I do not play WOW. But it is sad to see the media connect these things again in this day and age. I almost laughed, then realized it isn't really funny to me anymore.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/16/11220262-anders-breivik-to- norway-court-i-killed-77-people-but-am-not-guilty?lite
Maybe someone with more online skills than I can properly link this front page msn article.
Wait.. the guy killed Seventy Seven people.... and he can only go to jail for 21 years...
Would some viking pazonian PLEASE explain THAT one?
Wow... 77 people and only a maximum of 21 years...
It wouldn't surprise me if they found him crazy via mental world of warcraft just so they can lock him up and throw away the key.
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It's NOT the US, it is Norway that is why he will not get life or Death. The US is hard asses on criminals while other countries are not. YET they tend to have less crime that the US.
There system works and the US says theirs does to, but obviously, the US system does not ALWAYS work. I cannot speak for Norway
Nice. Nice to see the Prosecutors fall back upon the old "Fringe Group" scenario to get a Guilty Verdict.
Anders Behring Breivik is a monster.
Gamers around the world are not.
Please stop lumping us in with these freakshows and start asking why their parent's didn't instill proper respect for life, why their friends didn't try to talk them out of it, why their co-workers and bosses didn't notice the changes and start to keep tabs.
Durr-Hurr, he plays an Online Game, must be the cause.
Shades of 'The Devil's Game' all over this.
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It's NOT the US, it is Norway that is why he will not get life or Death. The US is hard asses on criminals while other countries are not. YET they tend to have less crime that the US.
There system works and the US says theirs does to, but obviously, the US system does not ALWAYS work. I cannot speak for Norway
While i agree there is a lot of injustice in the us justice system some people genuinely deserve a windowless 8 by 10 cell or a 6 by 2 pine box. This is one of them.
From an article many years ago:
"(...) us, gamers, commit much less crimes than other groups of society: we are too busy playing to commit actual crimes!"
From an article many years ago:
"(...) us, gamers, commit much less crimes than other groups of society: we are too busy playing to commit actual crimes!"
+1!
I'd also throw support for 'Solitary Confinement for Life' punishment.
Soundproofed Cell.
No Internet.
No Mail in or out except for legal matters.
Food and Water three times per day.
Gets to watch only Disney Channel and Nature Programs.
Has no access to writing materials except legal documents.
No Newspapers.
With these sorts of Monsters, locking them away in a vault is actually the best way to deal with them. If they can't inflict their poison onto the other prisoners, most of whom will likely be released at some stage, all the better. And disappearing into the vault and having no further outcome on the world would also be a constantly twisting knife to their guts.
And by 'Monsters', I mean the sickos that think they have justification to go around murdering people, one or a thousand, in pursuit of their religious, social-ideological or political agendas.
YMMV.
We have a much larger, more dynamic population than the Norwegians. I also doubt there are millions of illegal firearms flooding the streets of Norway. Our judicial sysytem for the most part is fine. It is other aspects of our society where we are deficient. I haven't heard much about this case, and the only place i heard about the gaming connection was on Blizzard forums and here. Don't think it is much of a witch hunt.
Also, this guy is definitely full goose bozo. The only group i would truly associate him with are the criminally insane. There should be a call for blood for this psycho. 21 years would not satisfy me if i was a family member of one of the slain.
It's NOT the US, it is Norway. That is why he will not get Life or Death. The US is hard asses on criminals while other countries are not, YET they tend to have less crime that the US.
There system works and the US says theirs does to, but obviously, the US system does not ALWAYS work. I cannot speak for Norway.
Actually, there is some data to suggest that the US has less violent crime per capita in many categories. In 2010, the US suffered 466 reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Many counteries in the European Union reported higher figures.
Any such statistics must be taken with a grain of salt, as it's very difficult to accurately compare different counties approaches to law enforcement. Countries may employ different definitions of violent crime, or may collect their date in a differnt fashion. Some countries base their statistics on the number of convictions for such crimes, which can make a lawless anarchy seem relatively tame.
Other countries base their data on reported crimes, which makes countries like Canada (where people frequently report victimization) seem much more violent than France (which has a lower rate of reporting to the authorities).
