A 9-year-old boy was recently sentenced to home confinement by a state judge after he brought a hand-gun with 6 bullets, a steak knife and a small handled sledge hammer to school. When something like this happens, some folds tend to blame video games. But the issue with blaming video games appears to be slightly questionable in this case because they decided to blame Minecraft. Yes, they blamed Minecraft for a child bringing a gun and ammunition to school.

According to the boy’s father, he was playing as a character he learned from the video game Minecraft. He also went on to state that in Minecraft, players use guns to protect themselves from zombies.

First of all, we’d like to point out that Minecraft isn’t a “violent” game like what many consider Grand Theft Auto to be. It’s a game lacking an objective; you just go around building things then protecting it from creatures of the night with arrows and such. The only way one would come across guns in Minecraft is via a mod. Maybe the child was playing one of those cheap Minecraft knock-offs that incorporate guns into the gameplay, who knows.

Secondly, I personally feel the parents are more to blame than a video game. I’m sure Minecraft did play some role in this debacle — after all, kids tend to play pretend quite often at that age — but did Minecraft put a gun, knife, and sledge hammer into the hands of this kid? Nope. He had to get it from somewhere, and where were his parents when he was doing this?

The way things are right now, it would come as no surprise if folks blame Mario or Pokemon games for their children acting out violently. I’m sure video games have some relation to violent acts but video games are often the scapegoat when someone doesn’t want to take responsibility. This is a perfect example.

[via WFTV]