Games Seized Following Murder 354
GamePolitics reports that M-rated games have been taken as evidence a case involving the death of a 55-year old man in Louisiana. The connection? Jack Thompson says: "Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hitman or a videogamer." GP goes on to point out the lunacy of this claim. From the site: "Funny, that. A quick Google search on 'shot in the face' turns up 921,000 entries."
Why is that Jack (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this a comment on similar mentalities between hitmen and videogamers or is Jack trying to say they're the only people with good enough aim to hit consistent head shots?
Seriously though, how is this news? If the police are building any sort of murder case against anyone, they are going to sieze everything remotely related to murder and killing. Whether it be videogames, music, movies, books, etc. anything that helps the DA say, "this person has murder on the mind, and here is what I have to back that up."
Google stats are meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of this is that you can't extrapolate something like a Google search into evidence. Police who have experience with crime probably have a somewhat better perspective on the hows and whys of crime than you Joe Searchbot does.
Re:Shot in the face (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's hard to even feign surprise, but dammit, things are fucked up.
Re:Cheney plays videogames? (Score:5, Insightful)
GamePolitics? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Google stats are meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
One Question... (Score:4, Insightful)
One Question: when is Jack Thompson going to prison? His abuse of the legal system and profound negative influence on society has to end.
The surest sign that the litigation indust--, er, justice system in the US is broken is that this guy hasn't been disbarred yet.
"The best weapon is a sharp mind" (Score:4, Insightful)
So what's our best defense against him? Frankly, I think the last thing Jack Thompson would want is to be ignored. He probably likes the animosity he's building with the gaming community, and he'll like making headlines many times more. Let's just ignore the fellow, and at some point he may start campaigning against diet sodas or the ulterior motives of figure skaters ("Nobody wears blades that sharp...unless they want to kill.").
Jack Thompson is a useless twit. (Score:3, Insightful)
But we have this stupid jerk who's gone on a personal crusade against games. He'd better serve the public by going after crime in general. But I guess that wouldn't grab the headlines quite like his vendetta against games.
As for the police seizing games for evidence, I think thats perfectly reasonable. I expect the police to leave no stone unturned in any murder investigation.
How come... (Score:2, Insightful)
In all seriousness, I'd like to see just how many "video gamers" were convicted of shooting someone in the face.
I'd also like to see how many people have been shot in the face prior to violent video games. Throw in how many violent crimes were committed in the US since the advent of violent video games vs. prior to violent video games. Add to that the average yearly income of the person responsible for a violent crime who is not a dependent, and see if they could even afford video games. Add to that a demographic study of who plays video games vs. a demographic study of who commits violent crimes. And one more thing... Take the demographic of video gamers and see how many people in that demographic have actually committed violent crimes.
I'd be very interested to see the results of THAT study. I imagine Mr. Thompson, however, would not.
Re:"The best weapon is a sharp mind" (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure he likes the animosity somewhat. But gamers are not who Jack is targeting for action -- he is targeting non-gamers to get them to pass laws we (in general) do not like.
If *everyone* would ignore him, he'd no longer be a pest. But the major problem is that there are plenty of people who either agree with his opinions, or too apathetic to disagree with him. So, if you want Jack gone, you've got to play his game and beat him at it -- make sure Joe Sixpack understands that games don't kill people, irresponsible parents and unstable kids and easy access to guns and a ton of other factors (and sometimes just accidents!) kill people.
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
"I was aiming for his heart."
"Well, you missed."
The only thing I can think of the OP referring to is the phenomenon where the bullet skims the cranium underneath the skin, popping out the other side and giving the victim a hell of a headache. Tends to happen with low-powered rounds that literally richochet off the skull. It's a freakish enough occurance that I doubt you'd avoid shooting someone in the head.
It is true, however, that self-defense courses do not teach to aim for the head; it's a small target, and you're not going for style points. I remember being asked, "When do you stop firing in a self defense situation?"
