There is no doubt that mostly everyone has heard of the controversies that the Grand Theft Auto series has raised in the past 14 years. Grand Theft Auto is a series of video games where the player is placed in an open world city where they can perform murder, carjacking and many more awful actions. One common name in all of these controversies is Jack Thompson, a famous activist and disbarred lawyer that is known for his frequent protests of violent video games, specifically Grand Theft Auto. Jack Thompson uses the argument that violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto have a connection with murders, crimes and school shootings, which is not true. There are many reasons that could cause someone to pull off a violent crime, and video games …show more content…
In July 2004 Fifteen year old Cody Posey shot his father Delbert Posey, stepmother Tryone Posey and stepsister Marilea Posey with his stepsisters .38 caliber revolver. Posey ended up being charged with first degree murder in the death with his stepsister, second degree murder in the death with his stepmother and voluntary manslaughter in the death with his father and was to be in juvenile custody until he was 21. A few months after Posey’s trial Jack Thompson started a wrongful death suit in the state of New Mexico against Rockstar, Take-Two Interactive and Sony on behalf of Posey’s living relatives. The wrongful death suit was dismissed by a New Mexico judge in …show more content…
The reason why I chose to argue against his opinion is because he is famous for doing this kind of stuff in the game industry. He ignores all the facts like how Lynch was a crazy degenerate, how William and Josh Buckner had extremely irresponsible parents that allowed them to get their hands on two .22 caliber rifles and how Posey was physically, mentally and sexually abused. This isn’t just a problem because Thompson is trying to make video gamers look like killers, but because he is making people ignore the real problems. Thankfully he was disbarred and after 2007 is not allowed to attempt to stop sales of Grand Theft Auto IV or Manhunt 2 after a lawsuit by Take Two
Between all of the criminal shows on television these days, it is hard to get an accurate idea of what it truly means to be a police officer or a detective. Sure, it is simple to listen to all of their analysis and listen to the way they find the bad guys, but is that truly how it works? Criminal Minds is one of the most popular shows on television today because of the way it portrays the FBI in their endless search of new bad guys and the way it shows the criminals’ plot and true evil. Law and Order carefully portrays the entire process behind putting the criminals away. 24 goes through the entire day in one, twenty-four, episode season just to show the viewer every moment of a story. Shows like Psych make fun of the police officers and the
Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza, Steven Phillip Kazmierczak, and Seung-Hui Cho all have a few things in common, they are all school shooters that have killed and injured a combined total of 149 human beings and are or were believed to be avid violent video game players, who also committed suicide immediately after carrying out their attacks. To the public, school shooters seem to share a direct connection to playing violent video games and that playing them leads to violent behavior. Violent videogames have become a highlight in the media and national debate for this very reason but, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a causative connection between participants of violent videogames manifesting violent behaviors. The media provides biased information that misleads citizens into believing that said link is well established and accepted. I argue that parents should make responsible and well informed decisions in regards to their child’s videogame activities in spite of the lack of scientific research.
When 2 young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting spree in Littleton, Colorado, killing 15 people, including themselves, there was a public outcry for censorship of every type of entertainment and changes in gun laws despite Eric Harris’s journal entry titled, “Last Wishes” asking that no one be blamed, other than himself and Klebold, for the massacre (“As You Were”, par. 2). After the 1999 school shooting now simply known as Columbine, a “Newsweek” pole showed that, “about half of all Americans want to see the movie industry, the TV industry, computer game makers, Internet services and gun manufacturers and the NRA make major policy changes to help reduce teen violence” (Alter, par. 1). According to Dave Cullen in his article “Let the Litigation Begin” several lawsuits were filed against the parents of the two boys responsible for the shooting spree claiming that Harris’s and Klebold’s families, “breached their duty of care” by allowing their sons to amass a cache of illegal weapons (Cullen, par. 5). Although the boys’ parents denied such allegations, they settled out of court for $1.6 million (Cullen, par. 5)...
But why is this? What do they see as “fun” in this. What do they see as “helpful” in this? Why is “fake” murdering kids helpful to these teens? These are questions we don’t know. So why do we do it? It definitely doesn’t keep them healthy. They are not even sleeping in their house! They are staying overnight in borrowed vans and sleeping on futons! Also, According to “Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?”, it states “Quoth Fox & Friends' Steve Doocey: "unfortunately you know it seems every time something bad like this happens we look at "is there a connection between video games and the shooter?" Well, take a look at some people who were described as addicted, from Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Arizona shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, that Norway shooter who Anders Behring [sic], I think he shot 77 people. The Aurora shooter, James Holmes, the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, they're all described as essentially being addicted to video games." This is saying how teens who play video games as a teenager can possibly turn out to be future shooters/killers. During these video games they are pretending to be a shooter and as they gain information on how to be a shooter, they tend to use those skills in real life. This is not what we want. In the same text it also states, “The Telegraph's Nick Allen described the shooter's ‘darker side’ which ‘saw
Kulling, Matthew. “GTA:Link between violence and video games lacks a smoking gun.”. marquettetribune.org. 15 Nov 2013.
