Boy's Accidental Patricide Blamed on Games

[Lunar Templar]

right ....
it was all video games fault ...

had nothing to do with the dad leaving a load weapon in reach of a child, nor with, what sounds like a spoiled brat not getting his way

 

[Cheeseman Muncher]

I know this is repeating what's already been said but this story raises a LOT of questions:

How the hell did a four year old get access to a handgun?

Why the hell was it loaded?

Why the hell wasn't the safety on? If it was, how the hell did he know how to take it off? I've played many, many video games and they rarely, if ever, show you doing that.

A loaded handgun is (fairly) weighty, particularly for a small child, so how was he able to accurately aim it at his dad? (According to the internet, a 9mm pistol weighs about a kilo when loaded. Go ask a four year old to pick up a big bag of sugar and they'll have difficulty holding it.)

Assuming video games are to blame (which I absolute refute the possibility of), why was he allowed to play them?

And finally, why the hell was it not drummed into him that guns are bad and can seriously injure, if not kill, someone?

If this story is indeed true, I blame the parents. Plonking your kid in front of a computer is NOT a substitute for proper parenting. QED.

 

[Quakester]

This reminds me of this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAE-m2KOjSg

 

[dalek sec]

Why the hell did he leave a freaking loaded gun where the kid could get to it? Sounds like crappy parenting, either that or the kids got issue's for shooting his father in the damn head like that.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Jesus Christ! Who leaves a loaded gun where their kid can use it?! And did it ever occur to you that this kid had issues? Did you ever think about that?!

 

[Smeagol150]

The most concerning thing to me is having a bullet loaded in the chamber of his gun already. Now, I don't know what gun was used in the shooting, but I'm pretty sure a 4 year old can't chamber a round on most guns by himself.

Speaking as someone with a CCW, even when carrying, I would never have a round in the chamber unless it was a situation that called for it. Undressing does not call for it.

I'm calling somewhat shenanigans on this. I don't want to sound insensitive to the death of a man, but really this sounds a bit off to me. If he is truly dead, I'm sorry for his loss but to blame this on anything other than the man himself for his actions leading up to it is doing everyone else a disservice.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

Gun left within reach of four-year-old kid. Not smart. I'm just glad it was the moron who left the gun there and not the kid who died.

 

[Baldr]

I'm stating right now that this story is a fabrication to begin with.

 

[Kimarous]

Why OF COURSE videogames are to blame! He was obviously impersonating this:


How the kid got access to a loaded gun in the first place? Pssh! IRRELEVANT!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Let's break this down.

In this case, the 4-year-old had likely seen shootings enacted in a videogame he played. When he shot his father, he did not realize he would actually cause him harm; he was merely copying what he had already seen. There have been other cases of kids acting out or harming someone else after playing a videogame

-Oh, he had likely seen shootings enacted in a video game? So you're arguing against video games based on what the child had likely seen. So nothing new? Anti-video game crusaders spouting shit without any evidence.

-games don't make people violent. That's absurd. If people hated violence so much there would be no violent video games and violent movies. They wouldn't sell. People make and sell things that other people like. And we like violence. We might hate violence in real life, but we love fake violence on screen and in video games. There are some people who don't even like that though. My mother's one of them. She thinks Worms are too violent. But I digress.

-Violent video games are not for children. If your 4 year old child is playing Call of Duty it's your own damn fault. Don't blame video games, blame parents.

-People have always been violent. It's in our nature.
But look at the statistics once in a while. Violence is lower today than ever before. The only difference is that today the entire world is connected and we have sensationalist media who only talk about bad things happening in the world because good things are boring. What would your average citizen rather want to hear about, a man beaten to death with by a dildo wielding mob of junkies, or a child prodigy playing violin like a professional musician at the age of 4?
Someone started this whole "violent video games are ruining children" and stupid people without an ounce of critical thought are buying into it.

Another thing. Why the fuck did that guy keep a loaded gun in a place so easily accessible to a 4 year old?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

That's just bad parenting. You keep hazardous chemicals, sharp objects, and loaded weapons away from children, especially entitled children inclined to shoot you. Sad thing is, the kid doesn't even know he's accountable, and doesn't even know how much of his life he just fucked up.

 

[scarab7]

Herp Derp guys we have to use same logic people use to justify the link between violence and video games. Think about guys, the kid didn't get the Playstation and shot his father, so therefore everyone who does not receive a Playstation from their father will in turn shoot their father. Lack of Playstation lead to violent murders, you can tell because it happened.