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I'd also throw support for 'Solitary Confinement for Life' punishment.
Soundproofed Cell.
No Internet.
No Mail in or out except for legal matters.
Food and Water three times per day.
Gets to watch only Disney Channel and Nature Programs.
Has no access to writing materials except legal documents.
No Newspapers.
With these sorts of Monsters, locking them away in a vault is actually the best way to deal with them. If they can't inflict their poison onto the other prisoners, most of whom will likely be released at some stage, all the better. And disappearing into the vault and having no further outcome on the world would also be a constantly twisting knife to their guts.
And by 'Monsters', I mean the sickos that think they have justification to go around murdering people, one or a thousand, in pursuit of their religious, social-ideological or political agendas.
YMMV.
That is what they sentenced Dennis Rader to. Oubliette is a good word.
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It's NOT the US, it is Norway that is why he will not get life or Death. The US is hard asses on criminals while other countries are not. YET they tend to have less crime that the US.
There system works and the US says theirs does to, but obviously, the US system does not ALWAYS work. I cannot speak for Norway
While i agree there is a lot of injustice in the us justice system some people genuinely deserve a windowless 8 by 10 cell or a 6 by 2 pine box. This is one of them.
No argument there on may part. I'd toss him into a shoe box sized room with only a window to let food in and a hole to drop his waste down. No door, no window no contact
Monster is to polite of a word for the man
Okay, this guy is NEVER going to get out. He will rot in jail or a psychiatric ward for as long as he lives. He is also not a very convincing psycho, rather he is a honest-to-god fanatic. The politicians are jumping over themselves trying to paint him as psychotic, because that has less to do with their methods and strategies, in which loyalty to the party and the dogmatic policy they want to push usually take center stage.
Whether he played World of Warcraft will be seriously dead in the water. Norway has WoW too, and only this guy ever did something like this.
Not from Norway, but brother-country Denmark.
The Breivik trial has, obviously, also commanded much of the news down here, since we have such close connection to Norway and Danes were killed or affected by the tragedy too.
The longest prison term in Norway is the 21 years mentioned (basically that's a "life sentence" in Norway). For Breivik to get that sentence, he has to be declared not-criminally insane.
If he is, he's not fit for jail and can get an indefinite holding/treatment sentence.
There have been two psychiatric evaluations of him, one saying that he's paranoid schizophrenic, one saying he's not (and of sound enough mental health to be put to trial).
His lawyer said that he has no regrets for what he has done and is more sorry that he didn't get to do more damage.
He is non-repentant to the extreme and says that he acted in self-defence.
The trial started today and one of the things most news reporters focused on was the utter lack of emotion as the 71 counts were read, each with excruciating detail of how they died. No reaction from him at all.
Then when they played his self-made video, he shed some tears (and, as interpreted by a lip reading specialist, told his attorney that he cried because it's such an emotional video).
He also denounced the legitimacy of the court, because it was put in place by a society that embraces multiculturalism.
Now, it's quite clear that there's something seriously disturbing going on in his head, but whether it's mental illness or a fanaticism such as we've rarely seen... tough to tell.
A verdict of insanity would also, as he has stated to his lawyer, be "problematic" to him, since his actions can then be discounted as the work of a mad man. So he's hoping for a prison sentence, even though he says/thinks he has done nothing wrong.
How is playing Wow means he is guilty but not wanting to stop people and purify Norwiegan blood not make him more sick. The extreme case of wanting to keep your blood pure is incest. Why aren't they using to this to paint anti Islamists in a bad light.
I don't see where being a gamer comes into him being a killer. I'm sure many of his victims were also gamers. I'm not sure why his prosecutors are trying to attack videogames, when it's pretty clear that his reasoning is his anti-islamic and multicultural beliefs.
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Video gamer= crazy , because chances are the judges are over 60, the whole d&d= satanic cult is still current events for them, and they've never seen an MMO, much less know how popular they are.
However in this case, crazy will keep him locked up longer. So if gamers have to go back to being confused with satanists again.. meh. Might be worth it.
One of the tv stations here in Denmark did a report on the video game angle and Breivik. I only watched snippets of it, but one of the guys interviewed (who was a gamer in his thirties, with wife and kid, and played a variety of violent games) pointed something out that should be logically evident to most people.
