8 Year old kills grandmother of 87 after playing GTA

Afternoon folks.

An 8 year old child last Thursday killed his grandmother of 87 Marie Smothers. The Louisiana sheriff's department implied the child's activities in a violent virtual world may have led to the killing.

That game? Grand Theft Auto IV
Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/marie-smothers-grand-theft-auto_n_3821879.html
 

Under state law the child cannot be charged for shooting his grandmother, children under the age of 10 are considered "immune from criminal responsibility".

"It's not a crime if he's under 10 years old. We're still trying to figure out how to help this juvenile and his parents, it was determined that he did the shooting and it was an accident. He thought it was a toy gun, a play gun" said East Feliciana Parish District Attorney Samuel D'Aquilla.

The boy was playing GTA right behind his grandmother, at some point the boy picked up a .38 caliber handgun and shot his grandmother from about four feet away.

A judge has ruled that the 8 year old can continue to live with his parents so the boy can be in a "safe environment" 

Rockstar Games was questioned if the game was a link, they said:

"Ascribing a connection to entertainment -- a theory that has been disproven repeatedly by multiple independent studies -- both minimizes this moment and sidesteps the real issues at hand."

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Yet again the debate of whether or not video games cause these violent acts is back, once more law enforcement officials saw the violent video game and instantly made the connection that because the boy was playing Grand Theft Auto and that is what made him think of killing his grandmother.

Why are we paying attention to what the kid was playing instead of the fact that the child clearly had easy access to the .38 revolver?

We've been doing this for quite some time where we instead of looking at the problem at hand we look for a scapegoat to take the blame.

We have blamed violent movies, tv shows and violent video games as the cause of our youths becoming as violent as they have become or could become.

I remember when I was a kid my dad would get me this Christian tv show on VHS(oh yeah it was that long ago) called 'Bibleman', I remember that at the beginning of one of the tapes there was this advertisement for Pamplin Entertainment and in the advertisement the woman said "All those violent movies and tv shows, those media moguls in Hollywood. Don't they have the foggiest idea of what we want our kids to be watching?"

Now I remember that advertisement and think to myself "It's not Hollywood's problem".

The problem is irresponsible parents who buy their kids these games who don't read the ESRB rating on the box, they don't see that the movie is obviously rated R and they choose not to think anything about it.

Your kids are not responsible for what they watch or what they play, you are.

That's it for this afternoon you guys. Thanks for reading