Drunken Father Kills Son, Missing Videogame Blamed

[V3KT0R]

I don't understand why it states video-game as the reason for the assault, it could have been anything else. I don't like it when people blame stuff on games. The guy was a drunk, people should stop hating on the hard work and time developers put into making an amazing game.

As for what game it is, knowing the guy's dad, it was probably GTA IV or something.

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

As for this guy, it doesn't matter the reason. He is going to be inconvenienced for a long time, and will have to live with the fact that his son is gone. Because, even in a drunken state, he chose to pick up a gun. He chose. Good bet is if he was able to fire it in such a state, it wasn't gunlocked. Too bad the son didn't go for the gun first if his dad was a chronic bully. Then dad would probably be spending the night in a motel, and not a jail.

He won't be "inconvenienced" for long, I'd assume. Texas has the death penalty and they sure as hell use it.
Also, why would the son go for the gun first?

 

[FinalGamer]

Wonderful, more proof that newspapers don't give a shit about how to handle terrible tragedies with some dignity by trivialising it to one minute detail and overblowing it to the point of screeching media Fox News harpy, all to demonise a hobby they have no understanding or patience for with their Luddite mindsets.

 

[Kazturkey]

The gun has little to do with it. If the gun hadn't of existed it would have been a knife. If the knife hadn't existed it would have been a fist.

Abusive people are abusive regardless of what weapons they wield.

Have you ever tried throwing a knife? Seriously, go and get a knife (anything from a fruit knife to a bread knife, it doesn't matter) now, and try to hit a coke can with the blade from a distance of more than ten foot. Now, get pissed and try it again. If it wasn't for the gun, that kid would be alive now.

All I got from that article is that video games have been blamed for poor parenting. And that this guy clearly has a great need for home defence.

Unlikely to be anything near ten feet. Ten feet is like three metres, which is quite the distance for across a single room. If he hadnt thrown the knife he would have picked up something blunt and clocked the kid around the head with it, or just run up and stabbed him. It said quite specifically that the kid tried to disarm him first, so he wasnt very far away.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Oh noes! Now they can say that videogames make Adults violent too!

 

[bushwhacker2k]

I'm a little curious why people who clearly shouldn't have firearms seem to have ready access to them so often...

 

[Paksenarrion]

Yeah, don't blame the alcohol, the company that made the alcohol or the store that sold it to him. Don't blame the gun, the company that made it, the store that sold the gun, the ammunition company etc. Don't blame the man himself Blame the video game because clearly all video games are the root for all evil and violence.
To think, if it weren't for video games Hitler wouldn't have become a genocidal monster, Alexander wouldn't have tried to conquer the known world, John Wilkes Booth wouldn't have killed Lincoln and hundreds of other horrific incidents in history wouldn't have happened. For shame video game industry, for shame.

Hitler, playing Starcraft, as he mows down zerglings with his Firebats.
Alexander, playing Sid Meier's Civilization.
John Wilkes Booth, playing Hitman.
The iceberg that sank the Titanic, playing...WiiFit? (It thought the luxury liner was a Balance Board.)
The Vikings, playing Legend of Zelda, going into NPC houses to search for items.

...etc

 

[Heretic666GC]

The gun has little to do with it. If the gun hadn't of existed it would have been a knife. If the knife hadn't existed it would have been a fist.

Abusive people are abusive regardless of what weapons they wield.

Have you ever tried throwing a knife? Seriously, go and get a knife (anything from a fruit knife to a bread knife, it doesn't matter) now, and try to hit a coke can with the blade from a distance of more than ten foot. Now, get pissed and try it again. If it wasn't for the gun, that kid would be alive now.

All I got from that article is that video games have been blamed for poor parenting. And that this guy clearly has a great need for home defence.

I just want to point out that you don't need to throw a knife at somebody to kill them with it.

That will be all.

 

[ezeroast]

Alcohol and guns is a perfectly safe and fun mixture.
But dont let them play video games at the same time or shit might get real!!!
So ban the games and make the drinking age lower.
Also give away a free pistol and bottle of scotch with every 18th birthday!

 

[GrinningManiac]

I get the feeling that the Gamers are Violent cliché has replaced the Media's favourite "All Arabs are Terrorists" headlines

 

[cobrausn]

I can note, with a certain degree of smug satisfaction, that England+Wales is second lowest for firearm homicide rates per 100,000. Second only to Singapore.

