Boy's Accidental Patricide Blamed on Games

[Royas]

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.

The story as told in the posting is pretty clear.

The kid got hold of the gun when Daddy put it down on the bed, probably when changing or something.

It was probably loaded because carrying an empty gun is pretty much useless, unless you need a particularly nasty looking paperweight. It probably had a round chambered because that's the way many people carry pistols, locked and loaded. Or it may have been a revolver, which always has a round ready to fire.

Not all guns have safeties, for example many double action only auto-loading pistols depend on the very long trigger pull to prevent a discharge, with a pull weight of 6 lbs or more. And while there are revolvers with actual safeties on them, they aren't particularly common.

While a full-sized handgun can weigh a hell of a lot more than a kilo, a small .380 or .32 pocket pistol (like a Ruger LCP) might weigh less than 500 grams, an easy weight for a small child. I can actually stop noticing that I have my LCP on my belt pretty easily, it's so light.

Many people don't teach children firearm safety because it either doesn't occur to them, or because they have some odd notion that not knowing about firearms somehow makes the children safer. I'm not sure how that logic works, but I've actually had anti-gun acquaintances say that very thing. It was quite possibly one of the stupidest things I had ever heard, but there you go, people are pretty dumb sometimes.

And finally, you are right that this was a failure in parenting. Putting a loaded weapon where a child could get it was the failure, as opposed to the computer use, in my opinion. But I definitely agree that the parents really frakked this one up, not the kid and not the game industry. This is all on the parents.

 

[JoJo]

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.

Psycho/sociopath are due to lack of empathy, not lack of understanding of consequences or capacity to do anything. If you think that he deliberately shot his own father knowing the consequences then I'm afraid you must be the nutcase here, or possibly you've never met a 4 year old before. 4 year olds can barely wipe their own behind, let alone carry out a murder! There's no malice in shooting a gun at someone if you don't know it will injure or kill them.

All this is assuming the source for the story is genuine, which I'm a little sceptical of but for now we'll run with it.

 

[Rad Party God]

Meh


Of course it's just awful that a 4 year old shot his dad on the head, but I just dont buy this "it's all teh vidyagaems fault!" bullshit.
Especially for something that came from the middle-east.

Bad parenting is bad parenting, no matter how a stupid christian post wants to coat it.

 

[DanteLives]

Why would you have a gun in the sight of a 4 year old anyway? Both bad parenting and tantrum throwing children are to blame.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Gun: The world's oldest point-and-click interface.

Someone gets it right on the first try, ZOMG VIDEO GAMES!

 

[Rule Britannia]

If he hadn't had a playstation before which he probably hadn't because he's 4 then what could he possibly have as a reference. It was far more likely to be television, be it movies or a 30 minute broadcasted show.

 

[Questalace]

IF this kid can aim a gun, fire it, get a 'HEADSHOT' and kill his father in cold blood at the age of four don't you kind of think this kid is going to be his country's best militant asset when he grows up?

But on topic, the kids is probably 1 out of 100,000 kids that are exposed to video game violence. I think it is more accurate to say the kid was just not right in the head, I mean did watching the Looney tunes or Tom and Jerry ever make you beat people up with frying pans?

 

[FallenMessiah88]

The way I see it, this is just a classic example of:

- Child wants something.
- Parent won't give it.
- Child throws a tantrum.

The only difference here is that the tantrum unfortunately led to a mans death.

Also, bad parenting might have had something to do with it.

 

[ElPatron]

It baffles me how someone with a kid isn't responsible enough to give him a lesson in firearms safety.

There is a possibility the kid didn't actually know what the gun could do. I can't imagine how he will grow up with that weight on his chest.

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.)

So the "internet" made you a description of a firearm which has a frame that can be made of steel, alloy or even polymer (HUGE variations in density) and they were able to accurately tell you how many rounds were in the magazine (it makes a difference in weight) despite the fact that some frames can accommodate 12, 15 or even 17 rounds?

And so far there was no evidence of it being a 9x19mm firearm.

