Grand Theft Auto IV Didn't Drive an 8 Year-Old to Murder

[Robert Rath]

Grand Theft Auto IV Didn't Drive an 8 Year-Old to Murder

This was a tragedy, from start to finish, but the association with GTA was a product of the media - not of reality. Here's what happened.

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[NWJ94]

Excellent Article, but sadly the media thrives on alarmism, and the suggestion that "every household has a trained killer in it because of video games" is much more exciting then just a sad case of bad handling of firearms. Still though well written and well laid out arguments.

 

[jericu]

Fantastic article, Mr. Rath. The more I read, the more I got disgusted with how the media didn't care about how the family was dealing with it, and tried to use someone's death to push their own agenda. It was handled poorly at just about every level, from the officers who made the baffling connection to GTA, to the national news outlets who reported the story. A fantastic look at how a terrible, but ultimately small story in a town is pushed to recognition on the national level for the worst reasons.

 

[Miyenne]

I keep wondering how many times things like this will happen before the US changes it's laws. How many people have to die? How many children have to be so damaged until people realise guns don't solve problems, they create them.

It makes me glad I don't live in that country, and it makes me angry that people who sensationalise these things, who think it's okay to give children access to weapons, who pass off responsibility onto video games instead of their own lack of involvement are even the same species as me.

It was a very well written article. Thank you.

 

[AuronFtw]

Definitely well written. Media pot-stirring and failure to research is becoming a rather huge problem in this era; they rely far too much on social media being 100% trustworthy and spend no time or effort face checking to avoid telling blatant lies to their watchers. Even totally bullshit stories have a good chance of taking off, at least scaring a decent chunk of watchers before being proved wrong (at which point the media simply stops reporting the story instead of apologizing for spreading misinformation, of course).

 

[Arcade Hero X]

How many children have to be so damaged until people realize guns don't solve problems, they create them.

Sorry I have to disagree with you on that point. The gun wasn't the actual problem in this case it was blatant negligence I mean letting the child play a 18+ game and leaving the gun LOADED and within a child's reach was the problem.

The gun didn't make the child shoot her and while I personally believe the game didn't make him shoot his grandmother I would be pretty naive to think it was blameless also. I mean to a 8 year old child(Who shouldn't be playing GTA at all) who plays GTA for a few minutes and has no real concept of permanent death when you can get shot in GTA and re spawn, Then finds a real gun he probably thought what happened in the game would happen in real life.

It all could have been avoided if:

A) The gun at the very least was left unloaded or in a lock box.
B) Not letting the boy play a game that is years away from his full comprehension.

So if your going to blame someone, Blame the person who is at fault which was the grandmothers negligence. I mean the article even said she would face a class A felony over it. I say this not as an advocate for guns I mean I'm Irish the closest thing I've seen to a real gun is a water pistol but in this case I believe that guns aren't the problem but the people who own them.

PS, Great article BTW.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

I've had this same conversation with several people by now, too. Most people understand this when you talk 1 on 1, but the problem is that NO ONE in the mass media will ever present the information like this. If we really want to fight back on cases like these we need to get someone on CNN or Fox to willingly share information like this in this way. And that will never happen.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Excellent article, and I particularly appreciate the fact that it does not try to absolve the game of an any involvement in the incident. The biggest problem was abolsutely that the child had access to a loaded weapon and was just playing with it as the toy he thought it was. I know when I was a kid, I "shot" toy guns at my friends and family members once in a while. It's a common thing for any child to do if you're provided with that sort of play thing. It is still, however, true that he may have been basing his play on what he saw in the videogame he was just playing; a game that he almost definitely should not have been playing in the first place.

Anyway, as much as I enjoyed reading this article, I'm a little sad that I had to read it here on The Escapist. This is the sort of clear headed piece that should be in a major newspaper or on a major news site, not just on a site for games enthusiasts who already are likely to be in at least general agreement.

 

[Eiv]

Fantastic write-up. You hit every point squarely on the head and the summation was perfect. This is a sad case with 2 victims. That child now has to live with the memory of this accident forever.

I'm so glad handguns were banned in the UK. Not to say that even if it was legal, I wouldn't have had it in a lock box.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I love how the article brings up the point that there was a LOADED GUN that was perfectly in reach of the child.

Now, I'm not gonna take a stance on gun control or gun possession laws or any of that crap, since I don't own a gun, don't use a gun, and frankly don't have enough experience with firearms or people with firearms to make an educated statement on it, but I do know enough about firearms (Point them at a person, pull the trigger, and watch them die) to know that you should at least keep them behind some kind of locked door, in some lock box, or at least on top of the refrigerator so your kids can't get them.

I think that's the issue that a lot of these alarmist media outlets have when they cover the "connection" between guns and video games. Even if, by some very, very broad measure, you can connect the disparagingly distant elements together, you then have to address how the ones responsible for the crime got the guns in the first place. This isn't like GTA, where you can knock a cop out and grab his gun or go to any store and pick up a AK-47 for $50. Even though the US doesn't have any real restrictive gun laws, there are enough hoops that the uninitiated, immature, or psychopathic can't get their hands on a gun without getting it from someone else that already owns a gun, and usually the latter tends to have their guns out in the open where someone else can get them.

