Jury doesn't buy video game defense
An Alabama jury took just one hour to convict a 20-year-old who had killed three police officers, and whose lawyers claimed that Grand Theft Auto made him do it, the Associated Press reports.
Good for the jury, I say. It's an absurd contention that game players relinquish moral responsibility for their actions, because they've somehow been hypnotized by playing. More dangerous is the assertion made in the police officers' civil suit against the Grand Theft Auto creators, seeking to hold Take-Two Interactive Software responsible for the deaths, however.
Yes, the boy played the violent game. Yes, he apparently used it as a model for behavior. But the AP story's lead gives another clue, noting that this boy was abused as a child. I think might be fair to say there were other factors that led him to snap in a tragic way.