all over the place?
---
NO!! Keep Mars (and all of outer space) away
from the lawyers and other sycophants!!
If we HAVE to have lawyers and stupid people
in space, they should be on the other side
of an airlock door, screaming in terror. 8)
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
...but the list of computer game companies being sued does not include id, even though the cited list of evil violent games is basically just a list if id's games.
Why are the broadcast and print news media not cited as miscreants? Why single out one studio? Why not also cite books and history and school and the fact that the kid had access to a gun at all -- ie, the parents?
Why not? Because that would make it obvious that this is a stupid lawsuit.
Yow!
Russell Ahrens
I think what worries me most is that this kid was "LOGGING" into Porn sites to view "sexually violent" pictures...
.. and his parents should have probably played a more active role as ... *lord forbid* PARENTS!!!
That just makes you want to wonder doesn't it?
Membership = = Access to credit card.
Makes you wonder whose credit card it is?
Either he's one of those "I steal credit card type people" or his folks let him have access to it...
Either way, he shouldn't have been doing it
Ahh, this story has controversy written all over it..
sue sue sue.. sue sue sue.. what art thou sue today?
---
With the graphics nowadays it's gettting pretty fucking real enough.
Ok, so now who is having the problem distinguishing between reality and make-believe?
Looking real is not the same as being real. At all. Good God, man! Do you think that the events that occur in movies are real because they look real (they even have real people in them) ?
These games should be restricted from children
Many stores do restrict them. But, this doesn't stop the kids from getting them. Christ, when I first started playing with computers and BBSs, my main mission was to leech as much pr0n as possible. That's what (some) kids do. Fortuneately, my parents had provided a clear understanding of their moral beliefs, so I had a very solid framework to interpret things in.
It all comes down to the parents/family environment. If parents let their kids play games, and don't ever talk to them about them, problems can occur. The games are not the cause, they're just the trigger.
Basically, I think you are approaching the problem from the wrong end. You're looking at the details, and not seeing the big picture. I think people do this a lot, simply because the details are easier to pin down and control. But they don't affect the root of the problem.
If the root is still there, it will just flower again in a different set of details.
How about the manufacturer of the weapon and ammunition that he used? Why not sue Warner Brothers for their Looney Toons? Lord know those are ridden with violence. Why not sue CNN for its coverage of the Gulf War and O.J. Simpson trial(and other violence that it displays)?
This is a load of crap, and a continuance of the absurd three ring circus that our judicial system has become.
The one person responsible for these crimes is behind bars.
pronoblem
There are several posts referring to the parents of Carneal as the plaintiffs... Morons... re-read the article - it is the parents of the VICTIMS that are suing - not the parents of the shooter...
talk about Lamers.
sheesh... learn to read.
Been there, Done that, Sold the t-shirt to the next idiot in line
>Oh, and someone already sued God and won (He >didn't show).
actually the suit was found 'frivolous' and thrown out. Other targets included all federal american judges and a bunch of other people...
Search first, ask questions later.
I only have one problem with this, why doesn't the increased number of these games result in increased violence. Violent crime in general and by teenagers in particular is actually down in the same time frame as the rise in popularity of first person shooters. If these games contribute to violence in a way different from other media why the drop in the corresponding time frame.
More interestingly, some other factors seem to be dropping. Teenage pregnancy/mother started a decline slightly earlier. While the first group of kids defined by this drop aren't old enough to see the effects (being in the 7-9 bracket) perhaps they have similar underlying factors.
Now one could make the arguement that the drops from other factors mask the rise due to violent video games. This, however, is an approach not compatable with Occum's Razor and, therefore, not a good path to follow.
As a note, I am not saying violent games do not promote violent behavior in those predisposed towards it. What I am saying is supply me evidence that violent games justify/encourage/support/whatever affect an ill mind and that their effect is different than violent TV or movies. You could argue saturation, but it would seem the effect is probably not additive after a certain point. I am willing to bet non-game sources supply that point already.
I will accept those disposed towards violence are more likely to engage in it after viewing violent images than reading violent books, although how much more I don't know. I have no statistical evidence, but base this on the effectiveness of appeals for action on famine or war based on video images over print. Numerous examples such as the Anti-Veitnam War movement, the use of US troops in Somalia, and even the recent bombings in Kosovo show video can generate support in ways print or radio can't. However, no suit I have seen address this fact head on in any coherent manner.
Finally, what end would a ban serve? Age bands on certain activities such as drinking, voting, and driving are based on two assumptions. First, a given level of maturity is required to perform these activities safely. Second, that maturity tracks generally with age. Now, the best evidence I have seen suggests that random killers are generally (yes, there are exceptions) a function of mental health, not a lack of maturity. In general, the evidence I've seen suggests that immature viewing leads to poor scores in "works well with others" but not violence unless accompanied by mental instability. Mental instability doesn't seem to track with age, so the violence reduction from an age ban would seem to be minimal. If this is correct, the safety factor maturity is supposed to provide via an age restriction would not be apparent without a larger ban of violent visual media in general which I see as difficult politically and physically.
Wish solutions were easy as passing a law, though.
Herb
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
The reason they do not sue the parents of the killers is that they haven't got any money. This is instigated by some greedy lawyer and has nothing to do with justice. Why go to Vegas when you have the local courts just nearby.
Help fight continental drift.
If you live in North Texas you can watch the Whole series (45 episodes) from M-W, 11pm to 1am. This month on channel 13 / PBS.
Help fight continental drift.
I believe you hit this one right on the head. Its the blame game. "*I* am a perfect parent thus it must be *YOUR* fault my kid is psycho"
... and missing.
If they win this case, I'm packing my shit up and moving out of the US. Its starting to get too stupid. (perhaps I will go to MC D's first and spill some hot coffee in my lap to get the money to cover moving expenses)
lawyers are fine, its the moronic cases that piss me off.
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
Duke should be banned. Not only is it sexually discriminatory, it doesnt even portray a real 3d world.
--
There was an interesting case when I worked
at Cambridge Instruments in Buffalo. A lady
got a glocoma test (air shot in the eye) and
sued us because she said her eye got damaged
by some sand. It is physically impossible for
anything to fit in that tiny hole especially
a grain of sand. Anyhow, she was basically
laughed out of court.
What Europeans should realize is that here in the
USA we have the opportunity to use the court to
correct wrongs that are made against us. But as
everyone else we have our morons and our greedy
assholes who think they can make a quick dollar.
One thing that may shock many is that criminals
have their own lawyers and sue as a hobby while
they're in prison. Again Europeans shouldn't
conclude some other shit because of this. If we
are to look at weird things done in the UK for
instance we'd laugh too.
At the end, most Americans and Europeans aren't
morons. It is just that idiots are easier to
spot than normal people. Our newsmedia are finding
more of those and they like to show them out
for kicks. Maybe the brits try to hide theirs.
This is all bulshit! Violent games or violent TV
doesn't generate violence in life. Kids aren't
as stupid as fundies may think. The problem
of violence by the kids usually lies in a refusal
by the parents and kids to assume responsability
for the wrongfull acts of the kids. Usually a kid
who is violent is beaten by his mother or father
or watch his father beat his mom or his mom beat
his father.
You're *way* too late for that one. There have been warnings on matchbooks and boxes of matches for decades, here in the U.S.A. Something to the effect of "Close cover before striking match."
... what do I see when I look around me?
... for my protection, of course.
Let's see
1) Plastic bag that I brought vegetables home from the market in, as well as the twist-ties for the sandwich bags, has the warning "To avoid suffocation, keep plastic bags away from children."
2) The clothes-washing-machine won't work with the lid up, because some kid might crawl in somehow.
3) Speaking of matches, cigarette lighters must be childproof to be legal... in other words, it takes a large/strong hand to use one. This one's on my mind because it was noted on 20/20 last night that childproofing and removing cigarette lighters and matches from childrens' access had not reduced the number of fires accidentally set by kids each year; rather, it had produced kids more determined than ever to get their "fire fix".
4) Soda bottle has a health warning (contains phenylalanine), an expiration date, an admonition to recycle, and a warning to point bottle away from face while opening
5) Hardware and software have unique identifying markers
6) Electric hair dryer has a warning not to use it in the shower.
7) Aspirin bottle is childproofed.
8) Bedding and mattress carry warnings about flammability and not leaving infants unattended.
Basically, I'm *besieged* by this stuff. Around-the-clock, I'm cautioned, warned, instructed down to the smallest detail, admonished, protected, cossetted, and coddled.
End result? Appears to be a stupider society, in need of increasingly more protection, warnings, and so on. Darwin has been thwarted, and gosh, aren't we ever so much better off now?
Sigh. Everybody here keeps wondering what set him off or who should have been sued or even how it could only happen in America. The real moral of the story, Guns+kids=trouble. Or maybe Guns+wackos=trouble. Or even guns+(wacko kids)=trouble^2.
:-(
Amen. It never ceases to amaze me just *how* easy it seems to be for those kids to get guns.
As for America, I like it in spite of the morons and the sheep. It sure beats the places I've been where being killed by the government is a lot more common than being killed in school.
Errm - correct me if I'm wrong, but the US gouvernment (State gouvernments) *does* kill, quite frequently at that. Can't see how that's supposed to be better, even though it doesn't occur as often as in the countries you seem to be talking about.
Argathin
I want to emigrate to Mars. I'd like it to be a haven for Smart People. I don't want all the morons I'm trying to get away from to be waiting for me when I get there.
;-)
Hm - wasn't that one of the reasons why so many people emigrated from Europe to the U.S.A. over the past two or three centuries? Doesn't seem to have worked...
Argathin
They are suing the gradfather, who had the guns, in a locked gun cabinet, in his locked house. They claim the grandfather shouldn't have had guns. The gradfather IS AN ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH AND WILDLIFE OFFICIAL. IT IS HIS JOB.
If it is that guy's job to have weapons and the kids got their hands on them, THEN HE DIDN'T LOCK THEM AWAY PROPERLY AND DESERVES TO GET SUED.
Sheesh - in a profession like that he should know what damaga guns can do and he'd better make damn sure that those weapons aren't accessible.
Argathin
I still think that if two children were able to get their hands on those guns it can't have been all that difficult to get to the guns. If they *were* locked away properly, *how* did those children get them? You're honestly telling me that his house and gun cabinet were so easy to get in that a 11 and a 13 year old could do it?
As for the break in: If I have a weapon in my house and if I go to reasonable lengths to make it unavailable to third persons, no, then I should not be sued - you're right there. If I have that weapon basically "lying around" then yes, it's my fault that I didn't lock it away, so to a certain degree I would see responsibility on my part. Basically the same as with the army guarding their weapons to prevent theft and unauthorised use. And if I can't guarantee at least a minimal protection against the theft of such a weapon I shouldn't be allowed one - period. There are too many of them anyway.
Regards,
Argathin
On a related note, the book on which the alleged killer movie is based, The Basketball Diaries, by Jim Carroll, is a great read. At least this stupid subject matter should generate some useful bit of info.
All I can say is that I don't think tort reform is the answer. I just hope that the judge trying this case accords it the contempt it deserves.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Parents Blame Sinking on Hollywood
(BS NewsWire)
Lawrence, Ks. (BS) - The parents of the two students soaked by the sinking of the rowboat, Nau-Sea, are taking on the entertainment industry, claiming that media romance inspired the act that caused the boat to capsize.
The relatives filed a $2.5 billion lawsuit in U.S. District Court today against nearly one hundred Internet Titanic sites, several romance book distributors, and the makers and distributors of the 1998 Leonardo DiCaprio film "Titanic."
"We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the romance industry. We intend to hurt romantic Titanic sites" on the Internet, said Sammy "Snake" Flotsam, one of the parents' lawyers.
The lawsuit claims that the act that caused the untimely sinking was influenced by the romance in "Titanic" and by romance novels such as "Love on the Seas," "What the Steward Knew," and "Cruise Ship of Lust."
One scene in "Titanic" shows a sequence in which the main characters, played by DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, balancing on the bow the ship to experience the feeling of flying.
More than one hundred Internet Titanic sites display this scene emphasizing the romantic nature of the material.
Last September, the high-school couple took a rowboat out on Clear Lake, when the girl convinced the boy to re-enact the "flying" scene from "Titanic." There are reports of promises of "getting to second base" may have unduly influenced the boy. While attempting to balance on the bow, the rowboat capsized and the couple fell into the three foot deep artifical pond. Both were completely soaked, embarrassed, and the girl alleges she caught the sniffles from the cold water.
The capsizing of the rowboat took place three weeks after the high-school couple had watched the movie. The young woman was known to have recently visited the Titanic sites on her IMac and has read nearly fifty romance-style novels over the last four years.
"We believe that that couple was influenced by the movies they watched, the books they read, and the Internet sites they visited," Jane Jetsam, the mother of the girl soaked by capsizing, told reporters.
The parents have also filed lawsuits against the boat rental company and owner of the artifical pond, ClearLake Inc.
-------------------------
Yah gotta love America...
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
I still do play D&D. And Quake, and Quake2, and all the MechWarrior games, and too many others to list here. I gave up on magic a few years back (nobody plays anymore) I can attest to the fact that these games have *not* made me violent, or evil, or a monsterous homicidal satanist or anything else like that. *AND I'll RAILGUN ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!* :)
I just hope that when this ridiculous case gets to court the judge can contian his (or her) laughter long enough to say "case dismissed".
