jack thompson disbarred in florida

QuickDraw

yes, its true! jack thompson, one of the foremost video game haters has been disbarred by the florida supreme court today. he will never be able to practice law again in a court.

i am ecstatic that someone who repeatedly used illegal and highly unprofessional tactics to meet his own ends will never be able to pester our passions again.

article here: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/25/disbarred

he also got a fat $47K. i don't know what for so i'll asume its for general douchebaggery
 
I haven't been following him very closely but I do agree with some of his conclusions on games like Grand Theft Auto.

Violent video games have been proven to have a certain influence on some people. They are however, one of the countless things that can potentially have an influence.

Personally I do not understand emulation and showcases of pointless violence, either in video games and movies or why some people are drawn to it.
 
Vineon, if GTA made people violent, wouldn't a larger-than-statistically-irrelevant number of players who played GTA start killing everyone? There's not been a relevant increase in violent incidences, and the game is one of the best selling of all time. Sure, some crazy fucks might be inspired by GTA, but if not GTA wouldn't they just be inspired by anything else violent? Does GTA turn otherwise-stable people into murderers?

Anyway, he's been disbarred before, so I think some loophole will get him back into play. After all, he's a lawyer.
 
Oh dude............

Will a normal stable person be in any way changed after playing GTA? No. I'm still saying that like many things, it can have an influence on a marginal amount of people. Not that the mass will go on a killing spree, obviously.

I also doubt this is what Jack Thompson believes. The same thing applies to tv, music and countless other things. Your environment, especially at a young age, will have an impact on dictating your behavior. When everything around you is of GTA caliber, it will get to your head and it becomes normality. It is having that same head in the sand to believe it does not have any influence.

To be honest, I still think GTA is pushing the limits of what is acceptable.
 
I thought we were talking about Jack Thompson?

Anyway, I think it's better that he's gone. If video games really make people violent, we have some problems. My local paper reported a study where 99% of boys and 94% of girls age 12-17 play video games. I think Jack Thompson only became a problem because he was so...strong in his beliefs. He's a jerk, and we're all happy to see him gone, but I wonder who will fill his place as resident video game hater though...should we be worried?
 
Thompson is suing the court now I think. Said something about taking over the bar too. Crazy Jack.

Vineon said:
Oh dude............

Will a normal stable person be in any way changed after playing GTA? No. I'm still saying that like many things, it can have an influence on a marginal amount of people. Not that the mass will go on a killing spree, obviously.

I also doubt this is what Jack Thompson believes. The same thing applies to tv, music and countless other things. Your environment, especially at a young age, will have an impact on dictating your behavior. When everything around you is of GTA caliber, it will get to your head and it becomes normality. It is having that same head in the sand to believe it does not have any influence.

To be honest, I still think GTA is pushing the limits of what is acceptable.
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You should follow him more. He's an attention whore who uses tragedies to push his own agenda which he seems to think was given to him by God. Every time a school shooting or anything happens, he'll use video games as a scapegoat without warning. Hell, there was a Fox (lol fox) report where they thought he was an "expert" on school shootings and he somehow started talking about violent video games without warning.

I agree that games like GTA should not be played by those who grow up in a crappy environment. But blaming the game is not the way to do it. It's the environment. Parenting is what should be looked at, but America seems to think parents shouldn't be in charge of that. I guess it's hard to blame them when American parents think looking at the front of the box to see the rating is too hard (Mass Effect roundtable on Fox).
 
I used to follow him heavily by reading gamepolitics.com and kotaku everyday. It's annoying to see organizations like Fox News consider him a "Video Game Expert", when he calls gamers "Lifeless geeks" and "pixelantes" on these websites. I wonder what all of the people who actually believed in Jack Thompson's garbage will think now that he has been debarred.