I want to prevent would-be killers from having access to weapons of war. I want to stop them from teaching themselves to kill through video games. I want mental-health services to be more easily obtained. And I want to deny murderers the notoriety they seek. Our leaders must attack the entire problem--and if they do, I believe my fellow gun owners will have their back.(P. 10)
In 1998, the US software industry sold $6.3 billion worth of video games (see Unknown). Not bad for an industry that didn't exist 25 years ago! Yet despite its continued growth, all is not well in the video game industry. School shootings in Littleton, Colorado; Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; Conyers, Georgia and many other towns have shocked the nation (see Malcolm). Understandably, grieving parents and sympathetic citizens are searching for a cause for this "outbreak" of youth violence. It is natural to assume, "when children, the symbol of innocence, commit the severest of crimes, then something must be going wrong with society." (see Maker)
Guns debate you. More gun control laws would not reduce gun deaths it would increase gun deaths because we need self. If we had more laws on guns the population of guns with criminals would shoot up. People need guns to protect their families and themselves. People need guns to survive with other deadly people in the world. The NRA is against this person who is trying to put these laws in. (Hillary Clinton) People need guns. I say this because the Military uses guns to protect themselves. Why should we not. We need guns in our lives they help protect your family and mine.
Although video games can have no urges in young adults and children to commit violent crimes because most all video games are fictional and not based on real life events or moments in history .An example to prove this is “We found that game sales related to a decrease in crimes, and especially violent crimes.” (Carey). This can tell us that because of the increase in sales of video games which lead to a decrease in crimes because of how the games are fictional, so they had no effect on teenagers or people who bought the game on how violent they would become from playing the games. Meanwhile, there are a higher percentage of young adults and children that do play the games such as GTA. An example of how video games can have negative effects on the people who do play the violent games is “In surveys about 80% of High School age boys say they play video games most of which are thought to be violent” (Carey). The quote taken from a survey can tell us that the 80 percent of high school age students that play video games can be connected to the non-fictional aspect of the game by the students committing the crimes or violent actions because of the misconnection between real and fake, so they are then to commit more violent actions in the future. In conclusion that high school age students playing non fictional games will be promoted to violent crimes in future places and
In February of 2009, 60 minutes did a special on video games leading to murder. In the article Rebecca Leung, discusses a shooting that occurred in Fayette Alabama on June 7, 2003. A mentally disturbed young man by the name of Devon Moore shot and killed two police officers, a dispatch officer, and stole a police cruiser. The Attorney Jack Thompson blames the video game Grand Theft Auto as having trained Devon Moore to carry out the murder. Thompson has consistently criticizes violent video games, and has brought forth a lawsuit against the producers of the video game. Thompson says, "What we're saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator.” Thompson argues that Moore had played the game for hundreds of hours and if he had not been “trained by the game.” He would not have committed these ...
Many people believe violence in video games result in violent outbreaks and unhealthy behavior in real world. Since the first Nineteen Eighties, violence in video games became a part of a political issue leading advocates to create theories that these styles of games are corrupting society. Studies have been created to seek out if there's a link between violent video games and violent behavior. Are these video games shaping today’s generation of youths to be violent? I believe that there's no correlation between violence in video games and violence in our society. I think this first of all, improves a large form of general skills, secondly, there are several alternative factors that contribute into creating society violent and finally, crime rates decrease because the quality of those forms of games increase.
Do you enjoy finding ways to escape reality? Escaping reality could include daydreaming, playing video games, or reading etc. A wide range of people could plead guilty to not living in the moment. When things get rough, people often want to run away from realism and might use video games as the outlet. Video game creators have been exploring multiple ways for people at home to grasp the concept of not dwelling in the present, but exploring reality without consequences.
The players avatar can take control of any vehicle in a game, including helicopter, boats and motorbikes, and any number of objects can be uses as weapons as the player attempt to take on the role of a petty criminal who tries to complete a number of missions in order to work his way up the ladder of the criminal world. It has a visually distinctive in the use of retro graphics and lurid colors, which somewhat complicates discussion which focus on the graphic ‘realism’ of the games. Consequently it could have a negativity affect, due to violence this game process. Zacchary Burgess, 20, he was arrested for kidnapping a women and hijacking 10 cars, he told law enforcement that he wants to know it is like to play grand theft auto in real life (Mail-Online UK, 2015), as he fails to separate the world of
“90% of pediatricians and 67% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children” ("Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?”). Pediatrics and parents are aware that kids that play violent video games see a change in their behavior. Many cases they see the kids with anger problems and causing them to do violent acts. Violent video games have been around for many years where some older titles, such as ‘Mortal Kombat’ and 'Grand Theft Auto’ both are some of the most controversial ones. The video game industry has been growing and with the large amounts of violent video games being produced. “Total US sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to
Several years ago, technology and child’s play were not such as extremely developed as today. Thousands of teenagers have video game as their primary form of entertainment at home. The disagreement about violent video games is because they focus on several subjects such as violence scenes, pornographic content, racism and other resources. For many years, researchers have been debating if video games can cause dependence or not. However, an expert, Jack Flanagan believes video games have a really negative effect on a person’s life and even for children. Jack states that video game addiction exists, and can have the same effects as drugs and alcohol (Netzley 36-37). This shows that video game addiction can be like other addictions