When the Media Blames the Media
An excerpt from a BBC Article (the link is here).

Game blamed for hammer murder
The parents of a boy who was murdered with a claw hammer by a friend have blamed a violent video game which the teenage killer was "obsessed" with.

Warren Leblanc, 17, repeatedly stabbed 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah after luring him to a Leicester park to steal from him on 27 February. He pleaded guilty to murder at Leicester Crown Court on Wednesday.

Stefan's mother described Leblanc, who confessed to police moments after the assault, as "inherently evil". Following the hearing she said her son's killer had mimicked a game called Manhunt, developed by Edinburgh-based Rockstar North, in which the players score points for violent killings.

Outside court Stefan's father, Patrick, said: "They were playing a game called Manhunt. The way Warren committed the murder is how the game is set out - killing people using weapons like hammers and knives. There is some connection between the game and what he has done."

There are always much deeper causes than a kid playing Half-Life who then turns around and shoots his buddy with a real gun, rather than one that's just a collection of pixels.

Most of them revolve around the kid's parenting or home environment, and the question that never gets asked is, "Why didn't this kid know that such a thing was wrong?" Or, on a more important level, "why didn't that knowledge that x thing is wrong stop the kid from doing it?"

As a responsible adult member of society who grew up watching Die Hard, playing DOOM, and swearing with my friends when we thought no one was listening, I am constantly amazed that anyone would ever blame anyone else for their problems. "Oh, the video game made me do it," or "The movie made me do it," and "The McDonalds made me fat."

No it didn't, no it didn't, and no, it didn't. Those are all three, really, the same complaint. You had a choice, and you made it. For some reason, you didn't process that your choices, such as carrying a gun around, or such as confusing Wolfenstein with reality, had consequences. But they do. And when a person makes those choices, the consequences, for better or worse, are something that they have to deal with.

I was a suburban white kid who grew up with all of these supposedly negative influences on me - heck, I even like heavy metal music from the 80s, and I'm not some sex pervert - and yet I'm a relatively normal guy now. I've never killed or raped anyone, I don't believe that there's a master race, I don't like the use of narcotics. So am I somehow superior to these same suburban white kids who tend to become tools of the media to villify some product?

Nope.

Really, in the end, it's my parents that were better. They taught me that when I get angry or confused, I should just stop and think every so often. It's not hard. More people should, and then maybe I wouldn't have had to type out this thing in the first place.