8-year-old intentionally kills grandmother

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 8:50am

Such a sad an unfortunate incident. Also ironic this happened in a town called Slaughter:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/25/us/louisiana-boy-kills-grandmother/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:19am

There's more to this story than what was reported and once the investigation is completed it will all come to light as to the reasons why this 8 year old child felt the need to grab a gun, point it at his grandmother's head and pull the trigger.

No normal 8 year old boy would do something like that. I refuse to believe that playing that particular video game was to blame.

It's not as simple as that. It never is.

Updated On: 8/25/13 at 09:19 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:22am

So many questions. How did he have access to the gun? Who did it belong to? Why was he playing an age-restricted video game? Why was nobody watching him?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:23am

Yes. There's a lot of unanswered questions here. In time the reasons will come to the surface. That the 8 year old could even handle/operate the gun is just...disturbing.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:25am

Scary that he isn't going to face charges. I imagine he'll be charged after he turns ten, though.

[artscallion]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:39am

I don't think it works that way, Glinda. He was under 10 when the crime was committed. I think that's where it ends.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:49am

"Why was he playing an age-restricted video game?"

You'll be surprised how many kids there ar playing these age-restricted video games. Parents/guardians will mindlessly buy them for their kids.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:49am

He can't be charged for this crime. Not now, not ever.

I can't believe he won't have some sort of mandatory therapy though.

Even if he has no idea of the consequences of his actions, as he gets older he will begin to understand them. He will be carrying this with him the rest of this life. He will need a lot of help processing it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 9:53am

Millie --- if that's true, I think we need to start holding parents legally responsible for their negligence.

So many people are having babies and then not raising them. It's disgusting.

[jasonf]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:26am

Best - that's the key. MAKE parents be responsible for their children! As a teacher, I see it all the time. Parents excusing things their kids do and say like they are the greatest thing to ever walk the earth. You know, sometimes your kid is WRONG.

The parents should be arrested here. The kid should be in mandatory therapy if not juvie. It's disgusting that this should happen.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:36am

"The parents should be arrested here. The kid should be in mandatory therapy if not juvie. It's disgusting that this should happen."

From my understanding of the article, the grandmother was raising the kid, not the parents. The kid is now with his parents.

If the grandmother was legally responsible for the kid, the parents can't be arrested (as much as we'd like to place blame on an adult here). Unless they owned the gun or there is some connection between the parents and the gun. Right now, there are so many unanswered questions.

Updated On: 8/25/13 at 10:36 AM

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:37am

I agree that the parents are responsible. If on the parents, then whoever has been raising this kid. You can blame video games all you want. This eight year old obviously doesn't know the difference between the gaming world and the real world. For all we know, he thought he was playing his game when he shot the grandmother. It doesn't make sense to us, because we know better. I don't think the kid is malicious or evil. He needs therapy for sure.

My point is that video games, movies, etc have ratings to prevent this from happening.

We also don't know if the kid had any older siblings. I used to play Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Tomb Raider all the time with my little brother. He never played, but he watched me play. He also never killed anyone.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:46am

If the grandmother was raising the kid, and she allowed him to play an age-restricted video game, then she is partially responsible for her own death. It's an extreme case, but that's the reason for the restrictions. These games do influence the lives of the people who play them.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:49am

It should be said that, at eight, I was out riding my bicycle and playing basketball at the park. I don't remember owning any kind of gaming device until the first Playstation came out. (My stepbrother had a Nintendo, but Mario Bros isn't very violent.)

It's up to the adult to say, "Johnny, you're not mature enough to play this game. Let's wait until you're older."

We probably will never know what happened. It's a good study, though. The psychological events would make an interesting play.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 10:59am

It's up to the parents or guardians to take these age restrictions seriously. It's up to them to take parenting seriously, too.

The players come with built-in blocks for minors. But parents/guardians have to set the machines up for it first, and make sure that the only way a game can be played is if it has an age-appropriate rating. If they can't figure it out, they need to find someone to set it up for them.

Again, you have to take it seriously, though. If you're not willing to do what it takes, then don't buy the machine. Better yet, don't have (or raise) a kid.

[Platypus]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 11:22am

Note that the article says that the grandmother was the child's "caregiver" and not "guardian," meaning that she was the one taking care of the child (and living with him as it sounds), but that in no way means that she was legally responsible for him. Unless she is the legal guardian, the parents are still legally responsible for this child.

