1 of 8

No

Write now Article Tools

Now this question doesn't actually tell me how old the child killers were but using the word 'children' as my backing I assume they are under 18, and probably under 15. So does a child have the moral compass of an adult, and are they fully responsible for there actions? Using UK laws the answer has to be no. How old do you have to be to buy alcohol or cigarettes? The answer is 18. Legal age to vote? 18. Want to drive? 18. Legal age for sexual relations? 16. Join the armed forces? 16. Marry without parental consent? 18. Can you see the trend here? In the UK you have to between 16 and 18 to hold adult responsibilities. The legal age for being able to be tried in a court of law is 10 and the age to be tried as an adult is 18. What does this tell us? Well, to me it says that anybody under the age of 18 isn't capable of having the rational reasoning of an adult. Children aren't fully rational, and they need protecting from themselves, because they are well capable of doing stupid things without fully understanding the consequences.

Video games and children
There has long been an argument that violent video games like mortal combat can make children violent, and there are several backings for this. The main one is that children don't necessarily understand the difference between reality and fiction. If you use this as a fact, then a child may not be able to understand the consequences of what they are doing. On a computer game, the enemy gets back up and is OK, or you can restart the level and everything is back to the way it was before. Video games can't be used as a cause for full scale psychopathy, but a series of researchers such as Funk (1993) have found a direct correlation between violent video games and short term violence, even more so than with violent television. It has been suggested that this is because playing a video game isn't passive like watching a television program, you are actually doing the killing.
Mortal Combat is one of the most popular third person killing games - in which the player controls a character doing the killing in contrast to actually looking down the barrel of a gun - and is rated M for mature, or 18 in the UK. Again what does this suggest? That even the game manufacturers have judged the game as being unsuitable for young people, because it may have a NEGATIVE EFFECT on children. It may cause them to mimic scenes in it on other children, it may show them that violence is OK, that their role model in the game is committing a violent

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Should the children who killed a seven-year-old "Mortal Kombat-style" be tried as adults??
We want to hear your view. Write now!