(I know it's not hard, but I had no idea what safety or even a trigger was when I was four)?

Some firearms don't have safeties. Yeah, they require people to keep their booger pickers off the boom switch until ready to shoot.

 

[Torrasque]

*reads*

Ok folks, nothing to see here. Just the usual, "ignore all other factors and blame vidya games cuz they are satan worship".

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Who the fuck leaves a loaded gun within reach of a fucking four year old? I can not get over the stupidity of that. GOD!

 

[TheVioletBandit]

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 fully agree with your statement. Unfortunately, these idiots ignore the obvious and blame video games, it's fucking sad.

 

[Beautiful End]

Everything has been said before, but here it goes again. Because I like to post stuff.

-Why would this kid be playing M rated games? (Doesn't say anywhere they're M rated, but it sounds like it)
-How would he be able to imitate what he allegedly does in videogames? Hell, I've never held a gun in my life but I've played plenty of CoD. Gimme a gun and it would probably take me around 5 minutes to figure out how to shoot it.
-Why would this father leave the gun lying around like that? Didn't he hear about gun control? Someone teach this guy-- Oh, well. Maybe next time.

Also, Christian Post comments? Figures they'd be the ones blaming videogames. Extremist Christians think the world is hell and they're trying to survive a zombie apocalypse every time they step out of the house or something.
NOTE: I said Extremists. Nothing against the religion or people who practice it like normal human beings. Live and let live, you know.

And finally, this happened in the Middle East? ...I'm just not gonna comment on that one. You figure it out.

Videogames are just the escape goat of every single tragedy in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if they blamed terrorist attacks on videogames.

 

[xPixelatedx]

That's pretty funny they can try to blame this on violent games. The entire point of the shooting was the fact that THE KID DIDN'T GET ANY GAMES. He's only 4, I doubt he has a long history of violent games up to this point. It sounds like he just wanted a toy and raged when he didn't get it. Anyone who leaves loaded guns laying around the house is asking for a family member to be killed, especially when children are present.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Oh here we go...

Of course this is the video games fault. I'm sure it had nothing to do with a loaded gun being left within the reach of a 4 year old with the safety off.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm just going to put up a particular sentence here in the Post's "news" article and highlight an important part of it.

"In this case, the 4-year-old had likely seen shootings enacted in a videogame he played."

HEY GUYZ, LET'S TAKE A RANDOM SUPPOSITION UNSUPPORTED BY FACTS AND BASE AN ARGUMENT AROUND IT, 'K?

Seriously. I checked the article. It's not a quote, and the article isn't marked as an op-ed. They just took a complete guess and tossed it up there as fact.

Somebody get me a lightning rod and some heavy-duty cables, and we'll have Angry Zombie Mike Wallace on this lickety-split.

 

[Battleaxx90]

So.

A 4.5-year-old is expecting his old man to bring home a "Playstation" (without mentioning the model number. Classy.)

He doesn't have it when he comes through the door.

The kid's response? Pick up a LOADED HANDGUN, which was LYING IN REACH OF AFORMENTIONED 4.5-YEAR-OLD and CAP THE POOR BASTARD IN THE HEAD.

And video games get blamed. AGAIN.

Spoiler: I have only one thing to say about all this.

 

[kouriichi]

Great. He left a loaded gun on the bed in plain view of his 4 year old child, who he apparently lets play 18+ games. Yeaaaaaaah, totally the games fault for not teaching him everything he ever needs to know about weapon safety, the value of life, and not to shoot people.

Because nothing is ever the parents fault, and its up to everyone except the parent to teach their child everything about everything.

*facepalm* I just.... dont know why people dont want to blame the real problem here. The bad parents.

 

[praetor_alpha]

So violent game content makes the kid think it's ok to shoot people? Yet he doesn't have a Playstation... So, assuming there isn't another console in play how can he even have seen the content in the first place?

+1.

Also, this happened in the Middle East... a place where people routinely make their own bombs and WEAR THEM.