February 9, 2008 -
Is it possible that by spending the last few years debating the supposed detrimental effects of mature video games like Manhunt 2 or GTA on our youth, we’ve managed to overlook the real culprit?Pokémon...
According to the Associated Press, a 10-year-old boy was sent to juvenile hall for robbing a younger schoolmate of his Pokémon trading cards at gun point. According to police, the fourth grader was holding an Airsoft gun to the 6-year-old’s head while he robbed him.
AE: Thankfully, no one was hurt in this case. The 10-year-old has been suspended and school officials are considering expulsion.
-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen
Comments
Little kids are crazy.
Young children rob each other all the time,here in Ohio some 10 year old stole an 8 year olds bike at gun point,except that time it was a real gun!
That and there was a series of cars getting broken into that turned out to be a gang of 12 year olds.
Seems like a stupid thing to steal though...wowie I saved whole $10 by threatening to shoot someone
The airsoft community gets as much unjustified slander as the games community does. Nice to see you demand evidence for other people's statements but not your own. Look up the Home Office's reports on legal limits for airsoft weapons.
what the hell is wrong with people today??
It was an airsoft gun, just shoots concentrated little poofs of air. William Shatner used one once as Denny Crane in Boston Legal. In other words, it was a toy gun.
Or at least i THINK that's what the term means...
while i agree with you that this is a silly case, don't imagine that the cards are a mere 10 dollars worth, it's quite possible that it was more a binder filled with cards that could be worth upwards of a hundred dollars depending on rarity (i'm not sure the going price on pokemon cards)
@NovaBlack
it was an airsoft gun, i believe even a monor can pick those up at most sporting goods stores, or even perhaps walmart
It was an Airsoft rifle, so it's probably something his Parents let him have. Even if it were put away between uses, everyone knows children have the power to phase through locks and such. When you grow up, you loose the power and the memory of the power. And when you're a kid, you have this special defensive memory block that makes you flatly deny it exists.
In fact, the power only works when no one is looking at them. Kinda like that invisible kid on Mystery Men. :)
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
This reason is that they couldn't control the fact that many kids were stealing objects from their parents to trade Pokemon cards, and those parents complained.
But seriously, this case is no different from other shooting cases, except no one was hurt (if you see what I mean).
I don't understand why kids are resorting to violences over pokemon cards when like I never really heard anything about other card games like magic the gathering.
What is so speical about pokemon...(dispite being aimed towards kids.) that causes more crime and violence compaired to other card games. (With Magic the Gathering being aimed towards a bit older demograph.)
I think it's two things, firstly that Pokemon is aimed at a less mature audience, and secondly because of 'gotta catch them all'. In fact, in the UK they may have to change that catchphrase under new advertising laws which forbid advertising messages that compel children to buy something, I'll have to check out the wording on the new advertising laws to be sure however.
It used to be dinner money when I was a kid, someone only ever tried that once with me.
Oh and who lets themselves be robbed by an air-soft gun? Those things don't hurt THAT much.
Umm... you DO realize the attacked kid is SIX, right?
Not when I typed the thing, and I apologise.
No one's blaming Pokémon. I'm just being a wiseass.
The thing that struck me odd about this story is the original article first describes the weapon as a "foam pellet gun" so my first thought was some (mostly) harmless NERF gun or something.
Then a couple sentences later it says Airsoft gun. Big difference that. One's a toy and the other shoots plastic pellets at a few hundred feet per second. Even a spring powered model can potentially put out someone’s eye. Holding one to a 6-year-olds head is incredibly dangerous.
Andrew Eisen
Let me show you my robbery.
You guys forgot another pokemon based complaint, one card (can't remember which) offended the jewish community because it appeared to have swastikas on it. It turned out that the symbol was actually just a japenese symbol for good luck, but it had to be removed nonetheless.
I am surprised that this is still going on to be honest, I thought that besides the games everything else was dying away, I suppose not. I honestly think it comes down to spoiled bratism. He saw something that he wanted but didn't have, so he did whatever he felt was necessary to get them when his parents wouldn't (or couldn't) get them. It's that selfish mentality that screws up the youth today. Some things you just can't have y'know.
I loved pokemon a ton when I was younger. I played the games, collected cards, watched the show, went to movies, etc. but me and my friends eventually outgrew it for the most part.
I only play the handheld games today, they're still fun. What is funny is some people still use that as ammunition to make fun of me, how sad...
BEn
I have that card in Japanese, I got it at a pawn shop for 50 cents, the symbol only came on the Japanese version of the card. Nintendo's statement was that "what is ok for some cultures just isn't for other cultures." It wasn't a Nazi Swastika, it was a swastika that was turned on it's side, more rectangular, red, and spun in the opposite direction, but people still complained.
Apparently, that wasn't important to the sensationalism they were trying to report.
I would assume the youth got the gun, as most do, from his home. Airsoft is a fairly popular sport so it's not out of the question that there would be one there.
Also, I didn't find the AP report to be sensationalistic at all. I'm certainly critical of the discrepancy between first calling the weapon a "foam pellet gun" and then an Airsoft. Two very different things, those. But no one’s claiming Pokémon caused this incident.
Andrew Eisen
Even if you WERE a racist and were only ratting on black kids doing it, that's not against the law, it really isn't. Now if you blamed them for crimes they didn't commit (like a certain piece of scum in North Carolina), then that's another story. I see no way that the judge will find it in their favor, absolutely no way.
Aye, same here. I used to do all that and now I only play the games, since the card games was too confusing to me (and I haven't bothered to try to learn it again) and after watching them a bunch of times I came to the realisation that the shows and movies STINK. They have the most predictable plot lines I have EVER seen in my life (except for comedies or parodies where the plot gets made fun of for being predictable).
A memo to team rocket, get a gun, or a knife. If you really want his freaking pokemon then just use some good old fashioned mugging (they're criminals anyway).
Oh and I didn't know what an airsoft gun was, I honestly thought it was a NERF gun.
So surprised nobody beat me to that.
what would JT say about this, in regards to videogames???
I can't find the original on the VGcats site for some reason. Flu with fever might be it :).
Meanwhile used needles were commonly found in the boy's bathroom stalls. They sure had their priorities strait.