0 1 - just my two bits
However, they are probably not worth suing. On the other hand, if you can convince a civil court that you have been wronged by a large corporation, it can be a real cash bonanza, and the plaintiffs want to milk it for all it's worth.
The problems I see with the case are :
There are clearly guilty parties in this case ( the kid himself, and probably his parents ) but since the guilty parties aren't worth suing, they're trying to re-allocate the blame to someone who can make them richer.
The point is not to sue the person who wronged you, but sue the richest person within striking distance. If you're lucky, you can shift the blame to someone with enough money for a retirement fund.
- For Commander Taco...
IIRC, Oliver Adams produced the original Mortal Kombat single and album (not the soundtrack, though the soundtrack does have the single). Adams also produces Lords Of Acid and Pragha Khan from what I recall. Course, I like Mortal Kombat...It's the parents of the victims who are suing!
What about all the people who have been killed and injured by drunks. Can they sue breweries.
I mean, the linkbetween violence/stupidity and alcohol is a hell of a lot stranger than it is with porn/movies/games.
If a girl wears a short skirt and a man is so busy looking at her that he crashes his car into a shop, obviously he can't sue her, but by the logic in the article, the shop could sue her.
Short skirts are just as legal as beer and porn and movies and games. This case would be a pretty bad precedent!
.
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Looks like just another case of irresponsible parents blaming the world. I am sick of hearing about this kind of think. Where were the parents when all this innapropriate material was bieng viewed. They are responsible, not Hollywood, video games, or the Internet.
Eagles soar, but Weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Actually, if they're suing anyone it should be the parents of the shooter for doing a damn poor joob of raising a kid
Damn straight.
From the article: The suit also claims Carneal was an avid computer user who logged onto Internet porn sites to view sexually violent material.
What kind of parents let their 14 year old kid do stuff like this? Hollywood should not be sued. His parents should be sued for negligence.
This sig is false.
What the hell? tjese people are gay, first off why is their 14 year old son looking at porn in the first place? then all those games have ratings on them most of them are "M" (R) which means they have to be purchased by an adult, and movies have ratings too, so I think the lack of discipline on that kid was the parents fault, THEY bought the games and rented the movies and well, there's allways cyber nanny or smart parents that check Internet History, Temporary files, typed URL's, cookies, etc. etc. so come on if they were a little more involved in their sons life they woulda known that he was a pervert that was oviously not matture enough to handle a video game,, my opinion, i say his parents should be sued for not raising their kid right. buying him the games, taking him to the movies and not being involved more actively and restricted things that he couldnt handle. Also whn some of you feel violent streaks comming out do what i do, go to a metal head club or party or call up some of your friends and mosh, or have a deathmatch on the grass or if you have one a trapoline or osmething if the sort.
Kaoslord [quote goes here] define("slashdot purity","67.5");
I was going to post a lot more graphic message similar to this... It really angers me that lately people are blaming everything but themselves for things that happen. Obviously if this kid guned that many people down, sure he COULD have been influenced (and probably was), but that does not in any way take blame for the parent's poor job of raising this kid.
And why are they sueing porn sites? The kid was 14 - isn't there disclaimers around there somewhere? Maybe the kid is to blame for looking at this porn since he obviously didn't follow the warnings...
Lastly, while writing this I've figured it out... These people are from Kentucky and they are against all violence and porn. Can we say RELIGIOUS TO A FAULT? Personally, I think that all religious people that blame like this should be shot. (you know what I mean). There are too many out there that actually RUN things that stop a lot of things going on that shouldn't be stopped.
For instance:
In politics, they outlawed marijuana completely... not even for medical reasons, they said. It so happens it is great medicinally (I'm not just saying this - I know someone that uses it medicinally all the time).
Anyway total message is - sue the parent's not the world, you can't fix the world but you may be able to knock some sense into the parents.
8Complex
Sometimes I look at the news and shake my head in wonder... That's one reason I don't watch TV anymore. :)
Why do issues like this always end in an attempt to blame as many people as possible? Sure, there's always the argument that if you nail whoever started the whole mess, the circumstances will change. But, assuming these people are successful in their crusade, the only change I believe we'd see would be in the pockets of the plaintiffs...
If the movie companies are forced to pay, they'll pay--I'd guess it'd be a drop in the bucket for 'em... And then they'll go back to earning money--likely through more films like those in question. And once the money's changed hands, I sincerely doubt the parents of the deceased could care less.
And don't even get me started on the issue of whether or not the films are actually at fault. There's already a healthy discussion going on about that...
Hopefully, I'm completely wrong about these people, and they're doing it to wreak vengeance on those who they feel are at fault--not for the money. But among other things I've learned in the Big Blue Room, I've learned cynicism...
-W-
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Why not at least sue the gun and ammo manufacturers. I would say they are at least as responsible than any video games
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
I'm 16 (almost 17). I'm a junior in college. If someone can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality by at worst 12 years old, they're in deep trouble. I know of plenty of 25 year-olds who are much less mature than my younger brother (who's in 2nd grade). I've played Quake and Doom before, but I'm not going around shooting people. Or even thinking about shooting people. Have you ever heard of a thing called release? Would you rather have people release their anger by shooting at real people that at Cacodemons? And no, I'm not even a Libertarian.
In many states they could sue the devil for his evil influence, and get summary judgement when he fails to show, too. Might be more effective. (Though you'd have a hard time collecting, unless you sold the judgement to a collection firm)
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Just what do you think "punitive damages" are for?
--bricktoad
My friends, we are nothing but wings on the chicken of society.
heck, you think the cases you hear about are stupid... i know someone who works for the courts, you should hear about the ones that don't make it to the news
Theres a small difference between an oven activly killing people because it got too hot and killed every one in the room, or an ice cream sandwich freezing your hands while it's still in the wrapper, and taking a cup of coffee (which was in a cup), and placing it between your legs. it's called common sense, if the ice cream was at absolute zero, i think you might notice (i really think it would look alittle more than frosty) and not pick it up. if the coffee was too hot, i.e. too hot to hold the cup, maybe she should have put it on the seat next to her.
Man, i wish i were stupid, then i could be an instant millionare too.
These morons actually have a pretty good chance of comming out with some cash. See, it's usually cheaper for these big companies to just settle, rather than go through a trial. I don't know if this would be/is the case for the porn sites.
but personally, i think they should fight it out, and counter-sue for legal costs.
Then, after that..
rm -rf lawyers
"Even Prophets don't know everything"
I believe that people are a product of their enviornments, not products of their parents (besides the obvious physical charecteristics). Therefore if someone is surrounded by violence, there actions will begin to mimic that violence. I also think that any and all instincts can be controlled by enough will, making the case invalid, but a violent enviornment will breed a violent population.
.02
my
Kent
Poopdick.
So find some other cause to crusade against which might have prevented this tragedy. Like a campaign against negligent parents. Or whoever and however this HS freshman managed to get a handgun. Not this b*llsh*t about video games.
To be slightly tactless, I think MTV should play Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" much more often in light of such events. Maybe these psychos would be more likely to blow their own brains out and we wouldn't have to hear about stupid lawsuits like this.
If anyone reading this ever goes on a killing spree, make sure you blame Kenneth Starr and Bill Gates. That oughta make for a good lawsuit.
I was just about to say. Why aren't they suing Acclaim either?
:)
Looks like they just decided to sue the big three game makers without any research. Why nail the (relatively) poor game designers when you can go for the publishers?
Please, this reeks of cluelessness (like those people who call every video game "Nintendo"). I'd like to see a press release like
"Yes, we're suing the boy's parents for bad parenting"
Then the world will have become a better place (well, kinda
Did you actually read the article you're referring to? It's the victims parents that are sueing. Not the kid who pulled the trigger.
Bas Vermeulen
When I was young, my parents stressed to me that I was responsible for my own actions. I think this is something most good parents do. I still believe that no matter what your 'influences', you are the only one ultimately responsible for what you do. Sure, if you have the natural tendency towards psychotic behavior, or are somehow inclined that way, violence in media will encourage you. That doesn't change the fact that there is something wrong with the influenced person to begin with.
Anyone who is influenced towards violent behavior by violence in the media is an unstable person and is dangerous to begin with. And if anyone has to be blamed for this crime, it should be the parents for failing to instill in their child responsibility, forethought, and morality. The legal system should not be tied up with people trying to blame influences on parties that are much less responsible than the obvious - the parents.
-lx
I know what made him do it!!! It wasn't Doom! ;->>> ;->>
It was the bible!!!
That scene when Jesus explels the vendort from the temple... (there where no shotguns then...)...
Or the one when God destrois the Egiptians in the exodus!!!
That was it! Why not sue Moses?
Little children listening to these violent stories every Sunday can't do any good!!!
BTW... I love Quake II... Does it make me a 2nd generation serial killer?
When the American public finds reason to sue a third party for their own stupid actions then I have reason to believe that as a nation we have failed.
Eat my butt
When the American public finds reason to sue a third party for their own stupid actions then I have reason to believe that as a nation we have failed.
I not sure if anyone has heard of "third party PDA". Here in Cali it can be a civil offense to kiss your f**king girlfriend in front of someone. Jesus.
I know I'm getting off track but the justice system really needs a spanking for this one
Eat my butt
> The parents also filed a state lawsuit last
> December charging Carneal, his parents and
> several administrators, teachers and
> students at the school with being
> partly responsible for the shootings.
Carneal being the name of the kid that did the shooting, who's going to be in prison until he's in his forties at least. (25 yrs before he's up for parole.) Anyway, the parents of the kid -were- named, in another lawsuit, along with a pile of administrators and teachers. It sounds to me like these parents are just lawsuit-crazy. Not that I can blame them, I mean, they just lost their children, so of course they're going to go a bit crazy. I just hope the legal system doesn't support their craziness!
(So, why did an comment based on a sloppy reading of the article get moderated up to a 5? Isn't this what moderation is supposed to prevent? Well, at least I don't have to see the first-posts and 'sux' comments... )
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
I don't know -where- you heard that, but I assure you it's not true. I don't live in California at the moment, but AD&D hasn't been banned any of the time I've lived or visited, and if it had, I'm sure I would've heard. In fact, everyone would have heard, because it would bring about a first-amendment crisis, since AD&D is, essentially, a set of books. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying either the Supreme Court would overturn it or it'd be time to leave the country.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
So you needed to say "fuck(ing)" 4 times in order to get your point across that you deem some things inapropriate for general viewing/playing. How ironic.
----------
'We have no choice in what we are. Yet what are we,
but the sum of our choices.' --Rob Grant
----------
'We have no choice in what we are. Yet what are we,
but the sum of our choices.' --Rob Grant
When I was a kid, I played D&D.
Then video games. Lots. Arcade, Atari, Wolfenstein 3d, Doom.
A few years back I played way too much Magic.
According to the news I should now be a homicidal commander in Satan's Army of Darkness.
Instead I'm a sysadmin. (hmm)
Oh well, self-responsibilty is passe anyway. It's much more fun to make millions suing large corporations.
--Brian
Not 100% certain on how it works in Canada, but in America, where such verdicts seem to happen all the time, it just goes to show how STUPID a jury of 12 idiots, who aren't even smart enough to get out of jury duty, can be.
Man, if I'm ever accused of something, the last thing I want is a group of 12 people, who have demonstrated that they have no clue about anything, deciding my fate.
.....Really, if I have a child who, no matter what I try, still looks at pr0n, plays violent video games, and role playing games, then goes out and shoots someone, what was I supposed to do[?]......
If you have a child and you have to ask this question then it is obvious that you should NEVER have the brat in the first place. He/she should be taken from you immediately, if not sooner, for the good of society and the child. Nothing makes me sicker than to see some parent who cannot control their child...in the supermarket, in the restaurant..wherever. People like that should be slapped repeatedly. They should never have been allowed to spread their idiotic genes.
Whenever this subject comes up I always point out that you need a license for a gun , a car, even a freakin dog!...why don't people have to show even a modicum of skills to be a parent??
I remember playing Mortal Kombat, but not Mortal Combat.
I also remember wanting to kill my PC while trying to play QII.
Anyway, I htink that kid should be punished by his parents for playing such old games.
The ability to have idiotic lawsuits is what makes the system here. Its a lame lawsuit. It will undoubtably fail, but they still have the right to sue, just like the rest of us, regardless of how lame.
I think you are talking about that cop in Callifornia who killed the mayor and someone else because "he looked at me funny". What I remember of the story is that the cop was the cheif of police in some city in CA and he quit his job after the mayor was elected. The mayor was coming down hard on police corruption and this guy was about as corrupt as they came. After quitting some of his pollitical backers got a bit pissed and forced him to go to the mayor to try to get his job back. The mayor said no and the guy got a bit pissed off. He broke into city hall later that night and shot the mayor and then some other elected official (who i believe was gay, that's not really relevant to the story though). He was subsequently arrested. At his trial he used the defense that he was temporarally insane from eating too many twinkies. I think he got of with something like 2 years, which for two cold blooded murders is nothing imho. If any of you have heard the song, I fought the law, by the Dead Kennedys, it's about this exact situation.
