I can BARELY agree with only ONE thing that they said throughout this entire report. The kid is 9 years old playing an E10+ game, but the closest thing Minecraft has to violence is turning red and falling over and hardly deserves to be rated E10+. The only reason it would deserve an E10+ rating is because of the Xbox Live community, and that's hardly a reason because it's not a game that focuses on multiplayer (At least not on Xbox; it's all the rage on PC with custom gamemodes like The Survival Games, Smash, and MineZ). Therefore, I'm going to contradict every inch of what the media calls "proof" of how video games, specifically Minecraft, cause violence seen in this report.
First, the items brought to school.
1. Here's a list of things he brought to school.
a. handgun
b. bullets
c. steak knife
d. small sledgehammer
Let's list the things they got right.
a. None of these items are seen in Minecraft.
A handgun and bullets could only POSSIBLY be seen in mods or server plugins, neither of which are on the Xbox 360 Edition, which is what the boy was playing. Steak knife? Close. It's a sword. While the steak knife could possibly be a substitute, a hunting knife would make a lot more sense. Sledgehammer? Not even close. Besides, not like anyone isn't going to notice a kid with a sledgehammer before they're hit with it.
Second, the proof that video games even caused it.
Mario Boone or Eyewitness News or whoever the hell only spoke to the father about his thoughts on the cause. He told them that his son was, "acting out scenes from a video game. He says that Nicholas played Minecraft all the time." First off, as previously mentioned, none of those weapons are even in the game itself. Second, Minecraft has no "scenes". It's a randomly generated survival game, not a campaign. The closest thing to a scene in Minecraft is the end credits where the developers are talking about the player. The only thing that is really mandatory to survival mode is collecting resources and food. What's next, news media? Are you going to say Minecraft supports childhood obesity, or encourages kids to punch trees and get splinters? Continuing from the previous quote, his dad says, "...every day for about an...hour." Do you hear that brief pause? While I do believe that he was giving his honest answer (because an hour a day is REALLY short), it sounds like he was a bit hesitant to give his honest answer. Only an hour a day, hm? Well, I sure know that I play Minecraft or any other game for way more than an hour a day. I often play about 3-4 hours of video games a day while school is in session. In fact, during my free time today during fourth block, I played a few minutes of Minecraft on my laptop, so an hour is like nothing to me and many other gamers out there. I don't think that only an hour of playing an E10+ rated game is going to influence someone to go kill someone unless they have a mental issue that makes them more aggressive by nature.
It might not be the best idea to throw all of his games in the garbage. You should at least try to sell them or get your money back for them.
Finally, where'd he get the weapons in the first place?
That's right. He got them from his dad's drawer. What drawer? Was it a specific place where all of his weapons are stored, or was it hidden in a clothes drawer like you would a secret journal? It is not specified. If it were a drawer specifically for weapons, we know how Nicholas knew where to get it, but what if it was hidden from him? My theory is the only way Nicholas could have known is if he had seen it pulled out before, either that or he just looked around for it, but when rummaging through your parents stuff secretly, you don't necessarily have time for that, do you? It is also a question as to why the gun's firing pin had been removed. Why own a handgun if you can't even shoot the damn thing? Sure, it could have been for display only, but why a handgun? If I see a gun on display, it's usually a rifle, shotgun, or other weapon that would normally be used for sport. I have two theories on how he could have seen it before.
1. Maybe his father is abusive and threatens him with it regularly, so he has seen where it is put away. After all, he may not have known that the gun wasn't functional. This would also explain why he brought the weapons to school. It is a statistic that children who are exposed to abuse from their guardians are more likely to behave inappropriately later on in life, whether it be sex, drugs, alcohol, or violence.
2. Now this may be a bit of a stretch, but what if the father GAVE him the gun? The report did say that he was showing off the weapons. His dad could have told him that people would think it was cool and he could make some new friends from showing it to people. Then, when he realized he might get in trouble for it, he blamed Minecraft because he heard somewhere that all video games promote violence. I've heard that there's an article about it where it said, "In Minecraft, you use sledgehammers to dig, and guns and knifes to protect yourselves from the zombies." Somebody had to make that up. I mean, they didn't find out about that from research about the game on the internet, that's for damn sure. Maybe Minecraft was a scapegoat to keep his mistake hidden from the public.
Do you have any theories on what REALLY happened? Post a reply. I'd love to hear what the community thinks the news is keeping from the public. Thank you for reading. I know it was pretty lengthy, but I can't just sit on the sidelines while someone or something for that matter is being attacked like this.
