The wildly successful open-world video game Minecraft may look harmless on the surface, but the father of a nine-year-old boy believes the title inspired his son to bring weapons to school.
Although games such as Grand Theft Auto 5 and Call of Duty are often blamed for incidents of violence, Mojang’s indie title was recently singled out for encouraging children to act out in negative ways.
According to VR Zone , the boy was reportedly portraying a character from Minecraft when he brought several weapons to his elementary school in Orlando, Florida. School officials discovered the weaponry after the boy told his friends what he had stuffed inside his backpack.
In addition to a handgun, police also confiscated a magazine with six rounds of ammunition, a steak knife, and a small sledgehammer. Fortunately, no injuries occurred during the incident. However, the boy who brought the weapons to school could face charges.
WFTV reports that the gun came from the boy’s home. After being ordered to home confinement, a judge told the parents to keep any dangerous items away from their son.
While Minecraft is easily one of the least-offensive games currently on the market, the student’s dad firmly believes the game contributed to his son’s dangerous behavior . In his opinion, it was the video game that inspired the nine-year-old to bring the weaponry to school.
“They use hammers to dig and knives and guns to protect themselves from zombies,” the boy’s father told the news outlet.
Since Minecraft is a relatively harmless gaming experience, this is the first time someone has attempted to use the sandbox title as a scapegoat for dangerous behavior. However, Deputy UK Prime Minister Nick Clegg believes all violent video games can have a negative effect on people.
He recently explained:
“Clearly these games can have an incredibly powerful, and I suspect in some cases corrosive effect, on someone’s behavior, someone’s outlook; they get shut off, they don’t talk to other people, they just stay in their living room, their bedroom hunkered down in front of their computer. They occupy a hermetically sealed world of their own and that can have a very detrimental effect.”
Do you think Mojang’s Minecraft is to blame for a nine-year-old bringing several weapons to school? Are video games harmful as a whole?