-matt
They do put a warning label on it now, something like "caution: contents hot"
-matt
I agree w/ the religous aspect of it. These people apear to want one of four things. A) To make money off of a tragety (If this is the case I think they should both be executed). B) To get vengence for what they believe is the cause of their child's death. C) To punish the morally depraved people who caused their child's death and push their morality (or religion) on the nation. D) some combination of the above.
I really hope A isn't part of the answer. I can't see how B isn't based on their comments. I think C could very easily go hand in hand with B. So my answer would have to be D.
-matt
You can't sue the brewery, but you can sue the bar. Bartenders are liable for what the people in the bar do until they get home or some bullshit. Now while I agree that if someone looks drunk the bartender should cut them off, some people can be smashed and have no outward signs. We live in a really stupid world.
-matt
Arn't parents ment to look after their children?
This seems to be a theme which we see coming from the USA every now and then, much like the judas priest suicide case. "Of cause we are not to blame" ect ect, where did the child who did this get the gun? And now the parents suddenly see the light and see that quake, doom ect and movies like the basketball diarys, made him kill, but what is a child of 14 watching the baskekball diarys anyway.
"sometimes I wish I was blind I thought I saw a whole lot more than this"
- A New Jersey company is suing Eidos claiming that Tomb Raider turn their son into a girl.
- George Thorogood is the target of a class action suit brought on behalf of alcoholics
- Finally, God is being sued because life ain't fair.
I'm sure they meant well. So did the makers of Thalidomide.
It's rather like that one guy who said he went on a killing spree because he'd eaten so many Twinkies that he had gone crazy (this was a looooooooong time ago; you probably will be hard-pressed to fine a Web link to it).
Try: Unsafe at any speed - The final cover-up
This was in the news again recently. There are some interesting features that get lost in the urban legend. The murderer, Dan White, was an ex-cop, and a former member of the San Francisco board of supervisors. He was beloved by conservatives at a time when the elected leadership of San Francisco had swerved decidedly to the left. He decided to resign from the board of supes over financial difficulties, which would allow the liberal mayor, George Moscone, to appoint someone else. Some conservatives offered White financial help if he stayed in office, but Moscone was going to turn him down, so White then returned with a gun, and started in on a spree of killing elected officials. He got through two of them, including George Moscone (the mayor of SF) and Harvey Milk (the first openly gay official in the US), but evidentally he had plans to hit more of them. (That's the little tidbit that brought this story back into the news).
Dan White went on trial for murder, put up the infamous "Twinkie Defense", and got off with manslaughter.
This is what you're all missing: this is not a case of those silly judges and lawyers playing silly silly games. The legal system isn't stupid, it's fucking corrupt. Dan White was connected. He was an ex-cop (the guys who arrested him were friends of his). He was backed by the local conservatives... and they probably loved the fact that he blew away the most liberal mayor in the history of the city.
Since then we've had to deal with limosene liberals like Willie Brown... but that's another story.
I think it's true that violent games have a very negative effect on some (very few) kids.
But the question really is, whether we should restrict of freedom of the vast majority of children, because of the actions of a small minority.
Tis true. If someone is messed up enough to ambush people as they come out of praying... all the game will do is give them the method, but the desire was there looong before.
Since civil litigation is the only legal form of revenge that we have in this country, and money is the only penalty, it makes perfect sense that the entertianment industry is the target of this litigation.
They can't sue the kid because he is one, a kid, and two, pleading insanity. They can't sue the kid's parents because thay don't have enough money to make the litigation seem worth it. So they sue movie and game companies.
I really suspect that the parents did not come up with this plan on their own. The quote from the lawyer in the article was telling enough. "We want to hurt..." It would not suprise me one bit if this very enterprising lawyer went to the families and told them how they can get revenge for the deaths of their children. How they can make those bad, evil companies that produce all that trash without any regard for the effects it produces in right-thinking, upstanding children pay for their actions.
But I digress... It has been an increasing legal trend since the 60s to sue companies for anything and everything. And the legal system has played right along. In the name of increasing social conciousness, we have dimmed it. We have taken the right to be responsible away from the individual, and instead burdened corporations with the responsibility to be right.
Never attribute to malice that which can be more easily attributed to stupidity -- Hanlon's Razor
Not only is he logging onto porn sites, :)
but I believe that the basketball
diarys is an nc-17 rated movie.
So his parents are letting him
a. log into porn sites.
b. watch nc-17 rated films.
And he was 14? The parents are the ones who should be sued. They should serve time with him if he's convicted.
this space intentionally left blank
"But it's just a game," you say. Hell, let's all grab some shotguns, and go out to the fields, and start trying to blow each other's heads off.. what cool special effects we can have - wont that be a wonderful game?
No, that wouldn't be a game, that would be reality.
Sure YOU may know the line between computer and reality, but do kids?
I don't know about you, but I figured out the line back in elementary school. Of course, I spent a lot of time wondering why all the adults seemed to have such a problem distinguishing the difference between reality and books/movies/games/fantasy, since they were always the ones who ( from my POV ) were trying to bring the latter into the former.
Third, what is the fucking point of these games?
Stress relief?
These games should be restricted from children.
No argument there. OTOH, the parents of the kid in question could easily have done this. They didn't. They should be the ones being sued by the parents of the victims.
As an early owner of the original Magnavox Oddesy I sometimes feel compelled to stick a piece of static-cling, translucent, colored plastic on people and attempt to beat them to death with a square ping-pong ball.
A few years ago I went around dressed in overalls, trying to violently jump on people's heads. Sadly, my leaps were insufficient for all but the smallest humans.
Someday people will understand the difference between correlation and causation. I can only dream.
Very cold Vanilla. Or maybe Cookies and Cream.
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
A 14 year old kid shoots seven people, people ask why. Sure it is a very important question, but howcome no one is asking how. How did this kid get a hold of a loaded gun?
I am 18 and I have never even seen a gun.
Like all too many parents these days, they refuse to admit that it could just be that their child was less than perfect. They can't believe that their child can be responsible for something evil.
Hence, they look for someone to blame. Upon believing that someone else is responsible, it seems only natural to sue, hoping to gain aproval for their delusion from the courts.
...and, like all too many people, particularly We The [lawsuit-happy] People, they refuse to take the responsibility that comes with living in a world with free speech.
...To sue id because they (the parents) let him play computer games rated for 18+ due to violent content? ...To sue some webmasters because the parents allowed their child to surf X-rated websites? The purpose of the entire ratings system--in any medium--is so that without hampering the free speech we all value so much, children can be protected from images that will de-sensitize them to violence and skew their moral judgement.
They intend to sue Hollywood because they (the parents) allowed their easily influenced 14-year-old watch an R-rated movie?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but did the kid get the gun at the movies? Did he download it off the internet with a JPG? Did he maybe get a semi-auto nailgun free with QUAKE? I doubt it.
Who bought him the computer game? Who pays his ISP bills? Who probably gave him $10 for a movie ticket, without bothering to ask which movie?
I am not surprised that a lawsuit has been filed; I am only surprised that nobody has accused the parents of negligence. Candidates for plaintiffs abound, I'm sure. With 5 dead children in the tally, I would worry about how our justice system will compensate the victims' families, not the killer's negligent, whining parents.
You have to hope that the video game companies have enough
courage to ask if burnt out executives could sue
the company that makes Monopoly, the relatives of Yugoslavians
or Iraqis killed by the US army could sue the makers of
Desert Strike or maybe countries with an unpleasant,
warmongering president could claim it was his unhealthy addict to
Civilization which got him/her started.
> I have never seen a porn site that didn't require a credit card number for a membership.
> They may exist, I don't personally spend a great deal of time searching for them.
> However, if these "violent sex acts" that this kid was able to witness came from porn
> sites, how did he get access without his own credit card? Either he stole his parents card
> to get access or his parents allowed him to have access. In any event, I don't see how
> sex acts compelled him to gun down his friends... (were they his friends? maybe he had
> other reasons)
Um.. just a note about what you said..
Free pr0n is easy to find. Way too easy. All they need is one URL, and the rest is linked to from there: http://www.persiankitty.com There are similar free sites all over the web.
(If you really want to find them [snort], do a search for warez...)
Fork
I swear, I'm going to kill the next sucker that complains about violence in video games and movies.
Oops.
--jwriney
jwriney@awod.com
Learn some physics first...
1) Absolute zero is defined as all motion (including atomic vibrations) have stopped. Somehow, I doubt this allow for a gas at that point.
2) (PV = 0) != (V = 0). P is the internal pressure of the gas. When all atomic motion has ceased, the material can no longer exert any force on the container, hence, no pressure
Take a look at the Japanese. Somehow, they are able to have incredibly raunchy and violent cartoons, video games, and movies, yet their rape and murder rates are virtually non-existent. Why is that?
As Dennis Miller said, "If anything Gene Simmons says has any effect on your kids, you aren't doing your job as a parent."
-jon
Remember Amalek.
First of all, the book was better ;-)
Secondly, it was a movie. It isn't possible to strap someone down, shoot them with drugs, and show them movies to make them unable to commit violent acts. If there was, we'd be able to do away with a TON of prisons.
Conversely, mentally healthy people aren't affected by violent media. Mentally unstable minors shouldn't be exposed by their parents to this media. Therefore, these parents, while they've suffered greatly, are nothing more than leeches. Sony et al should be able to counter-sue and the lawyers who thought up this abomination should lose their licences.
Man, I wish civil suits in this country worked under a "loser pays" system...and the money would have to be put up before the trial started, so you couldn't declare bankruptcy or some other such nonsense.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
As for suing God, well, check this cartoon out.
Apparently his lawyers can't defend themselves out of a wet paper bag. Easy money.
*Sob* Microsoft killed my cat! *sob*
Hail to the Sun God! He is the Fun God! Ra! Ra! Ra!
It's also worth noticing that Midway, the makers of Mortal Kombat, are not listed. Hell, the 3 video game companies being sued (according to the article) have very little, if anything, to do with the games listed.
It's unfortunate for those families that they are going to get the scorn of practically anyone who reads about their case. Maybe next they'll sue the world for mistreating them. Or they can go like that guy in Pennsylvania and try to sue God. No joke.
The theory goes, sue everyone who could possibly be remotely involved. Chances are good that someone will have money, and maybe you'll be able to get some of it. Attempting to profit off the deaths of five children is pathetic at best. I'm sad not only for everyone involved, but also for the attorneys. I'd hate to think what I would feel like if I ever sank low enough to do what they are doing now.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I'm not sure masturbations going to make you naturally violent.
During the Clinton empeachment trial, on the BBC's intensely sarcastic "Newsnight" programme they were talking about how, at the time the Clinton was being blown off by Lewinskey, he was considering what (I think) he should be doing in Bosnia - the woman who was saying this said she didn't what Clinton having (or not having, or whatever) sex during this time, I couldn't help thinking, if a man is considering killing people, I would rather he have sex before hand, as he will have a much more relaxed view of the world.
(flame bait alert!)
One of the most facinating things - at least from a British perspective - is that during the times when, in the last year, there was that slew of kid killers, America TV concerned itself with morality, prostitution, etc. Nobody thought to question the fact that these bloody kids were armed to the teeth.
If for some crazy reason these parents win the case, all the violent games would be pulled from the shelf, hollywood would never make a violent film again, and you'd never see another porn site based in the USA.
Then we'd really see some people dying (killing themselves from boredom)
What do you expect from a country that practices
separation of church and state while simultaneously printing "In God We Trust" on the
money and exclaiming "One nation, under God, indivisible" in the NATIONAL ANTHEM!
Get your money and scratch it out. Teach your
kids the original national anthem ("...one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...").
Exqueeze me, I meant PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE of course, not the national anthem. Gawd knows the National Anthem is that horrid song women butcher before sporting events.
(I'm in favor of a switch to "America The Beautiful.")
i am not a fan of handguns, but we started this trend by allowing shooting victims to sue gun makers. similar idea, just taken one step further.
joe
statistical blip
;)
We call that an "outlier."
Good thoughts, by the way. I agree 100%. I grew up playing AD&D, video games, watching all sorts of movies, but my parents were fairly involved in the whole process, even though they were divorced. I view Quake2 as stress relief. I viewed AD&D as stress relief in high school (Mmmmmm...fireballing goblins). Both give me zero desire to go out and kill other people.
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
Wow. You people scare me. I'm impressed! =D
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
1) Please don't over-generalize. Not all Americans are stupid fu*ks not willing to take responsibility for their actions. It's just the ones that are that get all the press. :P
2) What next? Warning labels like, "Do not iron clothes while on body." Yay!
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
i'm sure it was john Carmack's intention to make thousands of crazy teen's go out with assorted weapons and kill other kids. I'm sure that was his intention. Everyone always wants to blame somebody else for there fuckup. John Carmack is a great human being....he brought us doom and quake...and is making OpenGL and industry standard for 3d graphics (not directx). What can i say...he's John Carmack, leave him alone
You can get a lot more money from big video game and porn companies than the parents of some 14 year old psycho.
Just remember this: it's irrelevant whose fault it is; the only thing that matters is who has the most dough.
God bless America.
I think you are talking about that cop in Callifornia who killed the mayor and someone else because "he looked at me funny". ... The mayor was coming down hard on police corruption and this guy was about as corrupt as they came.
You've got many of the facts quite wrong. George Moscone was elected to mayor of San Francisco, backed by a liberal alliance. One of the members of the Board of Supervisors were Dan White, a conservative ex-cop and ex-firefighter. Another was Harvey Milk, a grassroots politician who I believe was the first openly gay elected politican in SF. Milk and Moscone were allies, and White felt relatively powerless, plus he was hurting financially on the low supervisor pay. He tended his resignation, which Moscone accepted. White's supporters convinced him to change his mind, but Moscone refused to give him his job back. White climbed through baseroom window to bypass the metal detectors, and then shot Moscone and Milk. This happened in 1978. Diane Feinstein (later mayor and now US senator) made the announcement. White was convicted of a lesser charge (manslaugher?). The "Twinkie defense" was brought up in the case, but the larger issue was that the police and prosecution were basically on White's side. When the verdict was announced on what was later called "White night", there were riots. White committed suicide after he was released.
Am I the only one that thinks that stupidity ought to be a valid legal argument? I mean if something just plain defies common sense is that not enough to throw out the case? I mean this shit is just plain ludicris (sp?). Hmm, if they win I'll sue em for setting a bad example to the other parents. Hmm let's see and then there's the government for letting this travesty continue this far.... hmm all that violence had to be displayed on a moniter wouldn't it? Well so now we gotta sue the moniter-makers... same thing goes for speakers... hmm was he sitting in a CHAIR when he was Quaking? Well that'll have to be taken care of.... This shit is ridiculous and you know it. The government knows it. The whole damned world knows it and yet this farse continues. Am I the only one that sees a problem with that?
I actually went to a lecture that she gave. She said that playboy was "gateway pornography" that led to more violent pornography and eventually to stuff like very extreme S&M where people actually die.
She was very passionate about what she believed in but I thought she was wrong in several areas. Also she was very rude to several people who didn't agree or even showed doubts about her information. I believe her colleague Catherine MacKinnon has shown a more reasoned approach to this subject. I do agree with them about pornography objectifying women or men. However, I disagree on how much objectification happens.
I'm really horrified by the importance that people place in external influences. I'm sure that if you ask the parents on whether they believe that people have free wills, the parents will agree. However, they're willing to argue in this case that external had enough power over that boy's mind that these agents can be held partly responsible for the boy's actions. This seems like contradiction in their beliefs.
It seems that in general people are equating correlation to causation in these types of cases. Having these games and then commiting the murders does not mean that the games caused the murders to occur.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Can I sue the lawyers in this country for
being so bloody stupid?
I want to know how can ANYBODY with an OUNCE of
intelligence not laugh at stupid suits like
these... Please, people, take some responsibility
for your actions!
Gee, the kid pulled the trigger and murdered,
but it's obviously not his fault. It's
obvisouly the fault of the manufacturer of the
bullets, because that's what *really* killed
those people.
Stupid society...Can't we just ship all these
morons to Mars or something? That'd be cool.
--- witty signature
The AC above is completely right...kids watch this stuff because the parents aren't around to tell them not to. Most of this is aimed at adults and kids should not watch it by themselves. If you watch this with your kids and talk to them about it they won't act like this or thinks its ok to act like this.
My question is, exactly how did an unstable 14 year-old get a hold of the gun? (and before we get into a Gun Control vs NRA flamewar, I'm talking about physical security - shouldn't the parents have the gun locked up in one place with a trigger lock and the ammo locked in a separate place? How come he could get to it? once we argue this basic point then we can wonder the wider question of why guns are so accessible in the US a deranged 14-year-old seems to have no trouble getting them). I'm sorry for their pain, but the parents need to take responsiblilty for what happened at that school - they created the killer. Maybe one of the victims families should sue them.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I agree. That's how the civil system up here in Canada works, and the number of lawsuits is greatly reduced. No one sues unless they have a better than average chance of winning. Even the lawyers up here will tell their clients this.
As for this particular case, I'd have to say there is no basis for the suit. As a former mental health worker, I worked with 6 - 12 year old kids who were violently agressive (top 2% of behaviour disorders in NA). It has been my experience and research that kids don't watch shows or play games and then become violent, they are already violent and become attracted to these games. How do they become violent? They learn from their families/caregivers that violence solves their problems. They can learn this from such things as spankings all the way to physical or sexual abuse. The problem with Carneal is not the games he played, or the sites he visited or the TV he watched, its the fact that he either didn't know or didn't want to know they weren't real. When I play a shoot'em up game , I know its a fantasy, and not real. Kids and adults like Carneal are already angry and violent and let the games etc feed their pshycotic violent fantasies to the point where they make them real. The point is they had these tendancies before they watched the games, or movies. The logic of the parent's agruement doesn't hold up:
If all serial killers own a copy of "The Collector", all people who own a copy of "The Collector are serial killers. Therefore, ban "The Collector" and we won't have any serial killers.
Now this doesn't make sense now does it? These guys were killers before they bought the book and it fed their already existing fantasies. The book did not make them killers.
I suppose we should ban the Bible because David Koresh and those abortion doctor murders read it. It must have made them into killers....
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
One time, the space marine from doom came to visit me, and he gave me his gun, and told me to go shoot everyone at school because it would make that girl like me, and i pistolwhipped him and im like "you dumb bitch, quit slacking off and get back into the computer."
With Don Lapre's amazing money-making plan, I am now able to live in this cardboard box with no worries at all!
The keyboard/Mouse combo has this tactic, unless you're talking about something else. It's called "circle strafing."
;) ) and commented that he'd hate to dogfight me. He thinks my skill with these games comes from the fact that I played through the entire Wing Commander series with the keyboard alone(except Privateer 2, where they didn't have keyboard controls...)
OTOH, good keyboard-only players do seem to have a distinctive "style." A friend of mine was just watching me play Descent 3(testing out the new Voodoo3
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
Wasn't AD&D banned in California? Or is that just a nasty rumor? I've heard of stranger things coming from that state...(no offense to those in California intended)
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
Gee, Officer Krupke, it's a social disease! We're sick in the head.
Of course, given that it's the parents of the victims, its more like that Bloom County where Steve Dallas debates who he should sue for having his back broken by Sean Penn: Not Sean or his wife Madonna (Juries love celebrities, and they both might come back for retribution) not Opus, who got him into this mess (opus has no money) No, he should sue the Nikolta Camera Company, for being criminally negligent in not warning him about the possible results of photgraphing psychotic celebrities!
So of course, the victims don't sue the killer or his negligent parents, they sue the ultra-rich entertainment types.
Sigh.
So you've never heard Andrea Dworkin and her Canadian colleague (whose name I can't remember) say that all pornography equals rape? Note that they don't stop at "suggests rape to men" or what have you, but the act of creating and viewing porn, in their minds, is the same as rape.
To answer your question, yes it should, but I don't think it is. Lawyers deal in the truth and a jury is supposed to make a decision based on facts presented in the trial. Now, a sharp lawyer will certainly use that, but it won't stop other people from doing the same thing.
I love this. Ratings are totally artificial and more often then not ignored. My little brother has free reign in the local video store, is just about their best customer, they let him rent whatever the hell pleases him. And I wasn't 18 when I bought Doom II. Heck, same with Half Life and that's probably one of the more 'realistic' killing games out there. And any INTELLIGENT person on a computer can delete Internet History, get past NetNanny, etc. Then again, a person with that much intelligence would know the difference between fantasy and reality.
Needless to say, don't think ratings mean dick all. The bottom line is the parents getting involved.
Parents need to take more of a responsibility in raising their kids and teaching them what is real and what is fantasy. I'm rather lucky, because I was taught that way.
When I was 12 years old, I rented Mortal Kombat II from the video store. My father just warned me to remember the difference between fantasy and reality. I heeded that warning, and I've come out just fine now. Even though I was an admitted Nintendo freak until a few years ago, I'm well-adjusted and normal.
Video games are not the problem; bad parents are the problem...
But in the case of Mother's Against Drunk Driving, it's obvious that alcohol impairs your ability to drive a car. There is absolutely _no_ basis that quake makes people kill.
There are two problems with this lawsuit:
(1) A lot of people play quake and watch movies and look at porn _without_ shooting people up. It's clear that this person was already the type that would be _likely_ to do something like this, so if he wasn't playing quake he would be reading comics or books. There is always something people can point the finger at, but if you took that away the person would still be unstable, and find another outlet.
(2) Who do you think _bought_ him the games? Don't want your kid playing quake? delete it! Don't want your kid looking at sex sites? Get Net Nanny!
Hmmmm....
nit picky little comment from one who never makes comments....
mortal combat is not a game... but Mortal Kombat is.
No...Apparently his parents werent the ones who raised him....so its not there fault. Thats pretty cute. You would almost think, being parents and all, they may want to consider being responsible. But no....its America...we don't need that.
This kind of argument hearkens back to the D&D suicides of the late 70's and early 80's. My response to this is the same as it was to those. Violent subject matter only leads to this kind of reaction when the person is already mentally unstable. Millions of perfectly normal people play these games and watch this movie every day. I myself have participated in such things. However, I am mentally stable. Or a relative facsimile thereof. Why sue these people for the mental instability of one kid.
Now this is just silly...I've looked at that soundtrack, and Judas Priest doesn't appear on it anywhere.
yeah, but that "rack" was all implants.
:)
And I like it when they show a series of shots where they slowly remove the cover - a bit of a tease is more fun than just showing off the goods.
I need help
It is just plain wrong for them to use the legal system in such a malicious manner. Isn't this (or shouldn't this be) against the law? If I were a judge, and heard someone making a statement like this about a lawsuit they're filing, I'd throw it right out of court.
If they really believe that movies, games, porn, etc. can warp people's minds to that extent, I feel sorry for their misguided attitude. I feel sorry for the loss of their children. But if this is just some way for them to lash out in anger over said deaths (or a way to make some cash off of it), I have no sympathy whatsoever.
They filed suit against several teachers, administrators, and students at the school, but a judge threw that out. They've (of course) appealed that already....
NO! I want to emigrate to Mars. I'd like it to be a haven for Smart People. I don't want all the morons I'm trying to get away from to be waiting for me when I get there.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Easy. What's supposed to happen is that sentient beings should understand the difference between what happens in a computer-generated fantasy world and what happens in real life.
The graphics are not the issue. The CONSEQUENCES are the issue. When I shoot somebody in Quake, I know that that is different from shooting somebody in real life. Anybody who can not make that distinction has no place in society unsupervised.
What's the point of these games? They're fun. You might note that not everything in life MUST have any literary or scholastic justification. Sometimes, I just want to eat a burger. Sometimes, I just want to play Quake. If you don't want to eat burgers, that's fine with me. If you don't want to play Quake, that's fine with me too. You do NOT get to tell me what I can or cannot do, unless you can demonstrate that my taking a certain action (like shooting somebody in the head) deprives them of their legal rights (specifically, that "life" one).
Violent games/books/songs/fairy tales/whatever have NO deleterious effects on well adjusted children. If the children are not well adjusted, let's place the blame squarely where it belongs...on those people who were derelict in their duty to MAKE the children well adjusted. That is, the parents.
If you area parent, and you don't want your child to play Quake, that's certainly your prerogative. I can think of several books and games that I've enjoyed that I wouldn't want a young child exposed to. However, this is NOT the purview of the government to decide. That is my responsibility as a parent.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Three centuries ago it did. The frontier moves...you have to be quick to keep up with it. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"'We believe the Heath shooter was influenced by the movies he watched, the computer games he played and the [sexually violent] Internet sites he visited,' Sabrina Steger, Kayce's mother, told reporters."
We... SURE he was! Everything influences us to some degree or another, but you don't go KILLING people unless you're FAR more screwed up than a couple movies, a couple video games, and a few porn sites can possibly explain! You are not led to acts of real-world violence b/c of these things, they only show you how to do what you ALREADY wanted to do in the FIRST place!
Jesus Christ what a waste of valuable court time and money. As for me, I DO feel sorrow for the loss of these parents, but it's greatly tempered by their short-sightedness, hubris, and their misguided attempts to lash out to hurt those they perceive as hurting themselves... as they said:
"We intend to hurt Hollywood. We intend to hurt the video game industry. We intend to hurt sex porn sites"...
They don't want people to learn, they want (the WRONG people) people to pay. BIG difference.
Who should pay for this? Who is responsible? THE DAMN KID WITH THE DAMN GUN!!! Throw a bit of responsibility on his presumably delinquent PARENTS (though I don't know their story) and we're ready to hit the road!
] D
...they have a snowballs chance in you-know-where of ever winning a case, but if it makes them feel better.... who cares?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
But of course, you probably tried quaking with a keyboard only.
I beg to differ there. I've always been a keyboard only player, never used a mouse. Sure, I can't aim as accuratly, but I move so fast you'll never hit me. But when I can rotate around you, while shooting my super nailgun and never missing, then you'll see the true benefit of the keyboard. All it takes is setting it up properly.....
When I was able to do my own spam-armoring, you got a chance to email me. Now you can only hope I see your reply.
Are you sure he's not referring to the fully automatic assault gun? The oozzie (sp)?
Talk about idiots, jumping to conclusions and passing judgement like that...
Hey, I'm from Jonesboro, Arkansas, where the school shooting immediately before the Paducah shooting was.
