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

[Ushiromiya Battler]

Does a crowbar open a box on its own? NOPE! In that line of thought there has never been a time where a gun killed someone on its own either. Someone loaded it, someone pointed it at the target, and someone did something to make it fire. But what would I know my keyboard did all the typing here it is the source of all these letters and must be to blame for my post on it own.....

There has never been a time where an atomic bomb killed it someone on it's own. Someone armed it, loaded it on a plane or in a missile, pointed it/dropped it on a target and boom.
By your logic everyone should be allowed to have atomic bombs as long as they can defend themselves with it.
You know, like Iran.
Oh and cluster bombs! You know they're banned right? Cause they end up like mines, lying around waiting for people to step on them and blow up. I guess those bombs didn't kill those people either, just like mines don't kill people that step on them.

And before you think I'm against guns and all that, I don't care, let people do whatever they want; but I'm sick of people saying guns don't kill people, so we shouldn't take it away.
Removing a dangerous item from a person will make it harder for that person to do any harm, as easy as that.

OT:Great article! Bloody sick of idiots going on burn the videogames crusades without actually having anything to back up their so called ''facts''.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Wow. That was just... sad. On so many levels.

This, ladies and gents, is why I do not and will never own a gun, as much as I like them.

Right, because it's guns that kill people. I guess knives kill people too. And baseball bats. And bare hands. Water can suffocate people, and make them drown. Damnable, evil water. I guess we shouldn't own any of those either. So, so very dangerous.

Wow, way to miss the point.

Guns can be mistaken for toys and can kill people accidentally.

The whole point of the article is that the kid didn't know it was a real gun and didn't mean to hurt anyone. Sometimes people accidentally cut themselves with a knife, but it is very, very rare to accidentally kill someone with a knife. Everything else you mentioned pretty much either requires someone to actively try to murder someone (it is very difficult to kill someone bare-handed - it takes a lot of effort), a massive accident (like falling into a river), or a natural disaster (ie, a hurricane or flood).

Yes, many things can be used to kill. But very few things can kill by accident that fast. Guns make killing very, very easy. So easy it's easy to make a mistake. And not just failing to realize the gun is real. You can kill yourself or another while cleaning a gun, by dropping a gun, or by failing to remove a chambered round.

Guns DO kill people.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Does a crowbar open a box on its own? NOPE! In that line of thought there has never been a time where a gun killed someone on its own either. Someone loaded it, someone pointed it at the target, and someone did something to make it fire. But what would I know my keyboard did all the typing here it is the source of all these letters and must be to blame for my post on it own.....

Does a crowbar accidentally open a box? No.

Do guns accidentally kill people every day? Yes.

Your analogy is therefore fallacious. You fail at debating and should feel bad.

To re-use a point, a baseball bat can be used to kill someone, but it cannot accidentally kill someone. You have to very intentionally beat someone with a bat to kill them.

A gun - particularly a cheap ass .33 - can kill you totally by accident. It can kill you while you're loading it if you failed to clear the chamber. It can be picked up by someone who isn't properly trained and they can kill someone accidentally.

Guns are much more dangerous than other potential weapons. They make killing so easy, you can do it without meaning to. That makes any comparison to other tools fallacious because other tools don't do their job by accident - but guns can kill you by accident.

 

[SonicWaffle]

PS: The same can probably be said for GTA. Never played one of those games in my life and never will. It should probably be a crime to glorify criminality.

But to be clear, GTA definitely is glorification

Maybe you could try actually playing the games before making a statement like that? Because let's be honest, you're full of crap. If anything the message of the GTA series has been "don't be a criminal, because it's a fucking nightmare and will ruin your life"

 

[SonicWaffle]

You have to be pretty darn ignorant to be attributing even a minor degree of blame on the video game here. >_>

I reckon the best way to phrase it is as follows:

The videogame itself bears no blame, because a videogame no more drives people to violent acts than watching sports turns them into pro athletes. However;
The videogame is not appropriate for a child, not because a child might ape the behaviour but because the child might find the subject matter disturbing. Therefore;
If someone wishes to argue that a child has been negatively impacted by a video game, they must logically place blame on the person who allowed to child to play the game, not the game itself. Anyhting else is dishonest.

What people who blame videogames tend to miss out is that final step. If a child is found wandering around drunk, the media narrative is not laying blame on alcohol, it's to lay blame on whichever fucknut gave alcohol to a child. Alcohol, like games, has a rating system and it has been socially decided (to a degree) at what age it is appropriate for a person to drink it. When games are in the spotlight that part will be ignored, because the media misses out the logical step and goes straight to blaming the videogame itself rather than whoever let the kid play a clearly innappropriate game
.

 

[Monster_user]

If you cannot be bothered to actually read and digest my ideas before criticizing them, I feel safe to ignore any future ill-informed criticisms you may offer.

