Here we go again. In Slaughter, Louisiana an eight year old boy living in a trailer park with his grandmother managed to get his hand on a loaded pistol and shoot and killed his grandmother.
This is a tragedy that raises all sorts of concerning questions. So are the media asking how an eight year old got access to a loaded weapon or what sort of environment thus kid was living in? Nope because the boy was allegedly paying Grand Theft Auto IV shortly before the shooting occurred.
Now this might be one of the few occasions where there could be a link since it is pretty likely that an eight year old will emulate whatever he sees on TV. The fact that he had access to any violent media is concerning, but we don't know if he had access to other violent games or even a selection of violent movies. We don't know if this kid had been mistreated or has any sort of psychological condition. What we do know is that he had access to a loaded gun.
Again, I am not denying that access to a violent video game may be a factor in this terrible tragedy but it certainly isn't the main concern. There has always been a desire to find an easy scapegoat. Before games it was movies, or Dungeons and Dragons, or heavy metal, or comic books, rock and roll, the devil, etc.
We can hope that this event may be a catalyst for tighter gun control in the US, but unfortunately while there is an easier target to blame I don't think we'll be seeing any changes.
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