The perpetrators were aged 11 and 13 at the time, I believe.
Just as in this case, it is the families of the victims that are suing. But get who they are suing.
They are suing Remmington, the manufacturer of the hunting rifles, simply because the made the weapons which the boys stole from one of the boys' grandfather.
They are suing the gradfather, who had the guns, in a locked gun cabinet, in his locked house. They claim the grandfather shouldn't have had guns. The gradfather IS AN ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH AND WILDLIFE OFFICIAL. IT IS HIS JOB.
They are also considering suing the store which sold the guns to the grandfather, claiming that they never should have sold the guns to him.
I'm sorry, but this won't solve anything; it is utter ridiculousness. Perhaps they should sue the school for not having had gunfire drills (some schools in Los Angeles acutally have these). Things like this make me sick. They are simply taking advantage of their bad situation by exploiting unrelated (realistically) entities which they think they could get something from.
It is a disrespect to the dead, in my humble opinion.
James Blachly
The guns were in a locked gun cabinet, in his locked house. The guns *WERE* locked away properly.
And you know what? Even if he didn't lock them away properly, and someone BROKE INTO HIS LOCKED HOUSE and STOLE the guns from him, he still does not deserve to be sued. I cannot believe ANY reasonably logical human being could think such a thing.
If I stole your pistol from your nightstand and shot someone with it, there is no way in HELL you deserve to be sued.
Respectfully,
James Blachly
The basis of this suit is the notion that people are the products of their environment, which I think is partly true. However, a person's environment consists of some elements which are the individual's choice and other elements over which he has little or no control. For example, I would guess that the young man who killed those three students had a great deal of control over which video games he played but had very little control over how his parents treated him when he was very young. (I could say the exact same thing about myself.)
Placing this kind of blame on environmental factors which were chosen by the individual demonstrates a complete inorance of either the basic existence of free will itself or the distinction I made in the above paragraph.
The real tragedy is that, regardless of the upbringing of the murderer, the parents of all three of his victims are so ignorant.
This sort of argument leads to questions like "Why do we have gun clubs and hunting? Their only reason is to use weapons of violence to kill and destroy."
The problem isn't with the games, guns, and porn, but rather with the society that glorifies such conduct/content. Think about it.
You purport that such things cause violence and death, but it's the people that perform these acts.
Each home in Switzerland has an assault rifle as part of their national guard (or something to that effect), and the murder rate there is not even near what we have here.
You suggest throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Why should everyone be punished for the actions of a mentally ill few?
Additionally, if you're going to try and make a legitimate point I'd suggest expanding your vocabulary beyond exclamatory words like "fuck."
Reactionaries scare the hell out of me, primarily because I used to be one.
-Lil' Billy
No kidding, I've played video games all my life like quake, duke nukem, and street fighter and what not, and I have not committed one violent act (other than smashing a pumpkin here and there). I watched friggin R rated movies since I was 9! Never did my parents become millionaires because I shot a bunch of people. Come on People!
-Thumper
Heh... That's damn funny.
That reminds me of that time when the CIA had an opening for Director of Operations or some such position. It came down to 3 candidates. The last test was that they would be given a gun, and told to enter a room and shoot their spouse. So the first guy comes into the room, closes the door behind him... then a couple of minutes later comes back and says 'I just couldn't do it.' Then the second guy does the same thing. The third finalist is a woman. She goes into the room, closes the door behind her. All of a sudden you hear 2 gunshots, and then several more. Then a lot of thrashing and breaking-sounds, screams of pain, etc. Finally it gets quiet, and the woman comes out of the door, saying "Why didn't you tell me they were blanks? I had to beat him to death with a chair!"
I wonder if jokes like that would influence somebody to beat the crap out of somebody else.... hm...
-S
Ok, so now who is having the problem distinguishing between reality and make-believe?
All the schizophreniacs out there.
Which brings me back to the point -- has the kid had a history of being nuts? 14-20 IS (I believe) the normal age of onset of schizophrenia.
-S
This brings up the same point brought up in that article about college students suing their college for failing classes, about how a lot of people are stupid, and that there's no good way of dealing with it.
I'd just like to know if the kid had some kind of psychological problems that went untreated, or if his family has an inbred-stupidity problem or something.
-S
I think that the real problem was not doom or quake (great games by the way). I play those games and many like them and I never feel compelled to kill my classmates. The child didn't know how to tell simulated violence from what is real.
I don't really believe that these games drove him to kill. What does these things is often some other thing. Perhaps the child was a social outcast. That would explain the constant game playing; it's a very convenient diversion from reality. Then there is usually some sort or trigger event, something that causes the person to snap. This could be anything that upset him, even something seemingly insignificant.
It was simply a case of either an insane child to begin with or some really horrible parenting.
Why not sue the makers of the shotgun too? Weren't they in some indirect way responsible for this child's killing rampage?
On another interesting note, the parents are suing Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. But the games they think are responsible are Doom and Quake. Correct me of I'm wrong but id software makes those games. The reason why id is not a defendant is because id doesn't have anywhere near the amount of money that a company like Sony does. The parents are in this for the money and publicity. They are the lowest form of scum: trying to capitalize on the death of children.
Though I doubt any judge with a brain stem would let these disgruntled parents win, this will still have an impact. Because of some insane child, there will be more rating labels on game boxes. Stores like good old all american Wal-mart are going to be even more anal about their censorship. All this on the assumption that if you are under a certain age, you are too stupid to know where to draw the line between fantasy and reality.
Nix absolutably seriousness.
This whole thing is very simple.
Parents have a moral and legal responsibility to both society and their child. That responsibility includes saying "NO". Parents must learn that children are not capable always of making their own decisions. If a game is ultra-violent then some concern must come in that it may not be healthy for the child.
Would you take your kid to a strip joint? A bar to get drunk? Would you buy him some dope because he wanted it?
No.
Likewise control must be applied in other areas sometimes.
This was a very sad event - my sympathies *do* go out to the parents of the victims. Also to the child now in gaol. And to the parents of the child. I hope though, that this will serve as a warning to other parents.
You Need to Know what your kid is DOING.
Here here. I think that is a great idea for a new icon, but it doesn't exactly seem to fit the spirit of slashdot. Does it?
I recently started play quake II about a year ago. I think senseless game violence is great for realing stress. In a mindless sort of way. I don't think I am actually killing anyone. But it allows me to relieve my stresss built up inside subconciously. Making it a heathly outlet IMHO.
You want violence turn on the news. Games and movies creating a hate inside a child is possible, but I think most of it has to do with the real environment they are brought up in. Not the ones posed in music, tv (as entertainment), games and movies.
People need to stop blaming their problems on the rest of the world and start taking control and responsibility for themselves.
All of the defendants should counter sue the parents for not raising him correctly, pointing out that the parents should have been a bigger influence on him and that they have the sole responsibility of the media he sees. I guess you can't expect much else from the great Bible belt of America, the same place that rips out the pages explaining the Big Bang in the science text books. They might as well put Satan on their list of defendants.
These people are perfect examples of why we need a law that states that you need at least a certain IQ before you can become a parent.
If my kid did this, I would probably be really upset and think irrationally. I would probably get pissed off and want to blame somebody. But because I'd want to doesn't mean I'd think it was correct and actually try to do it. People that act without thinking are dangerous. Maybe they should be locked up along with the kid before they lose their lawsuit and start blowing up federal buildings and holywood studios.
The worst thing is that they will probably win a settlement.
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
"There is *NO* solid evidence to prove a direct link between higher rates of violence and depictions of violence in the media"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but open up any psychology 101 textbook for information contradicting this. Watching depictions of violence stimulates violent behaviour. This has long last stopped actually being a debate.
People learn by imitation. If you've ever been around a baby for a while you would probably have seen this. Are you going to try tell me that if a four year old kid watches his older brother playing Quake for three hours that that kid is NOT going to show even the slightest signs of behavioural influence? Get real.
The only reason people actually still go on and on about this is because it is basically impossible to link any specific case of violent behaviour to specific viewing of violent behaviour. Yes, violent media does not by itself cause aggression - but the fact remains that agression IS stimulated in a significant percentage of people by the viewing of violence.
I agree, the person directly at fault is the kid who pulled the trigger. But most 14 year olds don't go around gunning people down, right? Why? Because of how they've been brought up. The parents are probably guilty of extreme negligence, or at least extreme stupidity. Like everyone else has said, the things they're suing about are already rated for violence etc., and if his parents haven't been able to (more likely haven't tried) to instill a sense of values, and reality vs. fantasy, they're just as much at fault. A 14 year old is a minor, supposedly his parents are responsible for his actions.
This is not to say the people behind this lawsuit are anything less than greedy idiots. As the article said, they've already tried to sue 24 people from the school - teachers and students. Are they responsible for encouraging him to kill people? Or just responsible for not noticing he had problems? This seems to me to be just another case of people looking for as many others to blame as possible, in an attempt to cash in on tragedy. Certainly nothing can bring back what these families lost, but by dragging in civil suits left and right, they're just prolonging their pain and the pain of a lot of other people.
They say they want to "hurt Hollywood," etc? $130 million isn't going to do that. The only message it sends, even if the case had any chance of being won, is that you are responsible for any damage caused by something you create, no matter how indirectly it caused the damage. As Steve Dallas said, "America! Land of the Lawsuit!! God bless her!!"
There was a lawsuit years ago here in Canada where a kid became a paraplegic from falling off his bike while trying stunt jumps off a ramp in a locked and chained schoolyard which was under construction.
The city was sued and found 1% at fault, but since it had the cash, had to pay the whole amount awarded (in the millions).
The moral I think is "sue the rich".
The other dynamic may be that potential jurors probably haven't heard of id, while they know Nintendo, Sony, et al, and know they're big. There'd be more emotional impact suing Time Warner than id ("id who?").
Moral #2 may be "sue the famous big company". I'm sure jealousy may factor in here as well.
I also think some lawyers are just opportunistic and might approach parents of victims with the lawsuit idea.
BTW I can't wait to see how playing Shogo will warp my psyche!
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
But he was 14... the good ole paper-and-pen games seem to have been surplanted among the younger population...
Yep,
Also from the UK and never seen a "real" gun, paintball guns, air-rifles and the like.
There were hundreds of posts, so I cant be sure of the validity of my next statement/question, so fire-extinguisher at the ready.
No one actually asked, "How could a 14 year old kid get his hands on a gun"
As long as it seems that this is an accepted/acceptable practice (teens with guns) in the good ol US of A then this sort of stupidity is bound to happen.
Cop: "RIGHT! Well, we'll be charging them, too!"
Lotek---
If you didn't have some outlet for your aggressions, you would truly go insane. I love the quake series, it lets me get all my frustrations out on my friends, and then they turn around and kick my ass and we laugh about it. They should sue me for encouraging this game while they're at it. sheesh! And how is that provable? Did the kid leave behind a long trail of hoofed monster thingies? I want to know where he got the chaingun, too. The biggest sucky thing about this country is that everyone has to pay for one dumbass's stupidity.
Erm.. hello?
:)
They should be suing the parent of the child.
The child is a minor. Why did the parents allow the child access to porn sites and games such as Doom (which I beleive in the UK are rated 15)?. The parents are totaly to blame.
We should all storm Microsoft headquarters and claim that we were incited to revolt by the moronic quality of their software suing them for mental anguish and any personal injuring aquired during the riot
Everyone is living in a personal delusion, just some are more delusional than others.
Ridiculous legal issues aside...
.wav's back at half speed and try to pinpoint which part of the sound wave is "offensive."
Words (pictures, shapes, etc.) have no more power than you give them. The information is in your head and thus yours to play with, (and also, your responsibility).
Please, write the 7 dirty words on a piece of paper and try to figure out which part of the word contains the "offensive" part. Hell, record them, play the
The Map Is Not The Territory.
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
It's still despicable. I know people who do all three, and aren't complete psychopaths.
To all those who have played quake,
How many times after playing quake for a few hours in a row have you gone outside for a walk and seen somone walking far away and thought "Gee if I only had the railgun..." Or saw a large group of people and thought "man the BFG would take them out nicely."
I've actually thought that... Although I also had a thought the preceeded those "IF THIS WERE QUAKE"
These people need to be slapped around by the judge. Or sued for the wast of time of thousands if not millions of people around the world (like myself) who should be studying, working, whatever but instead are posting messages like this one, or talking about how crappy america is becoming at the water cooler.
Wait wouldn't that be a silly lawsuit too...
- NYAR!
*Sigh*
Yet another group of irresponsible parents trying to use the legal system to make money off of other irresponsible parents... It's just so sad.
I do happen to wish that there were no violent movies, violent video games, and especially no actual violence, and while I do actually agree that violence (in any form) begets violence, it's completely ludicrous to place the blame for such an atrocity on specific symptoms of a sick society. You might as well say that someone who dies from a heart attack died because he ate too many eggs and smoked cigarettes... Oh yeah, people do say that!!!
Then again, I suppose that's why fantasy violence exists right now in such voluminous quantity, to seperate the _extremely_ stupid and negligent people from the merely stupid people.
*bangs head on desk*
sigh.
There really is only one person to blame for this crime... the 14 year old who pulled the trigger. As far as I'm concerned, the blame ends there.
BUT.. if you want to blame someone else for it, lets look at some more likely choices.