However, we shouldn't celebrate just yet. Many people still believe that Thompson will continue to assault video gaming with his nonsense, despite the fact that he is disbarred:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/26/disbarment-not-likely-silence-thompson
 
An example would be he tried to push the VT shooting on counterstrike, but in fact, the shooter actually very mentally ill and isolated, all the people who knew him a bit will tell you that.

the sort of things that he says in his video are just not normal, and could have only been the things he imagined going in his head.

Not to mention he didn't play video games since high school, but Jack the douche linked it CC anyways.
 
Yes agreeing with Firestorm here, hes seeking all kinds of attention and the fact he is insane doesn't help him. Just search "Jack Thompson" on Kotaku and you will find all kinds of stories of him being a bumbling, insane fool. I have no problem with law stating kids can't buy M rated games and all that, but Jack takes it to the extreme.

Check out this video: http://kotaku.com/357294/jt-on-the-niu-shooting-+-the-video

He not only ignores the questions he goes into in unrelated tangent saying videogames this, blah blah, despite being no evidence linking the shooter to video games. Hes done this several times and here was seemingly no end in sight.

But the reason he was disbarred is because of how he appeared in court, theres a video of him in court where he looks like hes never been in court before, hes been held in contempt of the court, breaking misconduct rules, and even showing up late to his own cases. He was just a disease, he would take out lawsuits over nothing, like suing the Florida BAR because of compliaints against him.

He kind of had the right idea but the way he handled it and himself were totally wrong, yet he kept getting air time on news stations and programs because video games are the biggest scapegoat ever,despite TV, movies, and just the overall enviroment kids are raised in these days.
 
Thomson never realy bothered me, as his influence never spread too much and his only supporters are probably a couple of Fox news fanatics.

My blood started raging when he attacked video games when I was around 13, but eventually he started to associate with video games on such a regular basis that he was completely predictable. He started as some mad, ignorant lawyer to a boring, attention whoring guy that you drag along with just because he's been with you since the beginning.

I never disagreed that video games don't have an influence on violent behavior, but Thomson's methods were ridiculous. But at long last, after years of growing weary and used up, Thomson's career is finally dead. Hooray, I guess.
 
Gee I thought I was in a firebot thread from all the four word responses up top.

Why does him being disbarred matter? It might take away some legitimacy and lend him less credence, but one hardly needs be a lawyer to 'philosophize' about video game violence (in this case, I use philosophize in the loosest manner possible!) The only way to stop him is if people entirely stop taking him seriously, and some people will always be willing to take him seriously, and I am sure plenty of people agree with his stances in generally).
 
I'll admit I don't know him enough to comment on his crusade against video games (the video game world in general?).

Regardless, some games do raise ethic questions that should be looked at.

Too many want a direct correlation : someone played a certain video game and killed because of it. You are going to find some stories but little that will be seen as anything else than exceptions. This is usually the argument of most that downplay the impact violence portrayed in movies/movies/vgames/etc. They want someone to take a gun after playing GTA and going on a rampage to believe there is a relation between the two.

Free pointless violence as a theme in anything is not socially healthy in large doses. Video Games, like many other things and most of the time with a combination of many, can be a contributing factor to some deplorable behaviors.
 
CaptKirby said:
Gee I thought I was in a firebot thread from all the four word responses up top.

Why does him being disbarred matter? It might take away some legitimacy and lend him less credence, but one hardly needs be a lawyer to 'philosophize' about video game violence (in this case, I use philosophize in the loosest manner possible!) The only way to stop him is if people entirely stop taking him seriously, and some people will always be willing to take him seriously, and I am sure plenty of people agree with his stances in generally).
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It matters quite a bit. He has now been discreditted. This means the mass media will no longer go to him as the "School Shootings Expert" or "Expert on Video Game Violence". He has been disgraced. His power and ability to preach to the uninformed has been been diminished.

This also means his "I'LL SUE YOU" responses are even more laughable.
 
Damn! Where will I get my epic lulz now?

On a more serious note, though, I'm glad he's been disbarred. I don't think we've heard the last of 'ol Jack, though.
 
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