View Full Version : Killer Uses Video Games as Defense
splatstick
07-20-2005, 07:10 PM
Oh Jesus. They're doing it again (http://www.nbc13.com/news/4747446/detail.html).
Moore allegedly told jailers that "Life is a video game. You have to die sometime." He allegedly made the statements after stealing Strickland's gun at the police station, fatally shooting the victims and leading police on a high-speed chase.
And, to balance the bad with the good: The UN Uses Video Games to Educate (http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-07-20-voa71.cfm).
"The idea was really to get kids of the next generation involved in the issue of world hunger, and the whole idea was how to get them engaged in a way that is fun and interesting, and not too depressing," she said. "Because, of course, when you look at the broader issue of global hunger, it is indeed very grim, so this was how the idea was hatched."
KarmaGhost
07-20-2005, 08:06 PM
Coincidently, life is also like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gunna get.
eaweeks21
07-20-2005, 08:09 PM
I kind of agree with Moore. It's just a dorky metaphor. Of course that doesn't mean I should kill people since I'm gonna die some day...
Evil Avatar
07-20-2005, 08:20 PM
Coincidently, life is also like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gunna get.
You can solve that problem by repeatedly sticking a knife into life, spilling the the sugary insides of life all over the inside of the box.
Ph00p
07-20-2005, 08:23 PM
I made a snuff film at home and didn't get a boner like Nick Cage did in 9mm DAMN YOU MAINSTREAM MEDIA! *shakes fist of corpse*
Paranoia
07-20-2005, 08:25 PM
While questioning jurors, Standridge said his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by abuse and neglect as a child.
Why not blame his parent? Geezz..mankind at their best!
ezzkmo
07-20-2005, 08:26 PM
you mean 8mm
I am honestly ready for there to be laws requiring proof of age for mature rated video games. At least then the blame can be placed where it should, on the parents.
He oviously never played SimCity.
swiftdraw
07-20-2005, 08:38 PM
News like the top article makes me want to hurt people more than video games ever do... Its nice to see the UN trying to raise awareness of a nasty problem through a new (for them) medium. I hope they find at least some success.
I am honestly ready for there to be laws requiring proof of age for mature rated video games. At least then the blame can be placed where it should, on the parents.
EXACTLY! Retailers need to do their jobs, so they can stop using videogames as excuses for BAD PARENTING!
Before there were videogames, people still killed each other. Rape is still prevelant in countries without videogames or even access to lots of TVs, but it's all because of videogames!
I tell ya, I'm gonna go on a killing spree, rolling through the streets with velcro and glue all over my body, hopefully maiming people and blame it on Katamari!! :eek:
Heretic Machine
07-20-2005, 08:39 PM
I blame my parents, video games, and rap music that I don't listen to for everything I've ever done! I'm such a friggin victim!
Heretic Machine
07-20-2005, 08:57 PM
But it won't. I dont think laws like that will stop anyone from blaming video games, because the games will still be out there. And when they are done with video games they will move on to something else, because they never want to accept the fact that some people are just flawed.
I think it has more to do with them not having a life of their own. See, lots of people odn't have hobbies, so they have nothing to do but to mouth off and screw with other people. Occassionally they develop "causes" and screw with just one group of people. Go to any Housing Project and you can see this in full force.
In short: Most people need to get a hobby.
But it won't. I dont think laws like that will stop anyone from blaming video games, because the games will still be out there. And when they are done with video games they will move on to something else, because they never want to accept the fact that some people are just flawed.
It will end the political grandstanding and maybe force them to move on a little faster. It will take away their most powerful argument that the kids can (more times than not) walk right up to any counter in any video game store and walk out with a game as violent as GTA:SA. Think about it... ...they can do that but can't walk into a book store and pick up a copy of Playboy.
I manage a video game store... .. we do not sale GTA (M rated games) to kids unless the parent buys it... ...I know parents will still buy the games for their kids... ...if they are going to do that.. .let them take the heat for it, not me.
sickfallout
07-20-2005, 09:10 PM
This is the hot button right now. The new best defense for violent crime is to throw the blame onto something else, and video games have the focus now because it's still a fairly new artform.