Your "ideas" are stupid and backwards, and perhaps the single greatest contributing factor to the general decline of society. They don't deserve any more "digestion" than I've given them, as they're likely to make anyone sick if they chew on it for too long.

So, fine. Feel free to ignore my posts, as I'll certainly be ignoring yours from now on. I can't say I'm going to "miss" replying to you, either. You have to be pretty darn ignorant to be attributing even a minor degree of blame on the video game here. >_>

I wouldn't call him ignorant, just stubborn. Otherwise I do agree with your harshly worded, but accurate statements about the ideas presented. The idea that "either the game is partially at fault, or the ratings system is pointless" is indeed backwards, and would indeed likely make anyone sick if they chewed on it for too long.

As to why, SonicWaffle waffle just explained it better than I have thus far.

Correlation =/= Causation.

In the absense of any real evidence, or verifiable history of "video games causing violence", or verifiable "item causes violence", we cannot assume that the correlation had any bearing on this incident.

Video games are a popular form of entertainment for children, and [currently] games primarily use violence to entertain, so the odds are extremely high that a child will have played a violent game shortly before engaging in violent behavior.

Assuming that there are approximately 8 million children playing violent video games such as Halo, or Call of Duty, based on fuzzy maths, why do we have so few cases of games causing violent behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Xbox_360

http://www.slideshare.net/PewInternet/cheats-for-marketers-fresh-demographics-on-teen-and-adult-game-play-how-games-may-teach-kids-to-be-good-citizens

PS: The same can probably be said for GTA. Never played one of those games in my life and never will. It should probably be a crime to glorify criminality.

But to be clear, GTA definitely is glorification

Maybe you could try actually playing the games before making a statement like that? Because let's be honest, you're full of crap. If anything the message of the GTA series has been "don't be a criminal, because it's a fucking nightmare and will ruin your life"

And then some corrupt individual with a lot of money will reanimate your corpse, pay all your fines to keep you out of prison, and release you back on the street.

 

[SonicWaffle]

PS: The same can probably be said for GTA. Never played one of those games in my life and never will. It should probably be a crime to glorify criminality.

But to be clear, GTA definitely is glorification

Maybe you could try actually playing the games before making a statement like that? Because let's be honest, you're full of crap. If anything the message of the GTA series has been "don't be a criminal, because it's a fucking nightmare and will ruin your life"

And then some corrupt individual with a lot of money will reanimate your corpse, pay all your fines to keep you out of prison, and release you back on the street.

I meant more interms of the narrative - how many of the GTA protagonists have ever come out of their respective games well? After all the hard work they'll be left with dead loved ones and friends, they'll have been betrayed by allies, and despite having a huge pile of money and drugs their life seems to be empty and pointless. They might be kingpins of a criminal empire, but the obvious aesop seems to be that it wasn't worth it.

That's hardly what I'd call "glorification" of criminality.

 

[misg]

Excellent article. I'm glad to see you shining the light on the large networks practices.

 

[DragonStorm247]

On the point about GTA awarding points, while it certainly circulated around talk shows, unless I'm mistaken, it actually originated in one of Jack Thompson's arguments to a jury. Make of that what you will.

 

[SonicWaffle]

EDIT: It's early in the morning, and this post came off more confrontational thatn I'd like. Apologies for that. I won't edit it to try and hide my mistakes, I'll just admit I shouldn't have gotten so in-your face. Sorry.

That is obligatory. You'll never find a case where that is not the case. It's a fig leaf.

These examples would like a word with you. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBadGuyWins] It's a story. Sometimes the villain will win, where more often they will lose and/or come to ruin. I am genuinely struggling to see how you can brush this off so easily when it runs completely counter to your argument.

And despite the fact, the point is GTA presents itself as normative behavior, it is incredibly popular along with all kinds of crime drama, that is why in our culture violent crime is woven into the very fabric.

You really should start playing these games before making your high-handed judgements. Crime in GTA is presented as the aberrant behaviour of a minority; while the lens of the world is cynical, and most characters whom you meet will be devious and scheming, that's because your character is involved in the criminal underworld. There are thousands of average, normal people on the streets, running hot dog carts and wandering around, who aren't up to anything illegal.

As for violent crime being woven into the fabric of our society, what's your explanation for the fact that at the same time games like GTA are gaining broader, more mainstream appeal real-life violent crime rates are dropping? If GTA is the devil you claim it is, then shouldn't its rise be marked by an increase rather than a lessening of violence?

You may think you are not affected, but you don't notice the minor ways in which you are affected.

I'm not claiming that I'm not affected by GTA. I certainly have been. For one thing, I'm not planning on becoming a gangster any time soon, because - as with all the other media portrayals - the series, despite being a comedy, has demonstrated ably that so-called "thug" life is more likely to end horribly for those who undertake it.

