Call of Duty cited for the death of a preteen

F*cking hell, i'm not surprised at the story really, seen it before and;

"A game that is rated M for Mature, probably doesn't belong in the hands of a 12 year old"

Yes, thank you doctor, nail on head there. Fault lies in parents for not supervising their young ones and letting them play something that isn't for them. THEN leave a gun laying around. No fault but own, trial the gunowner for neglicence, or murder for all things considered. Akin to letting a kid watch porn then blame the porn for the kids new found affinity towards his teachers arse, while conviniently leaving the chloroform and dildos laying around the house...i digress...what does surprise me? Kotaku. The one who should be responsible enough as a gaming site and NOT fuel the fire on this old chestnut that's been the bane of gamers and devs for ages?

They say this;
"While it's common to dismiss media outlets' convenient linkages between violent video games and crime as sensationalist, this time—because of the closeness of the crime and the gameplay—it might not be as easy."

Just dismiss the media outlet and call it as it is, do NOT bring this kind of nonsense into it as the rabid parents and anti-game alliance will lap it up and due to the popularity of kotaku, this might actually set things back for years. Even without the over-exaggaration.

Parents fault.

Having a loaded gun accessible by a child.
Allowing access to an 18 (or M) rated game to a child.

Gaming community supporting games, well i never.

It has a role to play similary rap music CAN influence drug taking and violence, its a outlet and its unavoidable

It has nothing to do with supporting games, but all to do with saying that if the blame is on the parents, stop looking for excuses. In this case, it's 100% the parents fault and there's no excuse, no matter how ahrd you want to look at the music, books, videos, comics, or any other medium the kid gets his brain tickled.

There's far worse things the kid has seen just by clicking "i feel lucky" on the internet, if his restrictions are this loose. I'm all for laid back parenting, but there's a limit and if you own a gun, you have a pretty f*cking big limit right there.

On your widely generic rap music comment; yes, given IF the rap music in question had lyrics of such nature, then it might, which is why it's not for children.

Actually, the game is clearly marked as suitable only to adults. The parents should not have allowed their child to play it. Simple.

It's no different to a violent film or TV show. Part of basic parenting is to choose when to allow them access to adult material and to protect children from harm.

10 is clearly too young for access to 18+ material and loaded firearms...it is avoidable, its called responsible parenting.

Only in America would you see the media try to spin a computer game as more of a contributor to a tragedy than a loaded gun left lying around for children to play with. He's a twelve-year old boy; boys play war games all the time, they don't need Activision's finest to give them an incentive to play with guns ffs.

last night i smoked some pcp and then murdered 2 hookers... i knew i shouldn't have listened to willenium before i went out.

Shit parents caused the death of a preteen.

They can cite CoD all they want, but a child having access to a firearm =

Nah i think youre missing the point, its related if the kids are playing a game where its acceptable to run around killing people at that age you coukd be niave enough to think there will be no consequences im accepting its the parents responsibility im just saying if you took a violent FPS game out of the equation, im pretty sure the death wouldnt have occured, its all about socialisation, i stand by that its fine for peeps to play violent games aslong as theres the clear cut between the game and real life, I mean, we look back at say the Gladiators, we look back and comment wow! Its so wrong that they killed each other for entertainment, but were doing it now, but not in a literal sense, but because real life and technology is becoming so closely linked, there wont be much of a difference, sparing the irl consequences of a in game action. Gaming does poison people and its a fact its addictive, its a fucking drug, and if you deny this theb youre clearly addicted and in denial. Entertainment of all kinds has its negative sides such as this, we cant avoid it, we cant deny it, because frankly it does have a role to play, like music and possibly films do, there just needs to be awareness for it.

bingo

i grew up around guns in the family.. its really simple
you DO NOT TOUCH the fucking gun cabinet*

*for american parents, those are the LARGE METAL CABINETS THAT ARE LOCKED AT ALL TIMES for keeping guns in .. not "a table"

god damn that's funny

Gwad must be trolling.....atleast I hope so for the sake of humanity.

Black ops is fucking woeful as well

Yes Gwadien!

Bonanza is obviously at fault for all the gun deaths that happened during the 70's, just as Call of Duty is responsible for all the gun deaths of today. It's certainly not irresponsible parenting leaving loaded guns around for kids to play with.

Lol, you retard

Hope so.