But in all seriousness it really disturbs me that so many of the people that advocate video games are a major cause of violence use the generalization "Video games are in a opposite world where murder is good, so kids think that."

 

[Nerexor]

I think I'll wait for this story to appear in an actual news source, because there are too many oddities for me to believe it's real.

Firstly, a four year old able to accurately headshot someone? Guns are heavy, and firing one means a small explosion is going off on the gun in your hand(s), making it difficult for an untrained ADULT to hit someone in the TORSO. Let alone a deliberate freaking headshot by a four year old.

Secondly, even if video games are somehow magically at fault, the kid should not have been exposed to them. Games with pronounced amounts of even semi-realistic gunplay are at least rated TEEN (or equivalent rating in other countries). The most I'd maybe let a four year old see is little big planet. Games have a system in place designed to inform parents that maybe their kid shouldn't be playing Gun Game: Shoot All the Things until they are psychologically able to tell that this is not a good thing to do in real life. If this four year old had been exposed to large amounts of ANY violent media, then I could see this being a "monkey see monkey do" where the kid sees the gun, is upset at dad, and shoots. That is not the industries fault, that is the parent's fault for letting a four year old be exposed to copious amounts of violence. And, y'know, for leaving a freaking LOADED GUN around your kid.

Thirdly, I'm going to reiterate Smeagol150's point, why was a round chambered in this gun? For this to happen either this four year old knew how to turn off the safety and chamber a round (which a kid that age may not be able to do, I gather it requires a bit of effort even from an adult). That also means I'm pretty sure he'd been taught by more than video games, I've played a lot of shooters and I have no clue where a safety would be on a gun. So either the kid did this, or the gun was lying around with no safety and a round ready to fire. That makes it not an issue of video game violence, but an issue of total absence of gun safety in a home.

TL;DR, this doesn't add up, and even if it is true, I really doubt you can blame video games for it. Not that it will stop Fox News from trying once they hear about it.

 

[Jodah]

Boy's Accidental Patricide Blamed on Games

Instead of calling for gun safety reforms, the tragic accident dredged up old arguments about violence in games and how it influences the young.

Permalink

It's not a problem with either. It is a problem with parenting. The gun didn't shoot itself and the games didn't make the kid do it. Blaming the gun is no different than the morons blaming the video games.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

The fact that they call themselves the fucking "Christian Post" should tell you everything you need to know.

It should also probably tell you that writing a long post "debunking" their blatant bullshit is kind of a mug's game. If there's a story here, it's that shitty journalists need to be accountable already.

 

[algalon]

Has anyone considered where this news is coming out of? This is the middle-east. Chances are this kid had target practice since he was old enough to walk. He didn't need videogames or television to make him violent when all he needs to do is look out his window.

 

[subtlefuge]

Kids a fucking nutcase, videogames did fuck all.

Well actually the kid almost certainly isn't a "nutcase", children don't usually properly understand death (especially the whole not coming back bit) until they're between 5 and 7 so this kid very likely had no idea Daddy would be dead permanently. He may well have copied video games too although it's not the games fault of course, it's the parents for leaving a loaded gun around.

I'm agreeing with the he's a nutcase theory. When I was 4, I cried when I saw cartoon characters shot. No matter how angry I got, I wasn't about to duplicate the opening from Bambi. There's definitely a connection between "Bambi's parent was shot" and "I don't want my parent to be shot". The inability to properly understand the consequences does not mean that all children have the capacity for malice to pull and discharge a weapon at someone.

If his capacity to shoot and kill his own father doesn't make him a psychopath, the fact that he killed his dad out of greed when he was 4 will turn him into a sociopath.

 

[Royas]

Yeah, the bigger issue heres are both letting a four-year-old play video games and, most importantly, leaving a fucking loaded gun within his reach.

I get absolutely livid whenever I read a story like this. I'm a gun owner, have been for years, and I truly believe it taking guns away from idiots who leave firearms, loaded or not, where kids can get them. You never, NEVER allow your loaded sidearm to leave your control. Ne. Ver. No exceptions. When I hand my sidearm to somebody (for example, at a party at a friend's house where I will be drinking) I pull the clip, clear the chamber and strip out the return spring. Voila! A firearm that isn't going to kill somebody in a tragic accident.

That weapon should never have been put where the child could get it. If there was no way to avoid it being laid in reach of the child, it should have been cleared first. That poor kid. He's going to have to live with having killed his father all his life, and it wasn't even his fault. In this case, the victim is actually the one who pulled the trigger.