I also think that it's BS that they're blaming the video game. Age restrictions on a video game are a hell of a lot easier to get around than accessing a gun. This kid had to find and access the gun (which should have been in a locked cabinet), find the bullets, load it, release the safety, and pull the trigger. There shouldn't be anyway for the kid to confuse this gun with the plastic video game gun. So the more likely explanation is that someone left a loaded gun laying around, which is a hell of a lot more harmful than letting the kid play Grand Theft Auto. In my opinion, the owner of the gun is responsible.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 11:35am

I started working for Blockbuster Video a few months before I turned 15. One of the things I remember being that young and working there was that I would have to tell kids older than myself that they couldn't rent certain things like movies or video games rated "M" (or whatever the rating was). Those first few years at the store, I got cursed out constantly by older teenagers who didn't want some kid telling them what they could or couldn't do and they were mortified when they had to have their parent come in and make a note to their account saying their child could rent whatever game they wanted.

And I can tell you that 10 out of 10 parents did that. I don't think I ever had one parent say that their child couldn't rent certain games in the ten years I was with that company. I'm talking the 8 year olds who would ride their bikes to the store on the weekends to rent Grand Theft Auto and because their parents said they were allowed to rent any video game, it was my job to hand it over to them.

When I was a kid, the general rule in my house was that I could watch pretty much anything ("besides porn", was the joke my Dad always made which made me cringe when I was 10 years old) because my parents knew that with movies, I was a film/horror geek even at 7 years old and I could handle the adult stuff. And if I couldn't, then my parents would sit me down and talk about what I saw and we'd discuss it. I knew the difference between right and wrong and what was acceptable to say in a movie as opposed to saying in real life. And when I was 8 and saw RUTHLESS PEOPLE for the first time, I wanted to cuss out people just like Bette Midler - God, I loved her in that. But I knew that I couldn't. My parents took a very active interest in letting me do and watch what I wanted but at the same time making sure that I really understood it.

And that's what's missing here. I know that in my case, I'm one of the exceptions. Because out of all of those parents who came in the store and blindly said "Yeah, give him whatever he wants", I could tell it was just to let the kid do what he wanted and get him/her off their backs for a while. I'm not saying that all kids who play violent video games are going to shoot their grandmothers in the head because that would be ridiculous. But I am saying that parents/guardians not taking an active role in what their children are watching or playing, does more harm to the child than whatever type of media they might be exposed to.

[jasonf]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 12:36pm

Jordan, you're absolutely right. I don't blame the game either. I played games where you shot things - I played Mortal Kombat where you eviscerated people, for crying out loud. I STILL like games where I'm shooting things.

In real life I'm a very anti-violent person. My personal philosophy is do what you want as long as you're not hurting anyone. That's why I'm so pro gay marriage even though the issue has no direct effect on me. My point is, the video games I play(ed) have had zero impact on me.

The reason? My parents also actually talked to me. They taught me right from wrong. They taught me what it means to be good to people and how to behave. School played a part in that as well, but not NEARLY as much as my parents did.

Bad parents are by far and away the number one cause of "problem" kids - whether they be disruptive in school or shooting their grandmother in the head.

I wish they gave licenses for reproduction - we would have FAR less problems in the world than we do now.

[javero]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 12:42pm

It's not unusual still for older men in the old south to take 8-yr old boys on hunting trips although I'm not suggesting that's how the kid acquired the weapon and training. By the time I was 11 I had earned a Rifle and Shotgun Shooting merit badge in the BSA because my dad had taught me how to handle one of his rifles and shoot properly at a somewhat younger age.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 12:51pm

Too bad the old lady didn't have her own gun, so she could have protected herself.

[javero]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 1:04pm

In retrospect there were better lessons that I could have been taught at such a tender age. Times have changed.

It's really sad that the grandma lost her life to an armed grandchild and that we could have a real-life-Dexter-in-the-making. I hope the kid gets plenty of counseling because he'll have to deal with gunning down his caregiver for a lifetime.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 1:04pm

Too bad the old lady didn't have her own gun, so she could have protected herself.

^ For the win!

Updated On: 8/25/13 at 01:04 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 1:46pm

The truth is: some video games DO affect SOME people. This is why youngun's aren't suppose to play them.


and while, yes, much of the time, you can trace the problems to a lack of parenting, it is not always the case. I know a family that raised two boys. One boy turned to drugs pretty early and was trouble from the time he was about 13. The other one, never a problem in any way. BTW, the troubled kid was a genius...no exaggeration.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 2:03pm

The kid probably got the gun from Fast and Furious. Benghazi! Where was Obama's response to Katrina?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 8/25/13 at 4:16pm

Exactly Namo! What does Jesse Jackson have to say? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?