In New Zealand: Another "GTA Made Me Do It" Case

Or maybe all that pent up anger from being sexually abused as a child is starting to come out in ways that tend to be violent? 

Oh shit, sorry.. thats wrong, obviously it was the games that set him off! 

Cause, you know.. video-games seem to have that brainwashing feature in them that rewires our minds to become more violent, aggressive people for which we'll go on random rampages and kill loads of people, because well... if it happened in a video-game its gotta be fun IRL! 

Lets forget that even though youth violence as gone down since video-games started becoming more prominent, we can safely assertain that video games are causing more youth to become violent crimminals! 

Indeed, for things such as a growing poverity amoung the lower class(and thus, a larger gap between rich and poor), the rise of rap music and a general gang mentality amoung youths, video games have been the sole reason for our degredation as a society! 

And last but not least, those damn controllers our youth use to play video-games.. obviously they are the single biggest threat to our society as a whole as it trains our children to hold 'real' guns and use them with the same proficency as say, someone in the army of police.  Going from holding a joystick/pad/controller that weighes less then 3lbs to holding a rifle or assault rifle that weights anywhere from 10-20lbs+ (i might be wrong here) while being able to sight it in, adjust for recoil and all these other things... indeed, controllers are making us better marksmen to shoot you!  (thats right, you!)

I think its relevant that he played it on a Xbox360.

I'm starting to get concerned about the quality of defense attorneys nowadays, especially if they're lazy enough to think a "games made me do it" plea is gonna go anywhere in a case...

A game is not drugs, a game is not alcohol, a game cannot change the basics of your soul, or whatever you call the thing that defines you. A game is a artwork and a plaything it's not a life or a sort of guide. You can learn lessons from games, but as with everything else you can't trust blindly in what it teaches you. If you seek something to trust blindly in, make it the religion of your choice not gta4.

Sometimes it feels like the world is full of retards that can't put one foot in front of the other unless someone tells them how.

This kind of thing fills me with contempt. Are the judge really that biased that he CHOOSES to ignore the fact that Reid is 25 years old, thus not very impressionable, been smoking pot since age 5, been sexually and physically abused by his parents and has had prior charges for assault and robbery?

And these people are supposed to be the objective, non-biased justice system... so much for that.

So...that's basically an insanity plea? 

"Don't blame me, the violent videogames I choose to buy and play religiously have corrupted my understanding of right and wrong"?

If true, perhaps anyone who plays videogames should be forced to undergo psychological screening on a regular basis to ensure they aren't being driven insane.  Or maybe we should ban videogames entirely, and force everyone to engage only in 'psyche-friendly' activities (as defined by the FDA).

GTA also started Global Warming

Someone really needs to retire the "(insert video game) made me do it" excuse, it's getting old and stale...

1: What was the co-defendent's excuse?

2: 'Reid has previous convictions for aggravated wounding, robbery and assault.' - The guy had previous, he didn't do it because he was hard-wired, he did it because he was a violent thug.

Judges, of all people, should be a little more responsible about what they blame on 'society'.