In recent news, an 11-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the head,
killing himself instantly. Tragic yes, but this incident was blamed on Halo. If
this boy had never played Halo, they believe he would have never taken a gun,
pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Here is the article in full. Read
it yourself before I begin to break down this ridiculous accusation.
JOHNSON CREEK - An 11-year-old Johnson
Creek boy died from a gunshot wound Thursday at his home. Foul play is not
suspected and the sheriff's department said this morning it appears the
shooting was accidental.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, dispatchers received a
report of the shooting in the town of Farmington at approximately 2:15 p.m.
Thursday. The deceased person was Joshua J. Nimm, 11, of W5098 River Road,
Johnson Creek.
Deputies, along with personnel from the Johnson Creek Police Department,
Johnson Creek EMS and Fort Atkinson paramedics, all responded to the residence
where the shooting occurred.
There, with his father, Nimm was located with a fatal gunshot wound. He was
pronounced dead by the Jefferson County Coroner's office about 35 minutes
later. The cause of death was ruled to be a single, .22 caliber gunshot wound
to the head.
“We are ruling that it is an accidental shooting,” Jefferson County Detective
Sgt. Larry Lee said. “The child was getting ready for school and decided to
skip school. He was playing video games and we found out he had a .22 caliber
rifle that belongs to him. He had access to the rifle and a magazine was kept
somewhere else by his parents. He was familiar with the rifle and had been
shooting it a couple of times a month - he lived out in the country, so that was
nothing unusual.”
Lee said it appeared, following the
department's investigation, that after playing a combat video game called
“Halo,” Nimm took the gun and tried to recreate some of the things that had
occurred in the game. With an automatic rifle, Lee said there can sometimes be
confusion over whether it contains a magazine or not, and this confusion likely
led to Nimm's death.
“He took the magazine out and forgot to eject a round that was in the chamber.
He probably thought the gun was unloaded,” Lee said.
Lee said numerous people, including Nimm's parents, his school teachers and his
bus driver, were all interviewed and stated he had shown no signs of depression
or any differences in his personality recently.
“Dad came home in the afternoon and when he came in the house, the child was in
the home and was deceased,” Lee said.
(http://www.wdtimes.com/articles/2008/09/05/news/news3.txt)
What really gets to me about this whole article is the blaming of Halo for
this child’s poor upbringing. Let’s take the lighter road first: He was re-enacting
Halo. I would like to hear the evidence first as to why they came to this
conclusion. Secondly, if he truly was re-acting Halo, what part was he
imagining? I do not remember a part where you put your gun to your head and pull the trigger.
But the bigger issue is...why was this gun kept somewhere that an
11-year-old had easy access to? Why even bother hiding the magazine somewhere else
if the kid knew where both parts were?
I am all about the right to bear arms, but with that should come with the responsibility of teaching your children about gun safety. The kid owns a gun, the parents keep both the gun and the bullets somewhere that the kid has easy access to, yet the kid does not know how to handle a gun or how to always assume it's loaded. Hello?!
We are beginning to see this awful habit of the media blaming video games
for parent’s mishaps in parenting. Another quick one was the kid who set some
cars on fire in France because he had learned it in GTA. What was a 13-year-old
by doing with a copy of an M-rated game that hasn't even been released in his
country yet?
Seriously, why does the media keep letting these parents off the hook by
blaming video games instead? A kid goes into a school and kills his classmates...let's
blame music and video games; let's not blame the fact that the kid was severely
disturbed and needed mental help. His parents had their heads too far up their
asses to notice what is going on in their own homes and to see that their child
needs help. Isn't anyone seeing a problem with how these kids are getting guns
in the first place?
Let's face it; it's not video games, music or movies that are causing these terrible things to happen. It's parents who are ignoring the signs; it’s teachers who feel that they cannot go to the parents anymore without getting yelled at to mind their own business; it’s the fact that these kids are getting guns more easily than they can get a pack of cigarettes. It's because we as a society have stopped holding parents accountable for what their children are doing...instead we blame it on video games. Video games that have put ratings on them just to let parents know that they should be policing their children and their kids should not be playing these games in the first place.
So the next time a parent cries "Oh it's that GTA or that Halo," how
about we kindly point out the rating tag on the front of the box and say back,
"Hey, it's a Mature game...what was your kid doing with it in the first
place?"
The kid in the above article was just playing a modern version of “Cowboys and Indians,” a game with a much more brutal story behind it than Halo. The only difference is when I used to play imaginary shooting games as a kid, I didn’t have access to real guns. Think about that one, parents.
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