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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?
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.
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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."
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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