His parents:
BasketBall Diary's is a rated R movie. You need to be 17 to watch this movie, and since its several years old now, he would have been around 11 when it came out (if I recall correctly on the release date of that movie). Movies are rated R for a reason. If parents choose to ignore those reasons, then Hollywood shouldn't be held accountable.
I've played doom and quake plenty of times. In fact, I've played them so much, I can pretty much assure you that I WILL gun down the next CyberDemon I see.
Interesting that while the parents blame Doom and Quake, ID isn't one of the listed defendants in the article (perhaps it was ommitted due to space or incompetant journalism).
I have never seen a porn site that didn't require a credit card number for a membership. They may exist, I don't personally spend a great deal of time searching for them. However, if these "violent sex acts" that this kid was able to witness came from porn sites, how did he get access without his own credit card? Either he stole his parents card to get access or his parents allowed him to have access. In any event, I don't see how sex acts compelled him to gun down his friends... (were they his friends? maybe he had other reasons)
He DID say he was mentally ill. Therefore if he WAS easily influenced as a result of media he witnessed, then he should never have been exposed to it in the first place. Regardless, games like doom don't make mentally healthy people gun down people at random.
Anyways. It's just another lawsuit. The broader the scope of the suit, the more likely it is to get thrown out. Its not legally viable to sue the entire world for the problems of one person.
-Restil
restil@alignment.net
Play with my webcams and lights here
I agree totaly. While violences in video games or moives or any medium by itself wouldn't cause violent tendenices. I strongly belive that the violent nature of most entertainment genres today is having an effect of society. By by it's self it can not be blamed. There are too many people watching, playing and begin exposed to these violent images who don't go crazy to but the blame and sue that indastry.
I can understand Quake, but not Final Fantasy! How did that game get in there?! And on a further note, it's been my experience that people shot in a wild rampage by students are usually responsible for their own deaths.(persicution, etc.)
The kid walked in with 6 guns right? What if he
wasn't able to get those 6 guns? He's still
be playing games... Sure, media can drive some
people over the age and make them violent, but
society allows the violence to be deadly...
Americans with their ease of access to guns
is the main problem here. In Canada, we don't
have such an easy time getting guns, and I can't
remember the last time I heard of any kids
shooting anyone at all. Screw the bloody
amendment (which was for civil-war-time anyway),
and STOP giving guns to kids.
The McDonald's case comes up all the time. Here's what someone had to say about it in another thread, reposted without permission:
The McDonald's case is interesting.
The coffee, maintained at a scalding 180F-190F because the customers supposedly "like it hot", caused severe third-degree burns. She spent seven days in the hospital and was treated with skin grafts.
Initially she only wanted payment for her medical bills but McDonald's refused to even negotiate with her. Consequently she contacted an attorney who had settled another coffee burn case with McDonald's. In the course of the trial company documents revealed that "in the past decade McDonald's had received at least 700 reports of coffee burns ranging from mild to third-degree, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000."
Despite knowledge of the hazard, company officials refused to warn its customers. "There are more serious dangers in restaurants." And given the 1 billion cups of coffee sold annually, McDonald's considered the number of burn complaints to be "statistically insignificant".
After hearing such testimony a jury found McDonald's liable and awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages. The jurors deducted $40,000 for contributory negligence. Also, given McDonald's conduct, the jury awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages, which was equal to 2 days of coffee sales.
Later the judge reduced the punitive award to $480,000. While awaiting appeal the two parties settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
The #1 sickening thing about the whole McDonald's coffee hype is how it distracts from the facts. I suppose you just glibly believed whatever it was the mass media told you about that McDonald's case didn't you? Why do you expect anyone else to behave differently when it comes to the hacker culture (or whatever you want to call it today)?
Doom made me soo violent I wanted to go kill every mutated beast out there...so after buying a big expensive RPG-8000 (or whatever...I haven't played in such a long time) I went hunting the mutants and never found any. Then I got the barney addition to the game...Needless to say, I am still hunting down thast purple crackhead.
This is just a lame attempt by some loozer people to obtain more $$$$
Have you ever been to America? Have you meet the entire population of America? If you answer no to either of these then you have no idea what you are talking about. Which gives one the impression that you are just a mindles media-drone who only knows what the media tells you. Of course some of the law suits are getting way out of hand... but they're not going to print huge stories about all the people who do take responsiblity for thier actions. If they did then I would be really worried. The media reports on what is sensational or out of the norm. Any anaylitical mind can deduce that what is reported in the media is not the average every day occurence, or else it wouldn't be news worthy. So you really made yourself sound like a little punk a$$ with no independant thought process at all.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
Just wondering what sources you had saying there where more lawsuits in the early 20s. I read an article in Time a few months ago saying frivolous lawsuits have been on the rise for the past 20 years. Of course there may have been a dip and now they are coming back up
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
Also, she was a passenger in a stopped car.
Check out the following link for the facts of the case: http://caoc.com/mcdonald.html
Yes, unfortunately this is the case.
But I said that a prison should be there
to help them learn the difference between right and wrong, I didn't say it was.
-- The Darkness
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
Before you read this post:
I know I'm not perfect, this is my opinion on the matter of "who is to blame for my crime".
[rant]
I'm sorry, but I can't swallow this load of crap. I've been playing games such as "Doom" and "Quake" for years, and I have never killed anyone, and [hopefully] I never will. "blame it on the violent games", "It's my parents fault", "The Devil made me do it", what a load of crap .
The people making these claims need to learn what responsibility is. As for the argument "It's my parents fault", parents make their own choices on how to raise children. Some choose to not raise their children, and shirk their responsibilities off onto the Television, Internet, or some other non-human babysitter. I personally don't believe that the parents have the right to sue hollywood companies and porn sites for what their children did. The parents are supposed to be the role model for the child. If the kid is off killing someone, something is seriously wrong with that family.
Some might argue "What about those who know no other way of life but that of crime, who haven't had any other examples." That should be one thing that prison is for. It shouldn't be there only to punish the people who have done something wrong, but to teach them that it is possible to prosper by doing something RIGHT.
We make our own decisions and we have to deal with the consequences when we do something wrong.
[/rant]
-- The Darkness
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
Okay I did misinterpret (I didn't go read the
article, stuff like this, people suing game companies and such has been an issue with me for a long time)
Before people flame me on that issue:
Maybe the parents should be suing themselves for not boycotting the games/movies in the first place, DOOM has been out for ages, and apparently not many people had issues when quake came out, I didn't see any protests on the matter. Games like this have been around for years, if people didn't want them, they wouldn't be on the market.
The 14 year old is responsible for their actions, I knew that it was wrong to kill when I was 14, I don't give a crap if there were violent games like "Street Fighter II" out there influencing my innocent mind (cough cough). Not to mention the movies, and TV from "back then." If the parents really wanted to, they could stop the violence that is being displayed on Television and in games.
Apparently nobody wants to.
-- The Darkness
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
you forgot about electromagneteic repulsion of the electron clouds. That'll keep the volume of the mass above zero.
And hell, what exactly happens to the nuclei of the gas? As I recall, it takes something on the order of 1.5 solar masses to crush them to nothing...
and, like all too many people, particularly We The [lawsuit-happy] People, they refuse to take the responsibility that comes with living in a world with free speech.
You know _why_ Americans don't take responsibility for anything? My guess is that it has something to do with the prevalence of the Christian church in this country. Think about it: The dominant form of religious thinking goes, "It doesn't matter what you do, you will always be forgiven." This pretty much gives people carte blanche to do _anything_ with no real worry of the consequences. "When I die, I'm going to heaven, regardless of how many people I've absolutely f*cked over in life." When you've got this many people thinking like that, the idiocy rises to the top. And unfortunately, since they're a very vocal minority (and politically active), they can manage to permanently screw things up for the rest of us.
The other downside to this fact is that since the faith basically teaches them to stop thinking, that there are things beyond their understanding (which, BTW, it utter bullsh*t), they tend to not question authority, even when that authority has them do really idiot things.
I'm sorry if I'm stepping on people's toes, but IMO the Xtian faith is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on humanity, and is most likely the leading cause of cruelty and suffering in the world. (there's alot of research that went into this opinion, and too many references to list here. check http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/index.html
for more info...
I've heard some pretty convincing "evidence" of objectionable material when certain songs get played backwards. However, the material only is audible when you play the song backwards. Therefore, unless you listen to everything backwards, why should it have any effect on you at all?
For more information, click here.
Jazz wouldn't exist otherwise.
a musical palidrome would be impossible to notice.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I'm encougaed some ppl (/.ers) haven't lost it but when will CNNers ever get this viewpoint?
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I am going to sue Intel and the entire Linux development community for ruining my social life. Oh, I started playing with OpenBSD a while ago. I will sue them for the same reason. I don't seem to have as much free time as I did before delving deep into computers. Therefore I will sue sue sue!
Hollywood and he game companies should sue the parents.
If the parent's knew their son had violent tendancies would it not be criminal negligence on the part of the parents to allow him to saticefy his appetite for violence...
Oh, sorry I forgot... parent can't be held responsable any more. It's not PC
-Kit
*chuckle* I use to betatest "violent" games for a living... if that didn't make me and my coworkers homicidal I don't know what will. *tic* *tic* *tic*
-Kit
In what the fuck kind of game do you go around and shoot things for no fucking reason? With the graphics nowadays it's gettting pretty fucking real enough. Third, what is the fucking point of these games?
Wow!
You just beat Joe Pesci's performance in "GoodFellas" for the Most Unnecessary Uses Of The Word "Fuck" Award! For your efforts, you will receive an autographed copy of Eddie Murphy's autobiography!
Great job!
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
i keep getting an unhandled exception error whenever i try to search a linked list of nodes.
i think the problem is that for some stupid reason i am dereferencing a pointer that doesn't point anywhere. dunno where though.
Einar
p.s. tried to email this to you, but.. NOPE..
wisest comment i have seen about this && simmilar
:-)
lawsuits in the states for a long time.
it seems to me that this (hopefully marginal) fraction of americans who sue for this kind of thing, have completely rejected the fact that people has to take care of themselves, and use sound judgement.
it looks like these people want no blame for how life treats them laid upon themselves, and would rather blame others.
it increases this oddity when the usa is supposed to be the land of individual freedom, that at once something goes wrong, no matter how petty, you run around complaining to big brother to take care of you.
i sincerely hope that this isn't how most people in the states are, but these are the cases us europeans hear about, and it makes you look like a country of self centered fools.
Einar Vollset
Uni of Newcastle, UK
p.s. sorry about the grumpy tone, but my freaking
C++ pointer-project is just not bloddy working
>What Europeans should realize is that here in the
>USA we have the opportunity to use the court to
>correct wrongs that are made against us.
Yes, and so is the case in Europe as well. It's
just that it never seem to occur to people to sue for every stupid thing that goes shite in their life.
>Maybe the brits try to hide theirs.
Very possible, and for a good reason to! As I pointed out, it makes you look like a bunch of bloddy morons.
p.s. I am Norwegian, not a Brit..
how the fuck is final fantasy 7 gonna make a kid kill some people? thats (imho) the greatest fsckin' game ever...its not realistically violent at all...this whole lawsuit is rediculous
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
If Microsoft has made a much slower OS, perhaps we would just be playing pacman, ahem, but the OS is fast, well cuz the CPU is fast, *cough*, so lets sue Microsoft and Intel too! This is crap, if this kid watched movies, I doubt those movies were rated pg13, this kid is 14 years old, he did not watch those movies over night. His parents should be sued for not regulating what their child saw, he should not be watching R movies, blockbuster should be sued for renting him out videos, Cinemas should be sued, for not providing enough security at the theater thus enabling him to sneak in and see those movies. The people engaged in violence sex acts who's pictures appeared should be sued too. We should sue those guys who made the internet, if only they had designed it for 18 years and older. I guess one day, the internet will have a rating system? This site is rated PG13, this sited is rated R. F, what the Fis going on? I would have remorsed and wept for those parents who's kids were killed, but with such an action, I think they should go to hell, ne? I think the government should be sued too, for promoting the internet, if the government did not promote the net, perhaps it will not have grown like this, thus less porn sites?! Maybe it was me from IRC who told him to go kill those kids, heck, I should be sued.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Well, we use the sword in FFVII, but we couldn't find a sword, so we decided to use a gun.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I have been jumping all my life, and hurling turtles at people. It is all due to Mario. I am going to sue Nintendo.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
The same lawyer quoted in this press release said on the Today show this morning that although the kid had only been to a rifle range once the exposure to video games had given him a rifle shotting ability "at the highest Army ranking." If he makes a similar case in court, any competent defense attorney for the video game manufacturers should be able to get this case dismissed in under five minutes.
Number one and two defendants should be the parents. How can you sue someone for expressing themselves. Do we still have freedom of speech. I know code and computer text is still up in the air about free speech. But a movie is obiviously someones comment on life, society, whatever. Hell code should be protected by free speech also. How old is this kid? 14 okay so Basketball Diaries is rated 'R' so who is responsible (if this is one of the causes)..the makers..no they had it rated (like the were supposed to) hmmm maybe his parents who should be policing what he watches and the games he plays. Most of those game have subjected themselves to rating systems also.