The way I feel is like this. A game may glamorise violence but it is up to the parts to teach a kid the difference between games and real life. Also in a house where there are loaded weapons your child should be trained to know what they are and respect the fact they are not a toy. A guy I used to work with lived in the states and there were pictures of him and his kid who looked no older than 10 at the shooting range. You give a kid a healthy respect of firearms and you teach them they are not toys.

And I still maintain YouTube is much worse than any game or film. Some of the links my cousins send round are savage. With videos of people getting shot for real out there and seeing people laughing at death when its a reality how much harm can a virtual death really cause.

I kind of agree with Gwadien though, MW3 is so sh*t i'd kill someone too.

loool, as I said before, this is like trying to convince people to smoke weed that weed has its negative sides, OMFG NO!

So you're telling me, if those kids were playing like, Spyro the Dragon for instance, there would be the same chance that the kid would've shot the other kid?

No, the games play a role in it.

Clearly, it's still the parents fault, but the game does still have a role to play.

You've got 2 people, they're exactly the same in every single way, apart from 1 played COD and the other didn't, they both join the army, who's gonna find it easier killing someone?

When i was a kid, we didn't have shooters. We had 8bit mario at -best-, yet we still had some pieces of branches that we played war with. Pewpew games are part of childhood, the difference is that we didn't have live f*king guns laying about. If we did, most likely one brother in our house would've picked it up and pewpew'ed the sh*t out of the other.

On your two people comparison; they both will have equal difficulty/ease to kill a human being as they are -adults-, adults know the difference between entertainment and real life. Unless they've got some issues.

Do you understand what the PG rating is for? It's the same as alcohol. There is the acknowledgement that some things aren't good for kids, which is why it's clearly marked and regulated as such. You know? For adults only.

How does the kid end up with it? How does the kid watch porn on internet? How does the kid get drunk at 11 years old? How does he pick up a loaded gun? Lack of parenting, end all.

With an attitude like that, you shouldn't be anywhere near a gaming community, videogames, or any form of entertainment.

shocking naive, i didn't think we had people this stupid on fh. If a gun was lying around, anything could have been the trigger. All the kid would have to do is watch the News.

He wouldn't have seen the gun being used in a game, so therefore wouldn't probably have touched it and his parents telling him NOT to touch it probably outweighed his curiosity(sp?)

Imagine, you're 12 years old, and you've just come off a game, where a guy runs around killing loads of bad guys with a gun, and then you come off with your friends, over-excited and like OMG THAT WAS SO FUN, THERES A GUN, LETS ACT WHAT THEY DID! oops.

I'm not saying that certifying games is a bad thing, I know that's an initial safe guard, but lets face it, how many people actually stick to the certificates? If you're a gamer, and your kid starts playing games, you're not gonna stop them from playing COD as 12 year olds, a good amount of 12 year olds play CoD in this Country.

All I'm saying is, you can't claim games are completely innocent in cases like this.

Um, no, because the News usually condemns the use of weapons, where as games glorify the use of weapons to kill the bad guys.

Stupid retard is retard.

Come on Gwad. I used the example of Bonanza. People used to blame TV programs for kids picking guns up and shooting people. It was Cowboys and Indians back then, Call of Duty now.

Explain why they're not complaining about that any more and how they don't complain about parents leaving loaded guns around the house.

The thing which worries me is that young kids today cannot understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

We have been having problems at the school I work with, with children who play 'call of duty' in the playground and they are 5 and 6! The aggression they show is really bad. We have had the parents in and they say their children have never seen them play the game, and that they have all the apropriate child locking on their computers?

I asked my class of 6/7 year olds what would happen if 'I got a gun and shot you' -12 of them said they would get back up!! Thats what they see and it is so realistic with today's graphics.
They no longer understand what violence and death is and that is due to what they see -not just video games -films, even like Harry Potter That is the nature of our culture today.

It is the parents fault, but if a child has a tendency to be slightly mental anyway, access to these games is so dangerous.

And dont even get me started on the whole sexualising thing -5 year olds dancing 'sexy' calling each other 'sexy'. Boys touching girls up at 6, Girls flirting and grinding at 6. its filtered in over the years -but now it is widely accepted. Kids love Katy Perry and Rihanna -its pop, but jesus the videos they make for their songs. Kids see it and of course they act it out.

Because kids don't watch Cowboys and Indians anymore?

I love it how you're all completely ignoring the fact that I agree that it's the parents fault, but I find it amazing that you believe the games don't have anything to do with it.