This may have been discussed before, as it happened in the summer. But I just caught news of it today on TV, as well as information on the lawsuit that was filed on Monday.
To sum it up, a 14-year-old and his 16-year-old stepbrother took shotguns up to the highway, and opened fire on passing cars. They wounded one girl, and killed a man in a different car. They said they were re-enacting something they saw in Grand Theft Auto, and now the families of the victims have filed a $246 million lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart.
News stories from the 5th of September and Thursday here:
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/...t_murders.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/22/vi....ap/index.html
A friend of mine said in a rant of her own, "Do they also think they can survive a head-on collision at 75 mph with a fucking diesel? Maybe they should give it a try, and rid the rest of us of their stupidity, and stop breathing our fucking air."
I love how they say they didn't mean to hit people. If you are FIRING SHOTGUNS AT CARS YOU HAVE ALL INTENTIONS OF HITTING PEOPLE. A statement like that should immediately be responded to with police brutality.
I also love that the law states they can only be held at a state juvenile detention center until the age of 19. I am not familiar on this situation, but can someone answer me this: After that date, can they be tried and convicted to a federal prison? Because it really sounds like they cant, and their 3 and 5 years in juvenile hall is the extent of their punishment.
I am sick and tired of people pointing the fingers at video games. MAYBE they did get the idea from the game, but you can't say that for sure. And that is not the point. The decision was their own, and if they were incapable to understand that they were going to hurt people and/or suffer the consequences, they have no right being free to live in society, let alone be in possession of a video game not intended to be played by people in their age range.
This leads me to another question: Did anyone sue The Beatles for Charles Manson's murders? I honestly don't know, and if they did, fuck them.
The point is, it should be made a rule of the justice system that no actions of the accused/guilty can be blamed on a video game, TV show, book, magazine, movie, music, etc, UNLESS the media being blamed contains content that clearly states that real-life actions based on the themes the accused/guilty was exposed are encouraged.
The kids, whether they lack normal human logic or not, are responsible for their actions, and CAN NOT lay blame onto anyone but themselves, or possibly their parents. They did something that was against the law and incredibly stupid, and the only thing to blame is a lack of intelligence and/or psychological issues, BOTH OF WHICH would be present in the person whether they played the game or not. If they took inspiration from the video game, too fucking bad. Go cry over your loved one's grave for the rest of your fucking life, and deal with it. Inspiration is not a viable excuse for a crime, nor for a lawsuit.
However, if the Wal-Mart also included in the lawsuit sold the game to the children, without the parents present, then they should be held responsible for disregarding their civil duty to uphold the ratings system (which may actually be a law rather than civil duty, but I can't remember), by being punished for that and that alone. But they should not be held responsible in a lawsuit regarding murder.
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