Remember that study we posted yesterday? The one that concluded stable individuals don't really respond to violent video games? Well, here's more evidence.
Ezekiel Maxwell, a 17-year-old paranoid schizophrenic on "skunk cannabis," committed a horrendous murder last September. It's just now being revealed as part of the UK's reported "skunk cannabis" epidemic, but the reasons he listed for the crime are bound to make their way to the anti-game activists. Maxwell said the "gangster voices in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas " told him to do it.
According to thisislondon and Joystiq , Maxwell actually thought he was the main character in the game (Carl Johnson), and believed the voices told him to "stab a woman for seven days, and it had to be a black Afro-Caribbean woman." As most paranoid schizophrenics frequently claim, the "voices made him do things." Of course, his serious mental disease and the cannabis – which he smoked for months before the murder – is to blame, but the GTA name is out now…and it's not likely to be ignored.
He was detained yesterday under the Mental Health Act after pleading guilty to manslaughter "on the grounds of diminished responsibility." It's a tragedy, to be sure, and at the same time, it's only going to feed video game ignorance. What do we say? Logical people who use common sense should reference the aforementioned study, and then things should become quite clear.