The answer? "When the magazine is empty."
Re:Thompson is a Moron. (Score:4, Insightful)
The man is ignorant, uncooperative, and a lawyer... but he can still be broken -- if he became disbarred, lost his fandom, and studies were released proving that there is no link between videogames and violence... that would be a fate for him worse than death.
No, if any of that happens, he will simply become a politician and run for Congress. He's a fanatic, and fanatics rarely back down, even when proved wrong. Look at all these Doomsday cults where the "leader" predicts the end of the world and miraculously, it never comes. Do their "followers" abandon them? No -- they believe the new tripe the leader makes up to explain why his prediction comes true. See? Same thing as politics...
Does this count? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln [wikipedia.org]
Someone care to edit that wiki page to include Booth's suggested "mad 1337 GTA sk!llzs"?
Re:Why is that Jack (Score:5, Insightful)
Also from TFA: "I think (the murder) goes beyond video games, but who's to say?," Dilworth commented, adding that the question of whether video games lead to youth violence might be "more of a debate for the living room rather than the courtroom."
Doesn't sound like the local police are too amused with Jack Thompson's "theories". Once again, this isn't news because the games that were siezed will play no role in the murder trial. The cops are like, "Yea we found M-rated video games, who cares? The kid confessed."
Jack Thompson is a crackpot and the only reason he gets any attention at all is because people see his name in an article and suddenly its a top story.
Re:Jack Thompson is a useless twit. (Score:4, Insightful)
We can't afford to ignore him, but we CAN afford to make as much fun of him as possible and make sure EVERYONE knows just exactly how preposterous everything he says is. This means everything from simple 'gamers have a tendency to copy their games' to 'gamers are evil, disgusting creatures that would as soon shoot you in the face as look at you' and everything in-between. His tamest-sounding speech is poison to the minds of anyone involved with law. Every single thing that he gets someone to believe is a blow to the freedom of gamers around the USA. (Luckily, he hasn't spread world-wide yet.)
We cannot afford to be lax because the only 'experts' in this field are us. If we ignore him, he gets to run rampant.
Please... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Thompson is a Moron. (Score:4, Insightful)
In this episode, Morticia responds, "Now, now, Uncle Fester, you'll do no such thing."
"In the side?" suggests Fester.
"No," Morticia answers firmly. "We shall settle this issue through legal channels."
Fester looks doubtful. "Shooting's safer," he points out.
Sometimes I agree with Fester.
Re:the CSI Miami connection (Score:2, Insightful)
Haven't seen that one. Tell me about it?
oh, there was a game development firm that had a "live" contest with their new game, where Univ Miami students competed to rack up points by playing the game "live" and robbing banks, shooting people, etc, all while wearing hockey masks spraypainted. Turned out the winner was a young woman, one of the player helpers died while playing online for 72 hours straight, and the game firm was supplying full auto weapons and armor-piercing bullets.
This is why much of America thinks that gamers are murderers, IMHO. It's a very popular show.
Re:Cheney plays videogames? (Score:2, Insightful)
And because that would be like trying to figure out if people who watch television commit violence. Twenty years ago, games were toys and gamers were a small subset of the population. now they have become mainstream entertainment. I'd probably wonder more about the family that __doesn't__ have a video game system, because they are probably of low socioeconomic status, living in a bad neighborhood, where shooting someone in the face is a career move, or they are either hippies or amish. Either way, they do not represent a state of "normal" that we would return to if we just threw our televisions away.
Re:Google stats are meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh man, I shot Marvin in the face." - Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction
"It was one of the worst days of my life." - Dick Cheney on Fox
Re:Cheney plays videogames? (Score:3, Insightful)
My pet peeve is the extra horizontal space between lines, but I think they have the same root cause:
The text is too damn small to be legible without them.
PLEASE can we have an alternate stylesheet that respects our browser font settings?
Re:Google stats are meaningless (Score:3, Insightful)
Which makes it trivial.