You know what will turn this around? One day, the President will be kidnapped by ninjas, and that's when my Bad Dudes training will come in handy! "Are you a bad enough dude to rescue him?" Hell Yes!
kwillhan
07-20-2005, 09:54 PM
I think it's ridiculous to say that video games cause people to kill people, but i think it's equally ridiculous to say that video games have no effect on society, or the mental states of the people that play them.
maybe they don't make people kill people, but they do give already agitated people a medium to pretend to do so, and so maybe in there minds make it seem a little bit more ok. Saying games don't effect anything is like say the grand colleseums (sp?) in rome had no effect on the people who attended them, or that soccer games don't cause riots. Like saying that movies and music video's don't effect the clothes that people wear. Like saying famous people hold no sway over what people think.
I wonder how many more scientologists have been recruited simply because of tom cruise's rantings, and the sheep seeing that as a form of validation.
A societies entertainment venues and attractions are some of the most important and influential aspects of any society, and some would even say define them.
What if they made a game called Rape Master 5000, that would let you pretend to rape men and woman. Would that be ok? If not, then why is GTA ok?
I mean I love Grand Theft Auto, but it's a strange thing to think about.
kelly
chronocrash
07-20-2005, 10:04 PM
blah blah blah blah.
People with agendas, lawyers and politicians alike, are to blame for this kind of crap floating to the top. They're also to blame for making everyone feel like blame is justifiable. And the answer.
Deadend
07-20-2005, 10:05 PM
The guy, who is trying to Plea that he is crazy from games... is either crazy, or full of shit. Either way he should be taken out back and shot.
I think games have a minimal effect on most people, they do affect some, but those are... special people, who have PROBLEMS. As if someone plays Quake then has the urge to murder... they might have some underlying issues.
kwillhan
07-20-2005, 10:29 PM
Anyone ever seen Nell? We should raise some kid in the woods playing GTA and doing nothing else except eating and shitting, and then on his eighteenth birthday, release him into a crowded car dealership with a shot gun.
kel
eaweeks21
07-20-2005, 10:36 PM
GTA boy will also need hookers; don't forget the hookers
Dirty Harry
07-20-2005, 10:40 PM
Anyone ever seen Nell? We should raise some kid in the woods playing GTA and doing nothing else except eating and shitting, and then on his eighteenth birthday, release him into a crowded car dealership with a shot gun.
kel
that made me laugh like hell.
Deadend
07-20-2005, 10:47 PM
Anyone ever seen Nell? We should raise some kid in the woods playing GTA and doing nothing else except eating and shitting, and then on his eighteenth birthday, release him into a crowded car dealership with a shot gun.
kel
He will probably kill everyone, after being totally suprised to be in the world.
It's not exactly fair though, as you could make someone do the same by making them spend 15 years watching a Jason movie.
Actully, for the first part it sounds like a intersting experiment, as it may teach the kid to read, and even a little bit about the world, fucked up as it may be.
The video game excuse is the guy's defence, his lawyer is going to try anything he can to get his client off murder charges. This is not the prosecution saying that the game made him do it and therefore should be banned.
eaweeks21
07-20-2005, 11:20 PM
Video games look bad every time some sicko crazy lunatic uses this as a defense.
eaweeks21
07-20-2005, 11:23 PM
Maybe the industry should go ahead and add warning labels "use of product may cause insanity and cause you to go on a killing spree or do something else unforseen that is bad". This logic worked for cigs. Then people will have no one to blame but themselves.
Varsity
07-21-2005, 12:19 AM
What's really sad is that in the current climate, people are going to take him seriously. He's exploiting fears to try and get away (to whatever extent) with murder.
In the case of GTA Nell you'd have someone who wouldn't know how to actually fire a gun and certainly wouldn't be able to open a car door and jack it, let alone DRIVE the thing.
kwillhan
07-21-2005, 01:00 AM
In the case of GTA Nell you'd have someone who wouldn't know how to actually fire a gun and certainly wouldn't be able to open a car door and jack it, let alone DRIVE the thing.
Well we could give him a run down on trigger pulling, before dropping him out of the van onto the unsuspecting populus. As for learning to drive, hell, that would make it that much funner to watch.
Me = "Drive Nell, Drive!"
Nell = Kills people with Terminator like zeal.