I don't care about firearm homicide rates, only total. Firearms are a tool. If you have less of them, less of them will get used; it doesn't make you 'less violent' and therefore 'better'. Apparently it makes you smug though.

Also, the demographics of England+Wales is hardly comparable to nearly anywhere here, so of course your crime rate will be lower. Why don't we ship a few MS13 thugs over there and we'll see what happens to your crime rate and your smugness.

I thought we were questioning the term "rampant gun culture"? The number of firearm homicide rates seems fairly important when we're talking about gun culture to me. I might be crazy living in my castle in England (an actual castle, not one defined by the Castle Doctrine) but when we're questioning the use of guns, gun-related homicide rates seems important.

And why would we ship your criminals over here? It's not like we made them. How is it our fault that your culture(s) has a tendency to promote gangs? According to the wiki, MS13 grew up out of Los Angeles. I'm unsure of why you would even think of deporting American citizens to England, but that sounds quite illegal to me.

Plus our prisons are already pretty much full so we'd have no where to put them.

It's quite impossible to argue anything gun related with you people. You're like victims of Munchausens - unarmed and opressed for so long that now you think none of you could be responsible with your own defense.

A violent crime is a violent crime - don't consider yourself better because less of yours use guns. I was saying that the 'gun-culture' means little in regards to the crimes that occur here because they would probably occur regardless of weapon used.

And the reason I mention MS13 directly is because it's made up of poor immigrants from other (decidedly more violent than ours, and thats a lot) countries and infests the southwest and western US, including Houston. The moment you open your borders to that we can talk crime rates.

Besides, most of the violent crime here would probably evaporate if they would make the drug trade legal and tax it. But our politicians are too stupid for that.

 

[FinalHeart95]

Yeah, alcohol had nothing to do with it.

 

[Woodsey]

What the flying fuck has this got to do with games?

He was drunk and he had a gun - I think we know what really killed the boy.

 

[slopeslider]

I doubt this guy was some model citizen until the alcohol. It LOOSENS inhibitions, it doesn't create murderous thoughts in you! If you got me drunk I wouldn't seek out a knife and stab someone because Im angry and drunk. This guy already had issues, and was probably suppressing this behavior until the booze let it all out. Poeple get drunk every night, there are 500 million guns in US homes, shouldn't crap like this happen EVERY night in EVERY state if it's really only the alcohol?

 

[samsonguy920]

its not irrelevent.
some of the obvious ones that the media says incurrs violence are gta, saints row or l4d, but this might be something harmless like portal or even guitar hero.
what it seems they are doing is scape goating gaming.

Gaming in general pretty much, and I'd like to hear them try to deny it in a retraction. I guess my point was that ya, they are trying to point their finger at gaming, but nothing specific. However, I will admit, if it turned out the game was Super Mario Bros Wii, and not Saints Row or GTA, therein would be a lot of irony.
Might be time for some attention to responsibility in journalism, as in some laws. Freedom of the press should not mean do whatever you want without consequences.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Might be time for some attention to responsibility in journalism, as in some laws. Freedom of the press should not mean do whatever you want without consequences.

That's almost exactly what it does mean with regard to government control of content. There are exceptions such as slander or incitement, but personally I'd rather not have a Ministry of Truth to decide what parts of a situation are appropriate for a story to focus on no matter what lies and half-truths get published. The proper response is to demand better reporting and take your money elsewhere. Stop buying shitty media and support intelligent reporting where you can find it. And if there isn't any? Make some.

 

[Amenta Kaiser]

The media, exaggerate facts and spread lies? No, I don't believe it. Not in the good ol' U.S of A.

 

[samsonguy920]

Might be time for some attention to responsibility in journalism, as in some laws. Freedom of the press should not mean do whatever you want without consequences.

That's almost exactly what it does mean with regard to government control of content. There are exceptions such as slander or incitement, but personally I'd rather not have a Ministry of Truth to decide what parts of a situation are appropriate for a story to focus on no matter what lies and half-truths get published. The proper response is to demand better reporting and take your money elsewhere. Stop buying shitty media and support intelligent reporting where you can find it. And if there isn't any? Make some.

True that, but with people like Rupert Murdoch protecting their babies like Fox News with tons of money, then the big boys of the press can continue spouting their crap opinions and not the news, and other press agencies will feel they are justified just because big brother does it. I'm not advocating total control of the press, just responsibility in the press. The best way for that to happen is for the press companies themselves to start acting like grownups. But as long as tabloids continue making money from the bored grannies of the world, I don't see that happening.