Actually I have to contend in this case against you guys arguing that its the parents lack of parenting.
Having read the article and understanding it as I think I do, here is what I find.
First of all log onto the Halo 3 website (
http://www.halo3.com/) and put any date in there that tells the log in that you are 16 years old or younger. You can't get there, the site is banned by the publishers of the game to kids 16 years young and younger, so the publisher is aware that some content may not be good for minors.
Secondly, the article states that the parents, obviously looking out for the welfare of their son, who is still living under their roof and care, may have been aware of the age restrictions of the game and because of that, they denied him access to the game, taking care of their parental right to govern their son's life since their son at the time of the incident was under legal age as noted by the log in attempt from the publisher. So I can't see where that reflects badly on the parents.
The article doesn't say whether or not this kid had Halo 1 or Halo 2, if he did then perhaps his parents are to blame, since the rating of those games are "M" for mature audiences. (
http://www.esrb.org/index-js.jsp) The "M" rating says 17+. So if his parents let him play 1 and 2 then this is a failure of the parents to abide by the "M" rating of the publishers.
However I tend to think that, based on the parents actions at this time, and finding out that his father is a minister, I would like to think that their conduct in guiding their son has been consistent over the years. But this is all conjecture since its not covered.
Should his Father have put the game in his lockbox is up for discussion. I know if it were I who was the father, I would have taken the game back to the store and got the boy's money back. Doing so would have eliminated the temptation of the boy to break into the lockbox where the instrument of the attacks were stored as well. And who knows whether we'd be reading about this or not now.
With regard to the comments of "violence breeds violence" comments I just have this to say. The human brain is much like a computer, it needs programed though life in order to function properly in society. If you put garbage in a computer, you get garbage out of a computer. The same is true of the human brain. So if the garbage you're feeding your brain is violence, then you are going to get violence out of it in certain cases. This input and output have a tendancy to scar the human consciousness.
I don't know that I can put blame anywhere, it was a series of circumstances that turned out badly. I do blame the writer of the story for making it a whiner type of article claiming that the boys "rights" were violated against. This is just bad writing at it's worst.