The point was that raising children on only that medium would completely screw them up in the mind area of life. Raising them only partly on that medium, must also have an effect as well.
kel
kel
kwillhan
07-21-2005, 01:07 AM
Video games look bad every time some sicko crazy lunatic uses this as a defense.
video games look bad when crazy people talk about them? What about when they have black males killing prostitutes in order to get the money they just paid them for sex, back?
video games make video games look bad, just like my wifes ass makes her ass look fat, not the pants.
I'm definitely not saying that there shouldn't be a GTA in the world, but, I mean come on people. Does that shit not deserve an AO rating?
I mean you can seriously kill people for the money to buy clothes in GTA. Well, to be fair, you can spend that money on clothes, guns, whores, hair cuts, and ... what else? food?
The entire point of the game is to do illegal things! Kill Murder Death Kill! Don't ban it, but make it punishable to let a child play it, I say. If some guy, like me, gets it and sets his 8 year old up with it, and lets them get hoes, and shoot police officers, and get a thrill out of that, they should be fined heavily. That should be a crime.
AO rating should have been there from the get go.
Silly kwilhan, ultraviolence is for everyone.
I thought the whole point about doing illegal things in a game was that it was a <gasp> game? I do illegal things when I roleplay too - just carrying a sword or gun is illegal where I come from.
The reason I'm still alive and out of jail is because I know the difference between Cyberpunk 2020, AD&D and the real world.
kwillhan
07-21-2005, 02:40 AM
Silly kwilhan, ultraviolence is for everyone.
I thought the whole point about doing illegal things in a game was that it was a <gasp> game? I do illegal things when I roleplay too - just carrying a sword or gun is illegal where I come from.
The reason I'm still alive and out of jail is because I know the difference between Cyberpunk 2020, AD&D and the real world.
Exactly.
This kind of pretended serial killer was never available until at least the last 5 or 10 years or so have come upon us and past us by.
How old are you? When you were 11 were you play fighting as a gangster that steals cars and kills police? At that age I was at the mere point of killing indians with my cowboys.
And in my extensive AD&D roleplaying, I have yet to shoot a motorcycle cop in the head, steal his bike, and then speed extenstively throughout small towns, running over variously innocent people, until finally stopping, and climbing onto a local fast food joint to snipe various law enforcement officials that wander below.
I did that in GTA, but not ADnD. And whatever I did in that game was certainly not represented to me in the latest and greastest three dimensional console graphics. And I wasn't 11. or 8.
kel
My imagination = better graphics than PS2
And some of the things I've done whilst playing pissed off Chaos Warriors, immortals, Sabbat Vampires and Cyber Psycho mercenaries have been pretty gruesome.
LilEvilFish
07-21-2005, 02:55 AM
Can we all agree that if we ever go on a gun toting rampage, that we leave a well written note that completely denies the involvement of games in our insanity. Even if you scream at the police about your AWP or BFG, games still weren't involved. Thanks.
Thenetcase
07-21-2005, 05:11 AM
The idea was really to get kids of the next generation involved in the issue of world hunger
I'm calling bull on this one. They are just trying to figure out how to take something they don't have control over yet and gain control over it. They'll be doing it with websites soon too.
If they really wanted to solve the "world hunger" problem, they would stop PAYING American farmers NOT to grow food/livestock. They would also pick up and continue the agriculture research that Ronald Reagan started and George Bush SR. stopped.
They would also realize that India's agriculture is down over 65% from where it was 10 years ago and they would try to help them get that back up there by showing them more efficient ways of farming.
China's agriculture is down by huge percentages too, due to millions of people leaving the countryside and going into the cities.
Cities aren't bad, don't get me wrong. People just need to learn how to be efficient farmers and our government needs to stop paying people to not grow stuff. We could export a huge amount of food (corn, especially) to India and China each year if our farmers grew food like they used to.
This world hunger crap is a ploy to gain control. It's complete bullshit.
-TNC-
splatstick
07-21-2005, 05:41 AM
This world hunger crap is a ploy to gain control. It's complete bullshit.
Wow man, just.... wow.
You're right! That's all we'd have to do to reduce world hunger! Why hasn't anyone thought of it before? Jesus, let's veto Bush and elect you! With your wise, all-knowing mind, things such as world hunger can be trivialized and attributed to things that don't have anything to do with it.
Take the aluminum foil off your head. If you're looking for a legitimate cause, there are plenty out there. You don't have to make anymore up.
splatstick
07-21-2005, 05:49 AM
As a matter of fact, Netcase, checking into your interesting theory has brought up several other interesting leads!!!!!!!!
