Ohio to close freeway amid shootings

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/12/05/ohio.shooting/index.html

Sources say it's all part of a plan to make the sniper move to a different highway.

Why do I smell another GTAIII lawsuit coming on?

please explain.

http://www.grandtheftauto3.com/

C'mon, let's all go get a piece of that quarter-billion dollar pie, 'cause some idiot 14-year-old decided to take up sniping after playing the game a couple times!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/32765.html

If not, let me tell you...I do...and I could not bring myself to drive the by-pass loop when I went to Pittsburgh.....

It's easy to smart off ....I'd challenge you to drive on thru....

just that closing the highway is a futile response. And taking a potshot at the "let's sue GTA3" mentality.

. . . and I am most concerned at them shutting down the highway.

I liked the last line:

"Or perhaps the answer to the perennial problem of delinquent teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue the creators of Tetris."

GTAIII?

Computer game, I believe. Grand Theft Auto III. Big controversy regarding this game. Wonderful publicity the makers couldn't have afforded even if they had wanted it.

Various idiots will say it makes people kill.

since elementary school. My first machine was my Atari 2600.

Every home console has had 'violent' games.

Not counting sibling rivalry, I've thrown two (2) punches in my life. Both were in the same fight, with my roommate, after he threw a glass of water on me- twice- to put out my cigs. I warned him after the first time, lit another, he did it again, I got up, and socked him in the face twice as hard as I could. The guy outweighed me by over 100 pounds, and I busted his glasses and gave him a black eye. Hey- he deserved it; I lived there too.

Video games do not make a person violent, nor do they encourage violence if a clear line is drawn by the parents between fantasy and reality.

Period.

Wouldn't you agree that gaming is, and is certainly headed towards a realism unheard of? haven't you ever played a racing game for hours, then get in your car and drive faster than you normally would unintentionally. I am in no way defending actions performed by complete idiots copying what they see in games. However, i think to completely write off the effect of violence desensitization is foolish. there's a certain age and emotional maturity level that is required to separate reality from fantasy, and right from wrong. The harder you make it for these lines to be seen easily, the better chance someone is going to fail to see them, or care if they do.

I've played games since age 6. Games that are clearly fictional are one thing.

Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, et al, are clearly fictional. I've no problem with those. I play them all the time and I never got the urge to do anything distasteful.

Games that imitate reality are another, far more disturbing, issue.

Those army sponsored games, GTA3, and others of the same vein are downright disturbing.

Especially since, a few weeks after I started playing it, I got the urge to run people over IN REAL LIFE. Obviously, I stopped playing the game. I was probably playing it too much anyway.

The game is a simulation where you, the player, are assigned to kill people, steal things, whatever, in order to score points and win. In a civilized world, this travesty wouldn't have even been thought of, much less released to the public.

The only people who'd be mentally stable enough to play this slop wouldn't want to play it because it's that disgusting.

Indeed, I decided to start driving over people because the rest of the game was just TOO DISTASTEFUL, VULGAR, and VIOLENT. Clubbing people, shooting them... the game was created by a bunch of maladjusted psychotic psychopaths who shouldn't be getting a penny out of this slop. Half the time I was wishing I was the person being ran over, but I digress.

Maybe I'm an idiot because I started getting disturbing urges after playing it for a month. Maybe I should be shot in the name of preserving society (which is a joke, we're not a society, we're a country full of people who put their profits before anything else. They should be shot...)

Come on, you macho sanctimonious all-knowing guy you, get out the gun and do me a favor. I dare you! It is clearly the right thing to do. Better do me in before I get my hands on another cesspool of a game and start doing it for real.

And the responses were very right wing let's lynch them comments. Then someone said it was because of too much information because of the internet, and someone mentioned that that SD student that was missing wasn't national news. Then there was the normal death penalty crap and here was my response. I hope it makes people wake up. But I doubt it.
If we get rid of this "me first" attitude in this country, we might see a drop in the level of violent crime. Getting rid of poverty and let health care be available to all as a right instead of a priviledge is the first step. It makes me mad to that people kill others for no reason. I think it's funny that too much information is blamed for people killing others.
You don't think a kidnapped, scared girl is national news? What if it were your daughter? She could be anywhere! Do you think if they only show this story in SD that it would help her if she were in, say, Montana?
God, some of the stuff you guys have written has flabergasted me. Like Leesy's comment about hard criminals never getting harsh sentences. Um, that's not true. As a criminal justice major, I can assure you that while the middle, upper middle, and upper classes all get preferential treatment in the justice system, the "hard" criminals are usually from the lower socioeconomic classes and they get unequal punishments. I do agree with you however on the death row thing. That found God thing is rarely listened to, and now, even innocent people are getting killed for things they didn't do, while the guilty go free. We're more concerned with getting someone behind bars. Fuck them if they aren't the one who really did it. We want vengence and revenge. Who cares if it's the right man or woman, as long as it's a man or a woman.
If we start teaching our kids that other people come before ourselves and that the world doesn't end at the end of their noses, then this country might start to turn around. We can sit and bitch and ponder about why our country is in the shitter, but we can't fix that unless we fix ourselves first. This society is so obsessed with looks, celebrities, things that don't even freaking matter. But we let veterans sleep on park benches and eat out of garbage cans. We let our elderly freeze to death on fixed incomes that no one can live on, let children get beat repeatedly by their parents and do nothing about it. Until we look inside ourselves and take a little bit of responsibility for that, then nothing will ever change. If we don't start taking care of each other the way Jesus really wanted us to, instead of involking his name to start wars, then it's all going to get worse. And if you think this world is hell right now, you haven't seen anything yet. If we don't start taking care of each other now, I hate to think how much worse it's going to get. While you're opening presents on Christmas morning, sipping on a warm beverage, think about that guy that fought for our country sleeping out on a park bench using newspaper as a blanket, or the kid who stayed awake all night hiding in the closet scared her father would come in to sexually molest her one more time or beat the crap out of her because she's breathing a little too loudly for his liking. Snipers are the least of our problems.

Duckie

:eyes: