A 4-year-old shot his father for allegedly not bringing home a PlayStation.
There is sophisticated analysis of the facts, and there’s jumping to conclusions (preferably on a mat). According to Saudi news site Asharq Alawsat, a four and a half year old boy waited for his father to get home. He walked through the door without the desired videogame console, and the boy was apparently not very happy about it. When his father was undressing, the boy picked up a loaded handgun his father left on the bed and shot him in the head. Instead of calling for gun safety reforms, the tragic accident dredged up old arguments about violence in games and how it influences the young.
“Violence has been linked to videogames; numerous studies have shown that more and more children are playing the violent videogames, which leads to greater aggression,” writes the Christian Post.
“In this case, the 4-year-old had likely seen shootings enacted in a videogame he played. When he shot his father, he did not realize he would actually cause him harm; he was merely copying what he had already seen. There have been other cases of kids acting out or harming someone else after playing a videogame.”
The Christian Post doesn’t cite these “other cases” but does find time to plug television pundit Dr. Phil. “If you shoot somebody in one of these games, you don’t go to jail, you don’t get penalized in some way-you get extra points!” Dr. Phil writes. “It’s absolutely not good.”
I’m sure I don’t need to point out to you how an accidental shooting – even if the child wanted a PlayStation – has no bearing on the content of videogames. The violence in games did not make the father negligent in teaching his son about gun safety.
Source: Christian Post