Remove the spam reference to email
I don't think it's safe to say that games and other violent scenes make us more violent. They *do* increase adrenaline, which (in some) may have the unfortunate side-effect of causing more violent tendencies, *but*, if you weren't playing Quake or watching NYPD Blue, what would you be doing? Reading up on the bombings in Kosovo, hearing about the newest frivolous lawsuit, or playing football? In virtually everyone I know, the last three activities have a far, far larger impact on violent tendencies than playing a computer game (I've nearly started fuming while doing "safe" things like reading the newspaper or filing taxes).
People need to realize that we *are* a violent species by nature (for the religious out there, all you have to do is read the first 3 chapters of Genesis), and need outlets for our emotions - video games are the safest method of relieving stress and violent emotions - noone gets hurt (unless you have the tendency to bang your head against the wall), and there is a sense of reward as you pick off that annoying bastard's head in Unreal. Sure, there may be those with problems so bad initially that they may become socially violent after being electronically violent... but there are far more (like me) that would be far more socially violent if it weren't for electronic violence. Of course, those with the problems shouldn't be playing those games, anyway.
Every game out there, got a mark, that shows what age the game is for. (Mortal Kombat is for 17+). Its the parent's responsibility to check these signs on the box, and not allow the boy to play games not for his age. About the porn, first, I don't think it got anything to do with violance, second, there are lots of stuff like Netnanny, and all that that blocks the access to these sites. Also, some ISP's let you decide what sites you won't have access to... So, whose fail is this?
Maybe he played ilegal games (warez), but then the parents have nothing to sue nobody for... Its totaly their fault!!! They should control what the guy is playing.. And besides, if everything is ok with the persons psychic side, then animated/fantasy violance won't matter to him. It is an entertaiment medium... Nothing more. If a person is "crazy", he doesn't need games to get ideas like killing...
just my 2 cents... Rather heavy once thougth...
-- Hiroshima '45... Chernobyl '86... Windows '95...
You know the funniest part of the article? The claim that the kid had an "extraordinary" shooting ability because of playing the game.
Instead of spending mass amounts of time, money, and energy running psuedo operations to train soldiers, why not just let them play Quake and Doom 24/7?
-Sarkis-
"Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors."
Stay alert for other lawsuits to follow:
Manson family victims sue the Beatles.
Ronald Reagan sues Jodie Foster.
Son of Sam victims sue the barking dog industry.
It's a sad example of human behaviour, that sometimes, when we do real bad things, we turn and look for someone else to blame!
Didn't you know, Leonardo loaded the gun, went to the school, and shot the kids himself!!!!!!!!!!!!
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
Sigh. Everybody here keeps wondering what set him off or who should have been sued or even how it could only happen in America. The real moral of the story, Guns+kids=trouble. Or maybe Guns+wackos=trouble. Or even guns+(wacko kids)=trouble^2.
As for America, I like it in spite of the morons and the sheep. It sure beats the places I've been where being killed by the government is a lot more common than being killed in school.
It's amazing how irresponsible people have become.
What I want to know is why the parents of the shooter Michael Carneal did not do anything to control their child's access to materials containing pornography and violence. For the parnets of the victims to blame the entertainment industry, and especially the computer game industry for a child's actions is absurd.
Where were Michael's parents when he was viewing pornography? Where were his parents when he got his hands on violent movies? How could they allow a fourteen year old kid get his hands on a firearm? Where were his parents explaining the difference between fantasy and reality?
The industry isn't at fault here. It's time the parents take responsibility for raising their kid.
My condolences go to the families of those who lost their children in this senseless violence, but we cannot hold the producers of entertainment media responsible for creating products that people buy.
Common sense dictates that everyone has the ability to say "yes" or "no" to something. Apparently some of us have forgotten that.
The stupids are out-breeding us, pure and simple. Those of us with marketable skills are out in the workplace using them, putting off having kids until much later and having fewer of them as a result.
In any case, the American public by and large is the biggest herd of sheep you'll find. The vast majority of the products in the American marketplace are geared to the lowest common denominator. Look at the runaway success of stores like Wal-Mart, where you get zero customer service, shoddy merchandise, tacky merchandise, and the employees get into knife fights with their box-cutters! (this actually happened here in good ole' Baltimore, MD) This is a populace that is just begging for a big group of babysitters (read: government) to come in, put up baby gates so they can't hurt themselves, move all of the dangerous things out of their reach, and wipe their ass when they shit themselves.
More than ever, the sentiment expressed by Franklin is clearly appropriate: "Those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
At 3 A.M. you can see people's auras; at five you can see their contrails...
Oops or was that the parents of victims that were suing. Ah well I didn't read the article. It's still stupid (as if you didn't already know that)
-----------------------
Makes me wonder if his parents put him up to this just so they could get some $$.
-----------------------
I don't know about sueing the parents, but I do believe that they are responsible for his actions so long as he is under age. They are supposed to teach him right from wrong and teach him morals and values. I am uncertain where he obtained the gun that he used to do the shooting, but it wouldn't supprise me if it belonged to his father. I thought all responsible parents were supposed to keep guns away from their kids!
I know they are greiving, but place the blame where it belongs. I have been playing games for nearly 5 years now and I know that there is no way in hell that I could kill someone in cold blood. Playing Quake has in no way trained me to use a gun, and as a matter of fact, I don't even like to handle guns at all.
just my $1.50 (inflation and taxes added into cost)
If I buy a cup of coffee, I would expect to get burned if it spilled on me. But to be hot enough for 3rd degree burns and have skin grafts needed, it was extremely hot. There was definately a problem there.
Also, I believe there was a problem with the lid of the cup not being on right also. That happens to me a lot, but luckily with cold sodas.
There are a lot of frivolous lawsuits, but that shouldn't stop people with real complaints tfrom suing! That would encourage huge corporations to try to get away with murder.
In the article at http://www.avault.com/news/displaynews.asp?story=4 121999-18272 it says:
"In the aftermath of the massacre, the police seized Carneal's computer and determined he was a consumer of violent video games. According to the complaint, Carneal was influenced by the violence in Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil, Redneck Rampage, the Mechwarrior series and Nightmare Creatures"
Now, Ive played TONNS of FFVII, and I thought it was the most enjoyable, non-violence orientated (sp?) game I've ever played. If not THE best game of all time.
I think those parents just grabbed copies of every game the kid had and decided to sue those people.
Is MechWarrior violence to humans? I thought it was 40 tonn mech vs 40 tonn mech... I have not played in a long time though.
I play a LOT of Quake and other 3d shooters... I have never thought it would be cool to gib some one with the rail gun in real life.
Take responsibility for raising your kids.
By this same argument we should be seeing stacks of kids with brilliant micro/macro managment skills as a result of games like SimCity and WarCraft.
There is no spoon
no really, this is funny..laugh with me now..i think the kid should just get the death penalty for being a retard.
yet another case to be made for retroactive abortions...
It reminds me a bit about a skit by Alexei Sayle (British funny man).
He interviewed some woman of the child care organisation and asked her in a scathing accusing tone where her organisation was when King Herod killed hundreds of Jewish babies.
Very funney, indeed!
I remember some feminist saying that all heterosexual sex is rape of women.
Somehow I think they just say it to get someone's attention.
The whole feminist movement is a joke. What has it solved? Men still rule 99% of the world. And there's no Germaine Greer or Andrea Dworkin who will change that.
If the parents paid more attention to what their kids did.. then this would never have happened. Now the parents are trying to sue for something they did themselves? Yeah! USA! USA! USA!
YES!
I'm not the only one who noticed it!!!!
Rob- You idiot
Hate to take the unpopular viewpoint here, but blaming others is NOT right. These people's child, for whatever reason, is a monster. No if's, and's, or but's about it. Now, they want to dump this on the lap of what appears to be everyone BUT themselves. It is their fault? I don't know. I would hope not. Is it just a freak instance of someone's chemical balances out of sync? Possibly. But, that's really not the issue. What I do know is that this "here, government, raise/protect/guide my child" mentality is BAD.
This goes hand in hand with my rant against the vchip, CDA, CDA-II, and stupid "your music made my kid crazy" lawsuits. I'm sorry folks, but if your child can be turned into a killer by playing a good LAN deathmatch, they weren't brought up right. If they try to spend their middle school library time looking at 3-way goat orgies, they weren't brought up right. If you can't trust your child to behave properly when you're not around, they weren't brought up right. I hate to point out the obvious, but if the biggest influence in a child's life is a CD or web site, there's a suspicious lack of parental influence in their life.
Wake up, people. If you bring your kid up right, they won't shoot people. They won't burn down buildings. They won't worship the devil. They won't treat women as objects. I look at all these bills (like the CDA, vchip, internet decency act, and more), and they all scream "Hey! Raise my child for me! I'm toooooo busy!" Newsflash, ladies and gentlemen: it's not the government's place to define values, raise children, or censor anything. If you don't want your child to see/hear/smell/taste/try/do -whatever-, tell them! Talk to them! TEACH THEM.
This suit strikes me as totally amazing. Much like the man who sued Ozzy because his son killed himself after listening to an Ozzy CD. Give me a break. I've got some pretty nasty CD's (Metallica's cover of "So What", anyone?), but I'm sure as hell not going to go rape, plunder, kill and burn everything in sight.
You know, the people who support this kind of crap are the ones who say "I can't supervise my child 24 hours a day!" To them, I say "You don't have to supervise them. Raise them right. Teach values, respect, and courtesty, and the rest will take care of itself." Wake up folks, anyone who says the biggest influence in their kid's life is a shooter game, CD or movie needs to wake up, and ask themself WHY.
--
--
Just lurking, thanks!
Well, what's keeping you? Get out there, earn your parents some money!
I recommend you sue the entire US of A for its criminal failure to imbue you with a sense of irony.
--
Xenu loves you!
What's not working?
TedC
>Beleive it or not.. in the early 20's when
>personal lawsuits were first introduced,
"personal lawsuits" ??? Does this mean "personal injury lawsuits"?
And assuming you mean the 1920's, you're off by several centuries--battery and negligence are ancient causes of action.
Would someone please explain the logic to me? Why didn't she sue the car maker as well, for not making a car that allowed her to drink coffee and drive at the same time? Or Juan Valdez, because coffee beans were used to make the coffee?
If I ran McDonalds, and someone came to me, using that sort of logic, I'd be pretty hard-pressed to think of a reason to pay them. In fact, if I did pay them, the McDonalds shareholders would have every right to fire me.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
So, with all due respect to the families who were affected by this tragedy, this suit has "Ambulance Chaser" and "Religious Extremism" written all over it.
It's fairly evident this suit has virtually nothing to do with recovering damages for a tragic loss, and nearly everything to do with advancing a misguided political and social agenda. It's impossible to say from the brief news release whether this was hatched by the parents, the laywers, or someone else.
In the past, parents stricken with such a tragic loss have traditionally formed memorial foundations, whose goal is to raise awareness of the conditions that contributed to their loved one's death. MADD, The Polly Klaas Foundation, and others come to mind. I would counsel the parents in this situation to do the same. It is a far more lasting and constructive contribution they could make than any contrived lawsuit could ever hope to accomplish.
I disagree about the religious extremism bit; I don't remember them mentioning anything of a religious nature. As for the "ambulance chaser" bit, well, you may have a point there. But look at what they said. "We intend to hurt..."
This is revenge. That's all. This kid hurt them, so the parents are going to hurt what they believe caused the kid to freak out. This is especially sad since they're aiming at the wrong target, but the fact remains: this suit has no nobler motivations than vengeance.
Someone beat them to it. I seem to recall reading somewhere about this guy in NY who's suing God for not giving him talent. He bases his case on the fact that Jimi Hendrix as well as several other musicians have thanked God for their gift of musical talent. :) The story ended by saying " To this day God has not commented on the case "
Sorry for shouting, but, Rob, you need am icon just for stories about cluelessness.
I would suggest a graphic that looks like this:
12:00
but blinking on and off (like on the VCR's)
support gun control: take guns from cops
I know a lot of you here are fraggers, so would object to what I have to say.
This is expectable. When you get games, where the sole purpose is to go around shooting people, what the hell is supposed to happen? If you sit and play these games too long, it really warps your mind. In what the fuck kind of game do you go around and shoot things for no fucking reason? "But it's just a game," you say. Hell, let's all grab some shotguns, and go out to the fields, and start trying to blow each other's heads off.. what cool special effects we can have - wont that be a wonderful game?
"But it's different because it's on a computer, and not for real," you whine. With the graphics nowadays it's gettting pretty fucking real enough. This is the great use that humanity has found for computers - drawing flying bloody body parts fast enough so that it seems smooth to the human eye. Sure YOU may know the line between computer and reality, but do kids?
Third, what is the fucking point of these games? Sure, the graphics woo me too, they're nice. But how can people even play these things for more than 2 minutes? Where is the skill? Do people go around bragging about their skills in controlling their keyboard arrow keys? If there is a certain skill in that, wouldnt it be comparable to the skill involved in jacking off or some similar inconsequential activity?
Anyway, conclusion time. These games should be restricted from children. There is a reason why people below 18 are not allowed to vote. There is a reason why people below 18 cannot have sex with people above 18, without the older person going to jail. There is a reason people below 21 can't drink. It all reflects a general concencus that you need to attain a certain age before which you are not fit to make concious, sound decesions regarding certain subjects - and this is one of them. I think games should have ratings which segregate them to certain age levels.
