i think the reason everybody is so sensetive about this topic is that children are seen as innocent, defenceless people and therefore do not deserve to die. but does the granny in gta deserve to die? nope, but its still fun to see them tumble over ur car at rediculously high speeds. i think that people should be able to put whatever they want in a game, but they should be rated accordingly.
and somebody said before that some games punish you harshly for killing kids (i think the example was fallout 2) and i think thats what games should do, especially if they are trying to be realistic. its like in gta if you kill a random pedestrian, 1 star, kill them infront of a cop, 2 or 3 stars, if u kill a cop, 3 stars. it should go on so that if u kill a kid on purpose, 3 stars instantly. then when you are driving around like a spastic u will deliverately swerve to avoid prams and such. after all, why kill a kid when for the same ammount of stars you can kill a crapload of adults?
its all about choice in the game, what you want to do. and we should have the choice to buy the game if we want to.