Do you think that God Of War caused this shooting in Texas?

Question

I went on gamepolitics.com today and read this article http://gamepolitics.com/2008/04/03/...

In short is says that 3 kids aged 12, 13, and 15 were playing God Of War and the 13 yr old got mad at the 15 yr old, went and got his parents hand gun and shot the 15 yr old in the head. He's not dead, but he may have perminate vision loss. And now a lawyer in Texas is asking for Jack Thompson's help because he wants to proove that God Of War is resposible for this tradgey. Jack Thompson seems to not want to help him right now. I love the God Of War games. I hope they keep making them and I can't wait for the next one to come out next year. What do all you think about this? I say GOW can't be responsible. 1. You can't train on a game to do something like that. I don't care what anyone says. You can't. And 2. GOW doesn't have any guns in it so it wouldn't really inspire anyone to shoot anyone. What do you all think.

Answer 1

It seems that whenever a shooting like this occurs that people are quick to point out to video games as the culprit. Whereas these said people wouldn't entirely be inaccurate, not all who play these video games go out and shoot people. It is a small percentage that sits on the critical level of the statistical curve that actually go out and shoot people.

So my answer is, don't go out and blame the video games. They will always be there so long as the money keeps pouring into them. And they are.

The real solution is to find out why these kids actually go out and do what they seemed to have been desensitized to and find a way to stop them from doing it whilst at the same time, acknowledging that violent video games will always be there whether or not they are harmful.

Answer 2

Headlines like "thousands play video game and do shoot each other in the head" do not catch anyones attention. This  is just a lawyer out to get a name for himself.

Answer 3

No the game did not cause the incident, The childs anger did. Parents have a responsibility to observe their children over the years and then decide when the time comes if there mature enough to play such a game.

Answer 4

No, I don't think video games can "cause" people to do these things. They may have been playing the game at the time, but were already predisposed to violence.

There were shootings when people were still playing Pong.

Answer 5

The kid had problems to begin with, and the parents should not have had an accessible hand gun for the kid to use. I know nothing about this game and don't care to but as in many things, people don't take responsibility for their own actions and blame other things than themselves when tragedy strikes.  Don't blame the video game - especially if it didn't have a gun in it to begin with.

Answer 6

I don't think video games, movies, or the media are responsible for violence in childrens.  And like you pointed out--God of War doesn't even have guns in it!!!  The parents should not have left a gun accessible to teenagers.  Most children play video games and our well-adjusted.