I can hear all you libertarians shouting - "Freedom!." But for certain things, freedom shoul d be restricted. 10 year olds do not have the freedom to have intercourse with an adult. This is because they are not deemed mentally fit to make such a decesion. Violent games fall into the same catergory.
-Laxative
That's all this is, and unfortunatelly, it won't stop until someone gets burned.
Personally, I see this sort of thing as a direct result of the 60's thru the 80's. The "free love" that turned into "it's all about ME", that later became the "MY money" decade. Parents have become so bent on material posessions and image projection (keeping up with the Joneses) that they have lost their grip on the real nature of parenting. They truly believe that if they provide for their kids material needs, their kids will grow up to be shinning examples of good parenting. (I am speaking strictly of the average, median parent, and to varrying degrees - the ones we hear about in the news are the pathological extreme of the trend to MEdom)
Consider the Ramseys, the Menendez... The more kids see of image and posessions, the less they know of soul and responsibility. And I believe that this is an offshoot of the reaction to the hippy lifestyle.
And it goes further than that. People don't like to take blame, it's human nature. People don't like to be proved wrong either. So reformers are branded as heretics, revolutionaries are beheaded and Judas Priest is put on trial for convincing a fan-kid to commit suicide. God knows that it couldn't have anything to do with mommy and daddy having an open marriage.
Let's think about this: Smoking. This is a free country, yet in L.A. you can't smoke on the street because you're affecting the health of someone else. Nevermind the fact that L.A. has a chronic SMOG problem, it's the smokers who get blamed. It's a free country, if you don't like the smoker - leave the area.
What does this have to do with Id Software getting sued? Everything! It's always "their" fault, it's never "our" fault. We (American parents) do not take responsibility for our kids problems. We mean well, so it cna't be our fault. It's "THEM"!
People, raise your kids to OWN their actions, to understand CONSEQUENCES, and to leave the campsite better then they found it. First, do no harm.
Oh BTW: The telletubbies are GAY! It's all THEIR fault..
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
IIRC, that's one of Dworkin's quotes. I can't say for sure, though.
This, however, is definitely one of hers:
"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies."
-Andrea Dworkin
I once ate a whole bunch of dots
I got real sick
Then I ate a strawberry, and wondered where in the $@^$ my 500 points went. Same with the peach.
AND THOSE GODDAMN GHOSTS STILL CHASE ME TO THIS DAY!!!
COME ON BLINKY! I GOT YOUR POWER PILL RIGHT HERE!!!
Blech. Signatures.
Only sue people with money. From an old "Bloom County" strip (recall the strip and win a prize!). That means you CAN'T sue the killer's parents. While proper, they can't cough up the big bucks necessary for a "proper" settlement.
Don't get me wrong, I really feel for the parents of the dead children, but COME ON! Sometimes shitty stuff happens for shitty reasons, and there isn't someone conveniently standing around waiting to have a finger pointed at them! Yes, your kid is dead, and yes, that sucks . . . but that doesn't entitle you to money!
This whold damn American "tradition" of putting a price on suffering is pretty lame. What effing good is it, being rich, if a member of your family is gone?
I could go on and on, but I shan't. I think I'll go read "Bloom County."
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
I was thinking about that a few days back in the context of all the "vilify the internet" media hysteria. It came to mind as I was walking across campus, when the sight of some utility tunnels opened up for maintenance work reminded me of the days and days of media coverage after some student "disappeared" while playing live-action D&D in the tunnels under Rice University, way back when the media first heard about FRP games.
It seems that when anything new comes along and the mainstream doesn't understand it, they try to blame all the world's problems on it.
It used to piss me off when I was a teenager and my preacher would take every opportunity to mention the evils of rock & roll. Never mind that you only had to turn on a country music station for 5-10 minutes before you heard someone singing about how he had gotten drunk and futtered his best friend's wife. The preacher couldn't (or didn't see fit to) rant about that, because country music had been around for ages, everyone knew what it was, and you couldn't blame the young-uns' behavior on it, because most of the adults in the congregation had been raised on it.
Then, like you said, D&D came out and the media had to find something sinister behind it. Friends told me with a straight face that the pentagonal faces used on some of the dice (being regular solids) were a sure sign that the game involved devil worship.
Now it's national news when someone makes a pen pal over the internet and ends up getting raped or murdered when they meet in person. Never mind how many times a day these things happen after people meet in traditional settings -- the media has got to have something to get the public worried over, and since most people don't understand the internet, well, what more could the media hope for on the slow days between wars and impeachments?
In four or five years, after the "new" wears off the internet and the local newscasters finally hear about OSS, you can bet we'll be portrayed as a cult of dangerous loonies when word gets out that some notorious criminal runs Linux at home.
I guess all that rant is just my long way of saying "you got that right!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You are absolutely correct.
What is sad is that this kind of thing has been going on for years (not the first suit of its kind), but nobody seems to be able to stop it.
I wish the courts had punitive powers over litigants who bring such obviously frivilous and misguided cases to trial.
That might dissuade people from these kinds of lawsuits, but maybe I'm hoping for too much. Can people this stupid be convinced by logic?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
I don't know if the UK's game ratings are mandated by law or are voluntary, but violent games get 15 or 18 ratings in this country, just as movies with "adult" content do. My copy of Doom came with a 15 sticker on it which looks almost identical to the stickers on videos rated 15.
I personally find Doom's violence orders of magnitiude less offensive than the content of a lot of 15-rated movies. Doom just seems so obviously "pretend" to me. This will not be the case with newer, more realistic games, of course.
That having been said, there's something peculiar about this lawsuit. Everyone is familiar with the cases where it's alleged, "Song X [or Film X, or whatever] pushed my son over the deep end." Putting the obvious First Amendment defenses aside for a moment, it's clear how you might prove causation in such a case -- e.g., the song/film/whatever said "Remove your liver with a rusty spoon," and young Johnny actually removed his liver with a rusty spoon. It's clear that there's some sort of connection, even though Johnny's mental problems might mean that the connection isn't legally sufficient to make out a claim.
In this case, the plaintiffs seem to be alleging that all these media products are somehow jointly responsible for this boy's act. I have no idea how I'd go about proving that. I imagine the lawyers for each company might say to the jury, "Even if media violence drove the kid over the edge, there's no evidence before you that my client's product was the straw that broke the camel's back."
Some states, and I don't know if Kentucky is one, recognize something called "market share liability." If Bob gets poisoned by pesticide X, but it's not clear whether the pesticide was actually made by A or B, then A and B might both be held liable depending on their market share in this product (e.g., A makes 55% of the pesticide, so it pays 55% of the damages). Something like that might conceivably form the basis for dividing up liability here, but the analogy isn't great: What percentage of the "market" for media violence does Quake represent, for example?
If the case isn't settled quickly for its so-called "nuisance value," I imagine the defendants will move to dismiss the case, and they'll be successful.
It is true, violence in video games do result in more violent behaviour. Psychology 101. Adults, children and babies will ALL be noticeably more inclined to behave violently, simply after having watched a few minutes of video of someone behaving violently; with children the effect is more so than with adults. And this is just watching violence, never mind acting out violence in a murder simulation. Decades of research has proved this over and over again. There is NO debate left there.
I'm definitely not saying that these video games should be banned - after all, generally, adults who play these games are responsible enough to NOT go out and blow up other people after having a round of Quake. They should be allowed to play these games.
What I'm saying is that parents should learn that they actually have to make a bit of effort, and actually try some "responsible parenting" - games like Quake are not meant to be played by kids, it even says so on the box, IIRC. Parents are supposed to enforce that. Sure, it's a really cosy notion that parents think that they can now leave the computer or television to raise their kids.
If you don't plan on actually making an effort to be a decent responsible parent, you shouldn't be having kids.
I'm an adult. I am aware of the fact that hot liquid can burn me and injure me. I am not ignorant in this regard.
It is plain and simple COMMON SENSE. Hot liquids can burn and injure. Virtually every single person is taught this from when they are very young and all through their childhood.
Does anyone really believe that Macdonalds is supposed to put a warning label on every cup of coffee saying, "Hey, did you know that hot liquid can burn and injure you?" (Can you picture a customer reading this and saying, "really, I did not know that!". Puh-leeease! Get real. If you are a non-retarded adult and don't already know that, then you should be locked away in a padded cell so that you can't hurt yourself or others.
A policeman arrests a man.
He says it's societys fault.
The police start to arrest everybody around
the area.
way ahead of it's time
You've obviously never seen a Playborg centerfold. Lat month, it was a Quad Xeon with 256MB RAM, a full rack of SCSI drives, and the cover completely removed! Mmm-mmm.
--The basis of all love is respect
I disagree. There is a very clear-cut line between fantasy and reality. I think it's obvious what side of that line video games are. Those who cannot see the line (due to being raised badly, the probably culprit in this particular case, or being just plain wacko for whatever reason) should not be blaming others for acts they committed. It's rather like that one guy who said he went on a killing spree because he'd eaten so many Twinkies that he had gone crazy (this was a looooooooong time ago; you probably will be hard-pressed to fine a Web link to it).
I inferred it. Religious extremists in the United States have been decrying Decaying Moral Values for a couple of decades now, mostly upon uninterested or better-informed ears. The defendants in this case look very much like the laundry lists proffered by The Moral Majority, and other organizations of similar credibility.
Agreed, and none too well veiled at that.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It's difficult to editorialize this without seeming like an insensitive bastard. The loss of children to parents is incalculable and unfathomable, and their pursuit of this action speaks rather directly to the degree of pain the loss of a loved one can cause.
So, with all due respect to the families who were affected by this tragedy, this suit has "Ambulance Chaser" and "Religious Extremism" written all over it.
It's fairly evident this suit has virtually nothing to do with recovering damages for a tragic loss, and nearly everything to do with advancing a misguided political and social agenda. It's impossible to say from the brief news release whether this was hatched by the parents, the laywers, or someone else.
In the past, parents stricken with such a tragic loss have traditionally formed memorial foundations, whose goal is to raise awareness of the conditions that contributed to their loved one's death. MADD, The Polly Klaas Foundation, and others come to mind. I would counsel the parents in this situation to do the same. It is a far more lasting and constructive contribution they could make than any contrived lawsuit could ever hope to accomplish.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
When I was a kid, parents used to blame role-playing games (AD&D primarily) for stuff like this. It's simply that parents don't want to take responsibility for the fact that their children are twisted little socially-maladjusted freaks, so they hold up the first scapegoat they can lay hands on. These days it's violent movies and video games. It used to be role playing games. Before that it was rock & roll.
None of these things are banned yet, tho', so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The courts (of most countries) have plenty of precendent on record that will avoid really stupid things from happening.
- deb
Take another look at the game developers that are being sued: Sega and Nintendo. Now, take a look at the games being accused of "influencing" this guy: Doon, Quake, and Mortal Kombat.
What's wrong with this picture? Perhaps these parents should at least be suing the companies that make the games they hate so much?
Actually, if they're suing anyone it should be the parents of the shooter (notice that the parents of the shooter are not involved in this case at all) for doing a damn poor joob of raising a kid who couldn't even distinguish between fantasy and reality enough to refrain from going on a shooting rampage.
Tools that parents have to do this of their own free will are Good Things. I will also turn around and say that some of these tools add up to outright censorship, which is a Bad Thing. Parents have the right and duty to censor for their children; the government has neither.
OTOH, I do not believe that the above is any excuse for any lawsuit of the form "This child listened to this song or watched that movie and then went psycho". It is true; there are people who will play a game of Doom (or watch a violent show, or listen to a violent song), and do something horrible. Sometimes this will involve killing themselves or somebody else. This should raise some large flags: this kid was messed up beforehand.
There are some sick people out there, basically bombs ready to go off. They have hidden triggers. Sooner or later, someone or something is going to pull the trigger without realizing it. They won't even know that there was a bomb to be triggered. The one who pulls the trigger is in no way responsible for the bomb; they had no way of knowing. It could be Ozzy Osborne. It could be Danny Osmond.
So who is responsible? first off, the person who lost control is responsible for losing control (how many people forget this one!). You can argue that some people are so far gone that they have no control over themselves; I won't argue that, so long as those people get a free trip to the rubber rooms. People without self control have no place in society, regardless of why they have no self control.
In the case of a child who loses control, the parents or guardians are responsible for their own negligence in parenting. Again, I will offer exceptions for parents who realized that they could not control their child and tried to get help. Some kids are too much for some parents to handle, but these parents must make every effort, and enlist help. The parents who don't talk to their kids, don't know what their lives are like, don't know their friends--I have little sympathy for.
You can argue that the world is responsible for saturating a young mind with violent imagery. Unfortunately, the world cannot be held accountable for anything. You can change the world, though. Don't like the violent TV shows? Change the channel. Don't let your kids watch it. Teach them other ways to solve problems and deal with their anger. Get together with others and write letters to the broadcasters. This is a capitalism; companies put out the sex and violence because it sells. Vote with your wallet, and with your remote control. If enough concerned parents stop watching the violent shows and start watching other, next season's lineup will be full of non-violent programming. This is already happening, for those in range of a PAX TV station.
--The basis of all love is respect