<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/32765.html" title="Grand Theft Auto in the dock over US highway killings" source="The Register">Grand Theft Auto in the dock...</a> brings violent video games back to the fore in US news, since: <bq>...two teenagers - William and Joshua Buckner, 16 and 14 years old respectively - opened fire on vehicles on the Interstate 40 highway in Tennessee with a .22 calibre rifle, killing one person and injuring another severely.</bq> When caught, the clever little imps had a reason all ready: <iq>...they were bored, and decided to mimick their favourite videogame - Grand Theft Auto</iq>. Note their ages; they are more than old enough to know exactly what they need to say to shift blame in a responsibility-free age. <ul> Of course, there is a lawsuit. Of course, the issue is access to the video game, not access to the weapon. Of course, it's a civil suit, with lower requirements of proof and higher payouts. Of course, there is a lawyer, disseminating lies. </ul> For example, this highly-principled attorney shouts that <iq>[t]hey need to stop pushing adult rated products to kids.</iq> That is the hook phrase. Protect the children. Have you seen the box? It has pictures of gangsters and prosititutes all over the cover and an enormous M-17 in the bottom right-hand corner of it --- which rates the game as for [M]ature audiences of over 17 only. Luckily, the Register recognizes this, unlike the hysterical accounts I've read in other papers: <bq>...the parents of these teenagers not only failed to control their children's access to violent, adult media, they also failed to control their access to firearms - enabling them to take a fully loaded rifle on the night of June 25, and end an innocent man's life for no other reason than that they were "bored". Naturally, though, nobody seems prepared to question the access to a rifle in this case - this being something of a touchy subject in American politics - but instead the blame is being laid at the door of the games industry.</bq>