Crooks of all sorts have been routinely shooting for the face since a media blitz made them aware that essentially all police (and some civilians) are routinely wearing kevlar bullet-resistant vests.
Interestingly, the media blitz was part of the gun-ban movment's "cop-killer bullets" hysteria. The so-called cop-killer bullets were teflon coated - not to pentrate vests - but to avoid barrel wear. In fact:
- The teflon coating didn't help them penetrate vests.
- Essentially nobody but cops HAD them. (The particular bullet that started the flap was intended to penetrate sheet metal rather than bouncing off into bystanders or back at the shooter - an important matter when somebody is shooting at you from inside a car or through a little window in a fire door.)
- No such bullet had ever killed a cop.
- Police organizations PLEADED with the the media NOT to go on with this kick and thus inform the crooks that they were bullet resistant on the core body and unprotected on the head - and were ignored.
So now head shots are routine - BECAUSE of the media. (Using them in a video game is just adding a touch of realism.) So of course (as with violent TV programs and movies inspiring copycats) media operators want to deflect criticism toward their major competitors: video games, graphic novels, police procedural fiction, and the internet.
In puritanical America... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shot in the face (Score:1, Insightful)
And you know what? Sex crime rates are LOWER in Japan than elsewhere in the world. Says something about an open vs. a repressive sexual attitude.
Sweden's pretty open too, from what I hear.
Check out http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.
Re:The proof this is false... (Score:3, Insightful)
seriously though, what do you think a guy like me would find so hard about pulling a handgun up, aiming down the sights,
You forgot to get a proper stance.
and squeezing without flinching (set your aim off)
You forgot breathing. (Not to mention loading the damned thing...)
- or holding a rifle square in your shoulder,
Err... did you zero that rifle? And, again, you need proper posture whether you're standing up, in the prone or sitting down.
aiming down the sights,
Cheek to stock weld? Sight picture?
holding his breath, and
Holding your breath is the opposite of what you want to do. You breath normally and after a few breaths you pause to acquire your sight picture and fire.
squeezing again without flinching?
Of course, since you were breathing *after* you aimed your sight picture has moved around. And you have to "follow through" as golfers say when you squeeze the trigger so that it's fully depressed.
now shooting with a person in front of the barrel and living with it - thats a different story - you could go to a shooting range all the time, be an olympic class marksman, and it'd still drive you to a mental ward...
As I understand, combat vets will develop PTSD after extended combat, and very few PTSD sufferers are institutionalized.
So I'm pretty sure shooting one person isn't going to put you in the loony bin. Grief stricken, maybe, but if someone was trying to kill me I think I could handle it.
Re:Shot in the face (Score:5, Insightful)
Both? I find that exposing my child to both allows me to make sure that my child has a mature understanding of the matter. I have never understood parents who thought that censoring life from their children would somehow magically result in them being BETTER able to cope when they encounter the censored aspects of life.
Life is life and kids will discover it, you can be upfront with it from the very beginning (sex is no more difficult for a children to cope with than any other bodily function at a very young age) or you can wait. Waiting presents a wonderful opportunity for thier 5 year old friends to share bad information and misunderstandings, parts or which may not be corrected for years. The older children are the less absolutely they trust their parents and the more they trust friends and other sources of information (the is especially true if parents have told them fairytales and censored their lives as young children). Those misunderstandings could even lead to deep set behavioral patterns since the primarily functions of the brain are still developing when the child learns this information.
As for violence. Humans are violent creatures. Children will discover violence even if they never saw any outside input. It is only a matter of time before they commit violent acts of their own based on instinct alone. This is again another opportunity to expose them and explain the truth of the world to them. You can argue that children shouldn't have to worry about serial rape and murder. I would counter that neither should you and I. That doesn't change that these things are a fact of life and my child is going to wary of the man trying to coax him or her into a car while your child will be ignorant of the danger.
Censoring what a child is exposed to is not doing that child a favor, it is promoting ignorance and false values.