Jack Thompson, an attorney who has fought long and hard against violent video games, Grand Theft Auto in particular, wrote this letter addressed to the mother of the chairman of Take Two, the company that produces GTA. (for the record, he didn't send it to her, but rather to her son's attorneys). The full letter can be found here:
http://diehardgamefan.insidepulse.com/2008/04/22/jack-thompsons-open-letter-to-take-two-ceos-mother/ .  Here is a small clip that interested me:

"Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids."

Clearly WWE has enough 18+ viewers to draw the three potential presidential candidates to promote themselves on the show to potential voters. It's not as though GTA advertisements are airing during Hannah Montana (though, as an avid fan of both Grand Theft Auto and Hannah Montana, such an ad placement would certainly hit at least one of their consumers). To imply that the video game shouldn't be advertised anywhere that children might see it is outrageous; not even the alcohol or tobacco industries are held to that standard, and the health defects caused by either of those products are clear and generally without dispute.

Furthermore, any kid can go on the site and buy the game... if they have a credit card. Which means they'd have to have their parents buy it for them unless they have a credit card of their own, in which case parents have plenty of opportunity to monitor their children's purchases on it if they're concerned with what their kids are buying. This is a far cry from a child walking into a store alone and buying it with their saved allowance.

He goes on to mention a boy who murdered cops in Alabama and then stole a cop car and blamed Grand Theft Auto for the whole thing. That case is especially damning because it's similar to a scenario in the game where the character is in a police station and has to free an inmate, kill some cops, and drive off in a cop car outside. When the young man was arrested, he poetically explained that life is a videogame and claimed that Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime.

I've always been of the opinion that one's actions are one's own responsibility, or in the case of minors, the responsibility of their parents. If a parent doesn't want their child to play violent video games, it's up to the parent to enforce this. This doesn't have to mean monitoring the things their child buys; I think it's up to a parent to educate the child on their family's views and ethics and rules about such things. It's also up to a parent to raise a child to be respectful of their parents' rules (and, for that matter, to teach a child that murder is wrong).

If a child is in the small margin of young people whose use of this media might give them the idea to recreate events they see in the game, beyond even limiting their child's involvement with a game, it's the parent's responsibility to notice red flags (that their child is displaying antisocial behavior, that they are experiencing social rejection, that they are depressed or psychotic, etc) and to get their child to a psychologist.

Clearly a large majority of young people can play games like Grand Theft Auto and not feel compelled to kill cops. The remaining few who commit crimes after playing the game did so because of their own inclination towards violent behavior. But it's easier to say that the child was playing Grand Theft Auto all day long for weeks (as was the case with the boy in Alabama) and blame the game, rather than acknowledging other factors in the young person's life, such as that he was depressed, or that he had no friends, or that he was being teased mercilessly by people at school, or that he had problems controlling his anger and emotions.

It's easier to avoid addressing the reason he was playing GTA all day long for weeks at a time or to consider that dedicating so much time to a single activity for that long is unhealthy in any case. Maybe he was playing GTA by himself in his room for weeks because he was being cast out by his peers, or because playing the game allowed him to shut out unpleasant emotions he was experiencing. Maybe he was playing with his friends and the game was just another aspect of the group's acceptance and promotion of violent behavior.

When the boy in question was arrested, he claimed that, “life is a video game, everybody has to die sometime,” he was either lying to justify his actions or he was in a delusional state. If he was lying than the whole point is moot. If he was delusional, then why not address the factors that caused him to have these delusions?

As long as we keep turning a blind eye to the other important issues that these kids face in addition to their involvement with a videogame, parents will continue to fail to make the connection between those issues and potential homicidal behavior in their kids. The more we ignore it the more it'll persist.