Yeah I didn't really think that through, I'm sorry.
No problem.
I really dont think this has anything to do with gta, or videogames, sadly, children have been accidentally shooting themselves or others since the beginning of fire arms.
Even without all the media attention on fire arms, children have found them fascinating. Thats why there have been toy guns for hundreds of years.
The problem of course is guns are not toys. Children know this, of course, its part of the allure. Its, mature, grown up, 'forbidden'. Even if they know its not toy, children will inevitably play with it like a toy, because they are children.
While the child was likely imitating the 'cool' poses he saw in videogames, comic books, movies, and other media, thats no different mentally than a child pretending to defend your house from bandits with your trusty red ryder bb gun. Physically however, instead of running the risk of 'shooting your eye out' Youll blow a head off.
Pretending to be a 'cool guy with a gun', and actually killing someone are two entirely different things, fake media depictions of violence can not desensitize a normal properly mentally functioning human being, child or not, to the act of actually, willfully, purposefully killing someone.
Even months and years of military training cant prepare an individual for the real thing. Nobody ever really knows how a slick sleeve is going to perform for the first time during actual combat, regaurdless of how well they perform during training, paintballs, sim rounds, fake explosions, rockets on ziplines, burning cars, actors with fake injuries, Zussman village was built by universal studios to simulate the environment of real combat. It is the closest you can get to the real thing, far closer than any videogame or movie depiction. And its nowhere near the real thing. It wont really help a soldier overcome the first exposure to real combat, no matter how many times they go through the gauntlet. Actually killing a human being is a life changing event that no amount of training can really prepare an individual for.
The only thing that can desensitize someone to real violence is constant and continued exposure to real violence.
This child was just pretending, as children have pretended since long before videogames, with capguns, bb guns, sticks... He had no idea the weapon would actually fire.
If the police actually do suspect the child was so desensitized to violence that he executed his grandmother on purpose, they should look to the activities of the parents, what has that 8 year old observed his parents doing, or test for mental abberations. Only by being repeatedly exposed to real violence, or not mentally functioning properly can lead down that path. Even 8 year old children, while they dont understand many of the concepts adults do, will demonstrate a pronounced difference in the form of a trauma when confronted in real life with things that dont bother them in tv or games.
But particularly the parents since they left a loaded gun within reach of an 8 year old.
Playstations dont hand kids guns and bullets.