Criminality in our government, and business, well boy will be boys, you don't see the cultural fallout that comes from a cultural obsession with criminality

Well, can you point me to this cultural fallout? And I mean some kind of proof rather than the wild and baseless speculation you've been throwing around. I'd be quite interested in seeing how government corruption is derived from a cultural obsession with our own darker nature. What is it about all those stories, games, TV shows and movies which almost exclusively show corrupt politicians and their actions in an atrocious light that makes politicians decide to emulate the behaviour? It's not like the fictional portrayals are based on existing real-world issues or anything...

PS: My original aside was just to be sure that these games, while wildly popular, are beneath me, and can be beneath you too.

Well, it's nice that you feel superior. How's the view from up there in that ivory tower?

I've lived with people playing through Bully, Manhunt, Red Dead Revolver, GTA, in the background. I am keenly aware of how video games and exploitative narrative works.

Are you? Because you've selected an extremely disparate group of titles there to make whatever point it is you're failing to make. Mechanical similarity aside, only half of those titles are explicitly criminal, and in none of them is the player character a "bad guy" in the traditional sense of a pure-evil character. Rather they explore ideas of shades of grey. Perhaps if you'd paid more attention to whoever was playing them rather than forming snap judgements off the back of scant information, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

You don't have to experience a bad fall to know that it can be dangerous, and is probably not a good thing. Especially when your culture says you should be falling 8/10 times, because 8/10 programs on the television are about all the different ways you can possibly fall in exciting new ways. If that isn't glorification then what is?

....wow. Perhaps the problem is just that you're using the word "glorification" wrong? Ignoring for the moment that the vast majority of what you've called "crime shows" are about characters attempting to stop crime (your CSI and other police procedurals, your superhero shows, COPS and similar reality shows) even the remainder hardly show criminal activity to be more glorious or excellent than is actually the case. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/glorification]

What's weird is that if you didn't have this apparent crusade and need to prove yourself right, there are some interesting things to dicuss about our portrayal of criminality and our fascination with humanity's darker nature. Why do so many of our myths, legends and modern heroes often skirt the borders of the law? Vigilantes and petty thieves, Robin Hood and Malcolm Reynolds. For a supposedly civilized and ordered society we appear to have an odd regard for those who step outside the law to do what they think is right, so long as we agree with their overall goal. Is it just that we clearly delineate real life and fiction, and will accept in fiction the kind of semi-criminal behaviour that we won't from a real-life hero? We apply a shades-of-grey filter, perhaps because we're savvy enough to know that while our laws are far from perfect they're better than anarchy, but in our fiction we like to see them disregarded in situations where we see a moral imperative to do so. On this very forum, and in other places, the most common complaint levelled (incorrectly) against Superman is that he's "boring" due to his upstanding moral code and adherence to the law, and people apparently desire more internal conflict from their heroes. It's very interesting to me, at least; the civilised but discontented, unwilling to take risks themselves and push boundaries but more than happy to see it in their fictionalised escapism. It's much more interesting that "criminal behaviour in games has a negative effect because it just does!", at least.

PPS: And again, I am more concerned with how derivative our programming has become than the effects of violence. I arrive at this conclusion mainly because I am tired of so many resources being spent on dramatizing crime. It's not compelling material. And it's 10x more played out than vampires and zombies combined.

Perhaps not compelling to you, but as the sales and viewing figures show, it's still enormously compelling to most of the rest of society.

 

[Slash2x]

Does a crowbar open a box on its own? NOPE! In that line of thought there has never been a time where a gun killed someone on its own either. Someone loaded it, someone pointed it at the target, and someone did something to make it fire. But what would I know my keyboard did all the typing here it is the source of all these letters and must be to blame for my post on it own.....

Does a crowbar accidentally open a box? No.

Do guns accidentally kill people every day? Yes.

Your analogy is therefore fallacious. You fail at debating and should feel bad.

To re-use a point, a baseball bat can be used to kill someone, but it cannot accidentally kill someone. You have to very intentionally beat someone with a bat to kill them.

HAHAHA!!! You are right my gun walked into the room the other day and told me it was going to go off on its own if I did not get better quality ammo. Oh wait no it did not because it is an inanimate object incapable of moving on its own....... PEOPLE kill PEOPLE on accident. NOT objects. Your argument assigns mobility and sentience to an object, and therefore is invalidated by facts and physics. If you had read the rest of my post instead of telling me I failed you might have noticed that.

Also on your whole bat thing 10 seconds on google to prove you wrong, but it was still a person who did it they just did it on accident..... with a bat...... http://www.grahamstar.com/articles/2012/08/02/news/doc50081e7d020db277645375.txt

 

[Slash2x]

Does a crowbar open a box on its own? NOPE! In that line of thought there has never been a time where a gun killed someone on its own either. Someone loaded it, someone pointed it at the target, and someone did something to make it fire. But what would I know my keyboard did all the typing here it is the source of all these letters and must be to blame for my post on it own.....