If there are 50,000,000 people playing video games and 1 person goes on a killing spree, doesn't that mean that there are 49,999,999 people who DON'T go on killing sprees and that the reason the first guy did it most likely isn't video games?
You know, as BigNorseWolf mentioned, unless your character worships a diety, you are probably doing something anti-satanic since your slaying monsters, demons, devils, and other evil-doers (unless your doing a evil campaign...)
As for my opinion on his condition: just put him on death penalty. He showed no remorse, and was rather happy with it. I don't have ANY hope he will become sane, and some loophole will open in the law that lets him get out earlier anyways to slaughter more.
Plus, it would be cheaper to shoot this sorry excuse than lock him up for 21 years... In Norway, they actually have NICE jail cells.
Sorry if I come off as violent, but I would not sleep peacefully knowing this guy only got 21 years for 77 murderers if he killed someone I knew (and/or loved).
The guy is crazy. He shows absolutely no remorse for killing almost a hundred people, many of them were adolescents. He disassociated them from human beings, and completely detached the fact that they had lives, dreams, and aspirations.
It's not like he was killing them to achieve a higher score, or to level up, or even to obtain some loot. He killed them because he saw them as an infestation.
I suppose you could go to an extreme and say that video games have desensitized it's players, but you could say that about all games, all television, narratives whether on paper or orally, or even military training.
Destructive sociopathic behaviors can appear without video games, in fact video games are probably the best thing for them because it absorbs that destructive nature instead of leaving them to seek it out in real life.
If there are 50,000,000 people playing video games and 1 person goes on a killing spree, doesn't that mean that there are 49,999,999 people who DON'T go on killing sprees and that the reason the first guy did it most likely isn't video games?
A logical argument, and that would work fine with a reasonable person. Try the same argument but substitute "D&D" for "video games" and present to someone the likes of Jack Chick and see how well that plays out. ;-)
Honestly, this whole D&D/heavy metal/video games/avid Stephen King fan stuff has been going on since the 80s, and it never works. Still, they keep trying.
You know, as BigNorseWolf mentioned, unless your character worships a diety, you are probably doing something anti-satanic since your slaying monsters, demons, devils, and other evil-doers (unless your doing a evil campaign...)
As for my opinion on his condition: just put him on death penalty. He showed no remorse, and was rather happy with it. I don't have ANY hope he will become sane, and some loophole will open in the law that lets him get out earlier anyways to slaughter more.
Plus, it would be cheaper to shoot this sorry excuse than lock him up for 21 years... In Norway, they actually have NICE jail cells.
Sorry if I come off as violent, but I would not sleep peacefully knowing this guy only got 21 years for 77 murderers if he killed someone I knew (and/or loved).
Norway still doesn't have the death penalty, so it's a non-issue.
Also, some of the survivors from the island massacre said that killing him would let him off too easily.They want him in jail (most likely in solitary confinement - one even expressed that Norway doesn't torture, but he would be the perfect candidate if they were to start (of course, some people consider solitary confinement a form of torture anyway)).
One of the tv stations here in Denmark did a report on the video game angle and Breivik. I only watched snippets of it, but one of the guys interviewed (who was a gamer in his thirties, with wife and kid, and played a variety of violent games) pointed something out that should be logically evident to most people.
If there are 50,000,000 people playing video games and 1 person goes on a killing spree, doesn't that mean that there are 49,999,999 people who DON'T go on killing sprees and that the reason the first guy did it most likely isn't video games?Logical error. You can't tell anything from the information you presented. What's the rate of killing sprees in the non-video game playing population? It could be higher or lower. It's possible playing video games decreases the chance of killing sprees.
Is that a random sample of 50,000,000 or are there other links between them than video games?
And is that plays any video games ever? Or plays certain video games? Or is extremely obsessive about video games?If you want to do statistical analysis, especially on extremely low frequency events, you need a lot of data.
I actually think the guy said "violent" video games. He wasn't a statician (and neither am I).
