On June 25, 14-year-old Joshua and 16-year-old William Buckner shot two people while driving through the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The two teenagers were bored and decided to go out driving with their .22-caliber rifle. They shot and killed Aaron Hamel, 45, and seriously wounded Kimberly Bede, 19.
Those are the horribly simple facts of the case: Josh and Will are two very misguided teenagers who made a very serious mistake and should be punished to the full extent of the law.
But the two boys told police investigators that they were inspired by the video game "Grand Theft Auto III." The teenagers were bored, so they decided to get rifles out of a locked room in their house and go shoot tractor-trailers on the side of the road, just like in the video game, police said.
Give me a break.
While the video game may be a rather violent, M-rated video game that does depict graphic car theft, saying it could force two teenagers to go out and murder someone is absolutely ridiculous. Due to the Buckner brothers' statement, GTA III's marketer Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., designers Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart have been sued by the Bede and Hamel families for $46 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages.
The Buckner brothers committed very serious criminal acts, but to try and settle it in civil court for $246 million is not going to fix the problem of youth idiocy - it will simply fatten the pockets of the families suing.
Rather than suing for money, the families should focus on bringing the companies to task and making them enforce their video game ratings. GTA III is rated M, which means "for mature audiences" and is intended for the 18-and-older crowd. Why exactly did a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old have it?
While it is currently not required for stores to enforce the age guidelines on video games, parents should be responsible for dictating what games their teenagers play.
Another curious thing about this case is the fact that no one is suing the gun manufacturer or the parents. The Buckners failed to stop their sons from obtaining a rifle from their house. While the lawyers involved are quick to sue large, wealthy media companies for money, it would be better to hold responsible those who failed to prevent the kids from getting the guns in the first place.
Nonetheless, most likely this lawsuit will be defeated in court like the numerous ones before it. It is unfortunate that the video game companies continue to be sued for actions that are not the result of their product.
Saying that a video game caused them to murder is simply an easy excuse for the Buckner brothers to justify their actions. They committed a grave crime, they did it under their own will, and they alone should face the consequences.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had it right in a ruling it delivered last year in which it said it is "simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom."
Grant Klinzman is a journalism senior. Reach him at grant.klinzman@asu.edu.