There has never been a time where an atomic bomb killed it someone on it's own. Someone armed it, loaded it on a plane or in a missile, pointed it/dropped it on a target and boom.
By your logic everyone should be allowed to have atomic bombs as long as they can defend themselves with it.
You know, like Iran.
Oh and cluster bombs! You know they're banned right? Cause they end up like mines, lying around waiting for people to step on them and blow up. I guess those bombs didn't kill those people either, just like mines don't kill people that step on them.

And before you think I'm against guns and all that, I don't care, let people do whatever they want; but I'm sick of people saying guns don't kill people, so we shouldn't take it away.
Removing a dangerous item from a person will make it harder for that person to do any harm, as easy as that.

OT:Great article! Bloody sick of idiots going on burn the videogames crusades without actually having anything to back up their so called ''facts''.

*Reads my post again*.... Yeah not finding anything about ban or banning in my post..... Might want to read before you assign an argument to me..... I am talking about blaming people not objects for our actions. Guns are used to kill people, guns are used to kill a FUCKLOAD of people. But they are USED to kill people. I think it is dumb that we blame an object for the actions of a person. And someone planted or dropped those mines, so I blame that person not the object for any subsequent deaths.

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

Does a crowbar open a box on its own? NOPE! In that line of thought there has never been a time where a gun killed someone on its own either. Someone loaded it, someone pointed it at the target, and someone did something to make it fire. But what would I know my keyboard did all the typing here it is the source of all these letters and must be to blame for my post on it own.....

There has never been a time where an atomic bomb killed it someone on it's own. Someone armed it, loaded it on a plane or in a missile, pointed it/dropped it on a target and boom.
By your logic everyone should be allowed to have atomic bombs as long as they can defend themselves with it.
You know, like Iran.
Oh and cluster bombs! You know they're banned right? Cause they end up like mines, lying around waiting for people to step on them and blow up. I guess those bombs didn't kill those people either, just like mines don't kill people that step on them.

And before you think I'm against guns and all that, I don't care, let people do whatever they want; but I'm sick of people saying guns don't kill people, so we shouldn't take it away.
Removing a dangerous item from a person will make it harder for that person to do any harm, as easy as that.

OT:Great article! Bloody sick of idiots going on burn the videogames crusades without actually having anything to back up their so called ''facts''.

*Reads my post again*.... Yeah not finding anything about ban or banning in my post..... Might want to read before you assign an argument to me..... I am talking about blaming people not objects for our actions. Guns are used to kill people, guns are used to kill a FUCKLOAD of people. But they are USED to kill people. I think it is dumb that we blame an object for the actions of a person. And someone planted or dropped those mines, so I blame that person not the object for any subsequent deaths.

I did read what you wrote. 5 times actually, but I still apparently misread it, disregard everything I said.

 

[Slash2x]

*snip for readability

Ehh no biggie I have done the same thing. At least you did not call me names

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

HAHAHA!!! You are right my gun walked into the room the other day and told me it was going to go off on its own if I did not get better quality ammo. Oh wait no it did not because it is an inanimate object incapable of moving on its own....... PEOPLE kill PEOPLE on accident. NOT objects. Your argument assigns mobility and sentience to an object, and therefore is invalidated by facts and physics. If you had read the rest of my post instead of telling me I failed you might have noticed that.

**facepalm**

My argument does not assign either mobility or sentience to an object. Your claim that I did (when I clearly discussed accidental discharge) is a really bizarre and fairly pathetic attempt to pull off a Strawman argument.

This is the kind of insanity I expect out of the NRA. If you're really that out of it, then nothing I say is going to break through.

I'm done with you.

Edit: Oh, and for anyone else who even thinks about getting on this particularly stupid train of thought:

Are tornadoes sentient? Are fires sentient? Are hurricanes/floods/mudslides sentient?

No? Of course no!

Are you going to claim that they don't kill people because they aren't sentient?

Being sentient is not a requirement for being able to kill. Implying that it is - that only sentient things can kill - is absolutely insane.

Likewise, none of the above have control over their own mobility. Sure, some of them move, but purely through physics (ie, gravity or wind patterns).

 

[Slash2x]

*snip for space..

Accidental discharge by a person is just that a person did something with an object. So do you blame the person or the object?

I am not saying good or bad about guns. They have no moral compass they are just objects. I do not blame a tornado on a personal level or any other disaster for people dying it is just something sad that happened.

If the fire was set by an arsonist or through someone being careless, I BLAME THAT PERSON! NOT THE FIRE... The fire did not seek out someone to kill it just did what all fires do, burn all the fuel it can get.