We're claiming that the media is irresponsible for wrongly educating and influencing the masses, and yet we're perfectly fine not addressing the fact that we're leaving potential weapons out in the open for anyone to get. I'm pretty sure Obama would cause a shitstorm if the big red button that launches all the nukes was unattended for even a minute.

 

[Scott Rothman]

Hit the nail on the head.

Traditional news outlets have seen decreasing numbers in viewership for a good bit now. They are all fighting for viewers from an ever shrinking pool of people. It's my opinion that they are trying to continuously outdo each other via sensationalist stories to grasp for the whatever remaining viewers they can.

 

[Amir Kondori]

"it's undeniable that the gun's presence is what allowed this crime to occur."

Technically there was no crime committed as the child was too young to form intent or know the consequences of his actions. Unless you are referring to the neglect, which is definitely a crime that occurred.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Obviously you are wrong and it was GTA that made him kill his Grandma. CNN said so and CNN is on TV. Are you on TV? I think you see where I am going with this.

 

[Agayek]

Grand Theft Auto IV Didn't Drive an 8 Year-Old to Murder

This was a tragedy, from start to finish, but the association with GTA was a product of the media - not of reality. Here's what happened.

Read Full Article

So this article sparked a question for me:

What do you think about the supposition/argument that the game is responsible for the kid thinking the gun was a toy?

The question occurred to me while reading and I couldn't get a sense of what you thought about that, or what kind of counter argument (if any) you would pose to such a thing, and I'm rather curious.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Excellent article

Not much we can do but continue to live as rational, peaceful people (oh, & make sure 8-year-olds don't have access to loaded firearms)

 

[DoveAlexa]

There is nothing we can do about this, or anything like this. We have no power, and as long as most people are completely ignorant of what a video game actually is, and actual does - not to mention until they even try to care about the god damned RATING on the thing - NOTHING has even a remote chance of changing.

We, as in humanity as a whole, never truly progress or become more informed. We just shift in what we care about, what we know about and what we are completely ignorant of. Maybe in 50 more years the majority of us will be informed enough about games that this BS no longer happens, but we have zero control over that shifting process.

 

[portal_cat]

Grand Theft Auto IV Didn't Drive an 8 Year-Old to Murder

This was a tragedy, from start to finish, but the association with GTA was a product of the media - not of reality. Here's what happened.

Read Full Article

So this article sparked a question for me:

What do you think about the supposition/argument that the game is responsible for the kid thinking the gun was a toy?

The question occurred to me while reading and I couldn't get a sense of what you thought about that, or what kind of counter argument (if any) you would pose to such a thing, and I'm rather curious.

That is a good question to ask and I was wondering that myself. Most 8 year old don't understand the concept of death and it is possible that he thought is was a toy from the game and that it wasn't loaded with anything.

As for the game itself I can't see why anyone would let an 8 year old play a M rated video game. That's the part that kind of drove me crazy. Who let him play an M rated game? Though I had strict parents that didn't let me play an M rated game until I was 17.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Ah, I hadn't heard about the conclusion yet. It was basically what I guessed though. I figured that GTA would have influenced his play outside of the game (as lots of entertainment media does -I know I pretended to be Aragorn and went around battling my friends with sticks after I saw Fellowship of the Ring) but he did not ultimately know what he was doing. He obviously did not believe that he would actually be killing his grandmother with that gun. Still, he shouldn't have been playing the game. There's a reason it's rated M.

Thanks for the interesting article.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Grand Theft Auto IV Didn't Drive an 8 Year-Old to Murder

This was a tragedy, from start to finish, but the association with GTA was a product of the media - not of reality. Here's what happened.

Read Full Article

So this article sparked a question for me:

What do you think about the supposition/argument that the game is responsible for the kid thinking the gun was a toy?

The question occurred to me while reading and I couldn't get a sense of what you thought about that, or what kind of counter argument (if any) you would pose to such a thing, and I'm rather curious.

Just one small point I'd like to make here. Just because he was playing Grand Theft Auto doesn't mean that he was pulling off giant murder sprees or even killing people. The article only says that he was playing it but gives no information about what he was doing in the game.

I know that when my brother was little (9 or 10 I think) he used to play grand theft auto San Andreas on my xbox sometimes. All he would do though is find a cool car/train/helicopter/jet/jetpack and cruise around in it for hours on end. I think he even tried to follow certain traffic laws when he was in a car. I never saw him killing anyone or even having guns. He just drove around for hours and had a blast with it.

Also, kids these days are so inundated with military stuff (cap guns, nerf guns, action movies, video games, etc) that having toy guns around I think is normal. I had a friend growing up (in Canada) who had a veritable arsenal of army soldiers, toy guns, BB guns, cap guns, flak jackets and fake helmets and such. I think it's become somewhat normal at this point and maybe this kid got confused and thought it was a toy. I don't know.