But the point is, lots of people play these kind of games and they don't go out killing people, so there must be some other factor(s) that caused him to do it (might they help trigger the "urge" if all the other parameters are present? Maybe, but, again, it's not the video games themselves that are the sole reasons or even the major cause).| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Norway still doesn't have the death penalty, so it's a non-issue.
Does Norway have loudly announced coffee breaks for the guards and large prisoners with blunt objects?
Norway still doesn't have the death penalty, so it's a non-issue.Does Norway have loudly announced coffee breaks for the guards and large prisoners with blunt objects?
I would think it's safe to say that if given a prison sentence, he's not in any way safe in "gen pop" - which is why I said above that he might be sentenced to solitary confinement.
In the newly built courtroom there's a wall of bulletproof glass behind him, so he can't be shot from outside the courtroom.
Wait.. the guy killed Seventy Seven people.... and he can only go to jail for 21 years...
Would some viking pazonian PLEASE explain THAT one?
He's getting sentenced to 21 years, but the legal system in Norway isn't like the one in America. Under the Norwiegian legal system, he won't necessarily get out after that. If they think he is still a threat (and they will), they can keep him another 5 years. And another 5 years. And another. It'll be like how Charles Manson keeps getting parole hearings and always gets denied. He's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars, not just 21 years.
I would think it's safe to say that if given a prison sentence, he's not in any way safe in "gen pop" - which is why I said above that he might be sentenced to solitary confinement.Norway still doesn't have the death penalty, so it's a non-issue.Does Norway have loudly announced coffee breaks for the guards and large prisoners with blunt objects?
From what I understand he has been kept in solitary confinement since he was arrested.
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Wait.. the guy killed Seventy Seven people.... and he can only go to jail for 21 years...
Would some viking pazonian PLEASE explain THAT one?
Unlike him we don't believe in taking the right to kill someone else.
I gotta say, I read this article yesterday and the paragraph about World of Warcraft made no impression on me, whatsoever.
Reading some of these response posts, you'd think the prosecution's argument rested solely on him being a gamer.
Granted, I don't play WoW, but I think some of you guys' reaction is a little silly.
A few people even worked in an anti-religion post.Of course the thread could have been about turkey bacon and they would have found a way to work it in somehow..
Um, where?
Yes, I retract the question.
Do any of our Norwegian posters know if he can receive 21 years maximum for all offenses total, or can he receive 21 years for each of the 70+ offenses and have to serve them consecutive to each other. (That's the way it works in the US. The judge can choose to run any sentences at the same time, or one after the other).
There was actually a study done that showed after a group watched violent media, their response on a written hypothetical test showed a small increase in aggressive responses. However, it waned after a pretty short period of time. I'll try to find a link to the study and post it. It's been years since I read it, so there may have been additional studies that disproved it by now.
I just find it funny that the prosecutors thought it was even necessary to bring up his playing WoW in the first place. The man killed 77 people. He doesn't even deny doing it; he just denies that doing it was wrong, based on his racist views. I'd say they have an open and shut case just from that. It'd be like going out and shooting a deer with a bazooka, and then running up and stabbing it with your penknife just to make sure it's dead.
As a swede, I can tell you the maximum sentence is years total. The original idea is that rehabilitation works, people can change in 21 years, and that getting sentenced to 140.000 years in jail for stealing a sack of mail is downright stupid. Hopefully the poor sod will get out after 70.000 years for good behaviour.
Complain if you will, but the nordic countries have less crime than the US, despite having more firearms per capita.
As a swede, I can tell you the maximum sentence is years total. The original idea is that rehabilitation works, people can change in 21 years, and that getting sentenced to 140.000 years in jail for stealing a sack of mail is downright stupid. Hopefully the poor sod will get out after 70.000 years for good behaviour.
Complain if you will, but the nordic countries have less crime than the US, despite having more firearms per capita.
Ah. Thank you! I learned something new today! It was not a complaint, just a question.... In fact the presumption in the US in general is that sentences run concurrent, and consecutive sentences are generally used for particularly horrible instances (like this one). Sorry about the vagueness, but since the US has a federalist government, large portions of the criminal code can vary from state to state in its particularity.
As to issues of violence, there are a lot of cultural and biological factors that influence violent behavior and crime aside from methodology of punishment. It is unlikely that the punishment methodology here is solely responsible for the level of violent crime.
