Grand Theft Auto

In June 2003, a teenager shot and killed three members of an Alabama police force. Devin Moore, 17 years old at the time, was taken in for questioning by police in Fayette, Alabama regarding a stolen vehicle. Moore grabbed a pistol from one of the police officers and shot and killed him along with another officer and dispatcher before fleeing in a police car. One of Moore’s attorneys, Jack Thompson, claimed it was Grand Theft Auto’s graphic nature, with his constant playing time, that caused Moore to commit the murders, and Moore’s family agrees. Grand Theft Auto was released in 1997, a video game that promotes sex, prostitution, theft, murder, drunk driving, drug dealing, and ethnic discrimination. Each game in this series allows players to take on the role of a criminal or a wannabe in a big city, typically an individual who rises through the ranks of organized crime through the course of the game, Grand Theft Auto. This game not only has many ethical issues, it has been known to be a cause for many outraged real life murders and stolen vehicles, and probably many more incidents. This game has been censored in many countries already, and should be banned in the United States.

Children (ages 6-19) who commit crimes due to this morbidly graphic video game should be treated differently since they do not know the difference between right and wrong. On 20 October 2003, the families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, two young people shot by teens William and Josh Buckner, whose statements to investigators claimed their actions, were inspired by Grand Theft Auto: III. In July of 2004, Cody Posey played the game obsessively before murdering his father, stepmother, and stepsister on a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2009, a six-year-old boy, who claimed he had learned to drive from the game, took his family’s car on a 10-mile trip before he crashed. Ryan Chinnery, 19, prowled streets in his car targeting females he thought were prostitutes after becoming obsessed with the video game. These are just a few examples in which Grand Theft Auto has had morally negative effect on children; these are prime examples why kids should be prohibited from playing video games that promote graphic violence and immorality like murder, stealing cars and sex offenses.

Children do not have the mental capacity or ability to know what is morally right and morally wrong. Their frontal lobes, located in the front of the brain just under the skull, are responsible for planning, reasoning, social judgment, and ethical decision making, and at this age, it is not fully developed until early to late 20’s. They see that since it is okay to promote such acts in video games, and that they are allowed to buy these games, it is okay to go out in the general public to reenact immoral acts. Grand Theft Auto was condemned in Britain, Germany, and France due to its extreme violence and Brazil banned it outright. If one person would take the position from both utilitarian and deontological perspectives, we would see why this video game should be censored. From a utilitarian point of view, it claims that one should assess persons and actions by how well they promote human happiness. Though the video game brought the gamers happiness, it did not justify the murder of innocent people, and in this case a utilitarian would not allow this act to happen.

From a deontological point of view, it states that will everyone act as I propose to act and does my action respect the goals of human beings rather than merely using them for my own purposes. This saying that you do not act based neither on your own needs nor to use a person to be happy. A deontologist would not condone this act. From many ethical perspectives, committing crimes that were influenced by video games that promotes terrible crimes should be censored, or banned. Children who commit crimes based on Grand Theft Auto, they should be tried and treated as an adult in this case. If they decide to commit upon what they think is right, they then should be treated as if their frontal lobes have developed fully.