PENTAGON MISSLE! (http://www.scam.com/images/pentagon.swf)
Arnie is the Antichrist! (http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=133&contentid=1751)
BAT BOY steals car, goes on THREE STATE JOYRIDE (http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/chamber/53902)
I think we're on to something big, here.
MosBen
07-21-2005, 07:56 AM
I'd just like to point out that the Army, Navy and now the UN seem to think that video games can influence behavior. I'm not saying that they train you to be an efficient killer, but I wonder how people here can say that games can potentially have the positive effect of encouraging kids to do good things, but can't possibly have any hand whatsoever in encouraging bad behavior.
Banacek
07-21-2005, 09:24 AM
And yet, somehow, no one seems to mention the guns in any of these cases.
/Only in America
bradlay
07-21-2005, 10:06 AM
Well this was inevitable.
splatstick
07-21-2005, 10:55 AM
I'd just like to point out that the Army, Navy and now the UN seem to think that video games can influence behavior. I'm not saying that they train you to be an efficient killer, but I wonder how people here can say that games can potentially have the positive effect of encouraging kids to do good things, but can't possibly have any hand whatsoever in encouraging bad behavior.
No, they can definately have an effect. Army games help train squad-based tatics, and can help improve overall strategy. Video games ARE correlated with violence, but correlation is next to meaningless from a scientific viewpoint.
For example, ice cream sales and muggings are correlated. No, seriously, they are. But it is only because in the summer time, when more more are outside, more ice cream is sold. More people outside means more muggings. Always keep this in mind when a correlation is mentioned.
B_Money
07-21-2005, 01:18 PM
No, they can definately have an effect. Army games help train squad-based tatics, and can help improve overall strategy. Video games ARE correlated with violence, but correlation is next to meaningless from a scientific viewpoint.
For example, ice cream sales and muggings are correlated. No, seriously, they are. But it is only because in the summer time, when more more are outside, more ice cream is sold. More people outside means more muggings. Always keep this in mind when a correlation is mentioned.
After I mug somebody, I like to treat myself to an ice cream cone to celebrate.
mister_slim
07-21-2005, 08:02 PM
After I mug somebody, I like to treat myself to an ice cream cone to celebrate.
That's why you mug the icecream truck driver.
Video games look bad every time some sicko crazy lunatic uses this as a defense.It's obviously a bogus defence though and will never be viable, so the more that this happens, the more people will realise that violent games are not a defence and do not affect stable-minded individuals. As for "crazy" people being affected, I think that a game is the least of their problems, their crimes will be blamed on their psychological problems before a game.
No prosecutor wants the defendant to go free because he was influenced by the game, so they will provide mountains of evidence disputing the excuse.
kwillhan
07-22-2005, 12:38 AM
It's obviously a bogus defence though and will never be viable, so the more that this happens, the more people will realise that violent games are not a defence and do not affect stable-minded individuals. As for "crazy" people being affected, I think that a game is the least of their problems, their crimes will be blamed on their psychological problems before a game.
No prosecutor wants the defendant to go free because he was influenced by the game, so they will provide mountains of evidence disputing the excuse.
I think you are wrong. The home run reason to involve video games in a case is to say that they are addictive, and some of them, namely the best selling GTA, involve acting out brutal crimes on completely innocent by standers that have done nothing to the main character other than exist.
so gamers say only a crazy person would view a game like that.
And lawyers say, games make people like that.
The argument isn't about whether games are over the top and totally fucking insane. We all know that they are. They are beyond the forgiving of god. The argument is whether or not the games can cause that kind of behavior.
I think they can. If a person were to be raised on that medium of entertainment, and only that, they would be screwed in the head. If they are only partially raised on that medium, then doesn't it affect them somehow?
I'm probably repeating myself.
Too much GTA :)
kel
splatstick
07-22-2005, 03:49 AM
That's why you mug the icecream truck driver.
Shit, man, Twisted Metal has me so scared of ice cream truck drivers I won't go fucking NEAR then.
If a person were to be raised on that medium of entertainment, and only that, they would be screwed in the head. If they are only partially raised on that medium, then doesn't it affect them somehow?That can be said of anything though, as with all things, games should be taken in moderation. I don't see alcohol companies being blamed when someone gets drunk and assaults someone else.
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