This kid must be insane. Who would ever attempt to kill their parents? And for video games? He must be a crazy video-game addict. He has to learn to stop.

* Was the Father right to refuse to let his child play a game he found to be inappropriate considering his growing obsession?

Yes. He made up the reasons obviously, but it wasn’t because of that; it was because the kid was addicted to it.

* What are your thoughts on the defense pleading “insanity” because of Halo 3?

I don’t blame it on the video game at all; I think it’s just because he didn’t have anything else to do. Maybe he had no friends. Maybe his parents forbid him to go outside; so he had to do something inside; such as video games. Anyone would pick video games over a book. However, he was addicted.

* Thoughts about the family forgiving him?
Well, they can’t stay depressed, and angry at their family member forever. Maybe they had to forget the past and move on. Something like that.

Personally I blame the kid and the Parents NOT the game.
I have been playing “violent” video games since I was seven and it hasn’t affected me at all.

Sexual??? I have played the whole series and haven’t seen one sexual scene seen in it. One other thing that everybody has missed is that ESRB rated the game a 16+ and this kid is 16 so what is the problem?

The dad then calls the game violent. yes the game is violent so what?
Oh that’s because there are guns and a TINY bit of blood! Yeah so what this kid has probably seen violent movies and read violent books! go play/see dead space or left 4 dead or my personal favourite Gears of War.

Also, the guy has a gun in his house. So It’s alright to have a gun in your house butnot alright to play a GAME with guns! Jeez what a hypocrite! Then “sexual”, god people have sex all the time and guess what? The parents had to have had sex to have had the kid. More Hypocriticness! And being his age he shall have been around friends and other people who have all had sex either with their girlfriends or random people. And let me tell you, people LOVE to talk to other people and tell them about the first ime they had sex!

All that said don’t blame the game, blame the gamer.

But throughout my life I have seen people that “react” badly when playing video games, now I am not talking about someone “lashing out, or yelling” I am talking about people who “shake furiously, or blank out for periods of time” and these people shouldn’t be playing video games, or drinking.

Now, in this particular case I believe video games did kill his parents, because as it was stated in the story this kid played for 18 hour days, holy shit. I love gaming myself, infact I play competitive gaming, but I have never topped over 12 hours of gaming in a day. And I can only remember a few times where I spent that much time.

It just shows that kid on the last weekend got so hooked into Halo he just wanted to play it ALL the time, and when he got home he wanted to get the game straight then.

Personally I “THINK” he went to the lockbox for the GUN, not the game as he testified. I believe he was furious that now he couldn’t play it when he is at home after playing it on the weekend for 18 hour days. So he thought he would be better off eliminating his parents because they don’t love him anyway, they won’t let him play Halo.

Anyhow to sum this up, are video games responsible for killing people? 99% of the time, no. In this case, yes. He was too addicted to the game, I have seen heavy addiction.

“If a crack addict can kill for crack, a gaming addict can kill for a game”

And yes, addiction isn’t limited to just one thing.

-Daniel

If someone cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, cannot separate fantasy violence in a video game from real life violence — there is something bigger at work than the effects of a video game.

I don’t think anyone is here is trying to blame just the game itself. There is a lot that goes into a tragedy like this, but I think to neglect violence we find in media (movies, games, tv) is not wise either.

If we lived our lives without seeing violence glorified, or learning how to “shoot a gun” through tvs, see how some cool main character in a film beat up and shoot up everyone, have our eyes light up seeing explosions galore… we wouldn’t even know where to begin in terms of violence.

Back in WW1, only 1 in 5 soldiers even fired a gun. Why? The thought of shooting a human being was so foreign to them. Shoot a person? How can I do that? That’s someone’s father or someone’s son! So what did the US do? We trained them by having them shoot human shaped targets, and then created simulators (basically like video games) so soldiers can get used to shooting at people. Next world war, that stat skyrocketed. Everyone shot at a far higher rate, because they were conditioned to see humans as targets.

Again, by all means, I don’t think anyone should blame a game for something so tragic. There are tons of other factors here as many have listed. No one is doing that here. But let’s not pretend that media has nothing to do with violence in our culture just because we like playing violent games.

Part of the reason these kid of post are put up on cleancutmedia is with the hope that stories like this change us for the better. Help us become more aware and alert with how media can affect us and be sad and broken about the world around us. By just casting this aside saying it’s just some “dumb kid” just because we love playing these games makes us distance ourselves from the story (i.e. “i play this game, so it can’t be the game”).

Also I feel like saying “i wouldn’t do this” is not a great argument… yes you might not do it, maybe you have better parents or more lenient parents. maybe you are more self-controlled then others.. but the fact of the matter is, it happened, stuff like this does happen.. I feel really sad many here are just cursing and ripping on this kid. It’s horrible what he did, but I personally feel very sad for this guy..

I really appreciate the many well-thought out answers.

Sexually explicit? Rofl. If it was id be playing it right now, The only “sexual” thing about it is that there is a girl oor two in it. Fail.

Also, yes the 16 year old shouldn’t of shot the parents, but if he has a job and is of the legal age of buying it, the parents have No rite to Steal the game from him.

As I said before… just so fail…