I just find it funny that the prosecutors thought it was even necessary to bring up his playing WoW in the first place. The man killed 77 people. He doesn't even deny doing it; he just denies that doing it was wrong, based on his racist views. I'd say they have an open and shut case just from that. It'd be like going out and shooting a deer with a bazooka, and then running up and stabbing it with your penknife just to make sure it's dead.
They were establishing his personality during the time he planned the attacks - if someone claims to have spent a year or two playing a computer game on a full time basis, I'd say that has a bearing on that. The case is less about whether or not he's guilty, and more about whether he's criminally insane or not.
If I remember correctly, one of the leaks from the police interrogations said that he claims to have used World of Warcraft (or maybe it was one of the Battlefield or Modern Warfare games) as 'training.' Again, that is hardly irrelevant if you're trying to form an image of his mental state.
That said, from the accounts of the hearings I've read so far, the gamer angle seems to have mostly been a footnote, and hardly worth much comment.
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This has been followed in some detail by BBC Radio 4 and I must say that I have been impressed by the character of the Norwegian people they have interviewed.
Even the survivors from the island were thoughtful, conscientious and capable of seeing the bigger picture beyind their own emotional fulfilment.
Almost everyone was saying that he should be tried with all of the proper and best practices of Norwegian law, that there could be no stronger act of defiance to the man than to be scrupulously fair.
Unlike some bleating non-Norwegians, even the survivors maintained a conviction that the death penalty was wrong. I don't remember the quotes exactly, but to paraphrase: "How can we show that killing is wrong by killing." Another called the death penalty (paraphrasing again) "a barbaric and shameful part of our history that we have no desire to return to."
I'm sure there is a vast diversity of opinion and character in Norway, as there is anywhere, but those interviewed were very impressive.
BNW mentioned the D&D is a satanic cult thing. Someone mentioned Chick tracts. Neither of which seem out of place in a thread about blaming games for killers.
... D&D( fantasy table top game) being erroneously held responsible for bad crime where people died: satanic killing vs Warcraft being erroneously held responsible for a bad crime where people died seems pretty much on topic. Its the exact same malarkey that's been reskinned... and thinly at that.
If I remember correctly, one of the leaks from the police interrogations said that he claims to have used World of Warcraft (or maybe it was one of the Battlefield or Modern Warfare games) as 'training.' Again, that is hardly irrelevant if you're trying to form an image of his mental state.
That said, from the accounts of the hearings I've read so far, the gamer angle seems to have mostly been a footnote, and hardly worth much comment.
The program I mentioned above, the one with the 50,000,000 people playing violent video games comment, the mentioned Modern Warfare in connection to his "training" (I haven't played it, but they showed video of 3 guys gunning down a whole crowd of people in a... bank/hotel or similar indoor foyer/lobby setting - don't know if that's from that particular game).
Today Breivik got a chance to present his "case," although it wasn't televised you can read it online several places (a compromise between an open trial and trying not to give him a platform for his political screed). He talked for about an hour and a half apparently.
He doesn't regret it and would do it again if he had the chance.
Many of the families said that most of what he said didn't really make any sense, except in his warped reality.
That said, from the accounts of the hearings I've read so far, the gamer angle seems to have mostly been a footnote, and hardly worth much comment.
Wait till the American media gets a hold of it. Sometimes takes them a while to look past the us borders. Expecting manuafactured contraversy to hit here in 5...4...3..2....
Kelsey: thank you. I was hoping it was something like that.
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Also, this guy is definitely full goose bozo. The only group i would truly associate him with are the criminally insane. There should be a call for blood for this psycho. 21 years would not satisfy me if i was a family member of one of the slain.If he's truly a criminally insane psycho, we shouldn't be calling for his blood. If he's criminally insane, he's not responsible for his actions and should not be punished. He should be treated and held as long as he's a danger to himself or others.
That's the whole point of "criminally insane".
Mind you, I'm not making any argument about whether he is or is not. I'm not qualified and diagnosing through news reports is stupid anyway.
I would lump him into the same category as a rabid dog -- maybe not 'to be punished' but you still put him down all the same.