You would think that eventually people would get it through their thick skulls that humans are a violent species. It's not like there were no mass murderers before video games and then with the advent of the Atari all of a sudden people started killing each other. Violence is natural to humans but is socially undesirable and thus creates a conflict and sometimes that conflict ends up causing someone to snap. I mean, are Africanized honey bees overly aggressive because someone played Doom near them? No. Violence will continue to be present in human societies as long as there are humans in a human society.

TBH, it was before Atari. Rogue and Trek existed before the company Atari on massive mainframes. And before popular PCs it was D&D and other Pen and Paper following. If there is a way to blame SOMETHING you don't like, you will.

Oh no TH4T, before video games there were No Murders! The world was a peaceful place with faeries, tree elfs and pixies!

Look at this judge..I mean just take a look at him, he's so bloody old he's gone senile if he really thinks that this crazy kid killed his parents, BOTH of his parents due to video games.

Does no one ever think "Well maybe the parents were just really bad parents?" And when I say bad I don't mean giving a kid a spanking I mean the morons that parent's are in this day and age, sitting children down infront of the television instead of watching them themselves.

The ignorant parents that don't pay enough attention or care enough about their own children to see these kind of issues. No they are happy to just blame a form of entertainment just as violent and gruesome as any other form of entertainment.

You see people getting shot on television, does that mean that your going to go out, buy a pistol and start shooting people? No, because most people have something called Common Sense. If you do not have such a thing as common sense, then obviously your parents did not do their job's correctly and should be punished accordingly by the law.

(I'm sorry for this rant and I appreciate anyone who is willing to read this but this idiot is going to do the same thing as Jack (the failure) Thompson.)

"Defense attorneys argued that Petric's youth and addiction to the game "Halo 3" made him less responsible for the shooting. They say he often played video games 18 hours a day with little food or sleep. They say he may have been so obsessed with the game"

16 years old too. If I was his parent I may have thought about making him do something else. Also how can one game hold someone's attention for 18 hours a day?

Prosecutors say he told them "Close your eyes, I've got a surprise for you," before shooting them, and then tried to make it look like a murder-suicide.

That's got nothing to do with games, that's just a psycho.

Apparently the only reason there is war in the world is because of video games.

If adam and eve weren't addicted to world of warcraft they would never have eaten that apple.

...should never have accepted that quest from the snake...

Its good to know that there were no murders or psychopaths before video games.

Hi all -
Our son is bi-polar. He played way too much on his x-box. We took it away and had it taken away for much of a year. He found ways around our restriction. His anger and bi-polar aspects certainly are a part of him, and his game play is not the reason for his mental problems. However, as a D&D Gamer for 30+yrs, I know how additive gaming can be (I also play PC Games), but combine an addiction such as violent video games with a history of mental illness and you can have problems. As a D&D player I've had to fight many of these "lame" excuses for peoples personal behavior.
Personal behavior and mental states must be taken into account prior to any connection to what hobbies a person has partakes in. If this person was a 4x4er and his parents said no, he might have then run them over, if he was a person that favors duct-taping vehicles, he might have duct-taped them to death.
It is the underlying mental state that is at issue and that the Judge, media (and all its parts [ie. Internet, Television, Print, etc.]) need to be willing to understand and evaluate.
I know, because there were many nights that we wondered if our son would walk in and attempt to attack us. Even now, he's 17 and he moved out to be with his birth father (who let him play games, no matter what his school work or other activities died in the process), that he is on "vacation" and in our town for the past two weeks. We're not scared, but we are concerned that he will break into our home. This has more to due with his mental illness than his video game play. However, we do wonder how much of his addiction to video games drives him and any potential violence. We feel that the violence he has is in him and we hoped that video games released some of that violence but the mental handicap he has may not allow such to exist.
In all, it is always personal behavior and responsibility that should be considered and hobbies are hardly ever what should take the brunt of excuses and blame. They can and do influence a person, and thus can be responsible, but a person will utilize whatever it is that they like to do - to do whatever it is that they will do.
Do Not Name Me

It just goes to show you that a semi-literate lawyer that gets appointed or elected as a judge does not have to be a smart person.