K-Mart Australia Ditch GTA V Following Recent Petition

The power of online petitions has once again struck in Australia, with K-Mart following the example of Target and removing copies of Grand Theft Auto V from its shelves.

Yesterday Target in Australia shocked gamers when they removed the R rated game from their shelves after an online petition made by female victims of abuse formed an online petition of almost 41,000 signatures, forcing the company to pull the game from stores.

K-Mart were quick to jump on the bandwagon and in a bid to please its customers has also removed all copies of Rockstars Action Adventure video game from its stores throughout Australia.

The question is are these stores correct to remove the game, given that it has an 18 rating and the content does not purely focus on beating women. If you have played GTA V you will be aware of the content and what the game involves.

The formula for Rockstars adult rated GTA games hasn't changed much over the years, and this isn't the first time the game has come under fire due to the content of the game, which involves violence, not only towards women but towards anyone and anything.
GTA V features a theme which revolves heavily around theft, Violence and drugs.

Here is what some of our readers had to say:

"When people will finally realize that "YOU DON"T HAVE TO BUY THIS GAME"
If you are ofended by violence... you're not forced to buy this game." -ESTE

"GTA's content has always been questionable. They can claim it's a social commentary or a satire or whatever, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility to the consumers as a whole. And as often as GTA has been pinpointed as an influence in crimes over the past decade, Rockstar is in serious need of an overhaul to their "guy screws/beats/kills women and steals cars" formula."
-thejamesmcornett

"Battering women isn't a central theme of the game. You could play it and never kill a single woman if you don't want to. I mean if we're being technical we can get all up in arms about the depiction of men as remorseless sadistic sycophants. I think this is another attempt by the wrong type of feminist to garner headlines and video games are an easy target( no pun intended). I mean, why doesn't any other medium come under fire the way video games do" - jayrockricky

So what is your take on this, are the stores right to listen to the online petitions like this, or should they stand by the adult rating the game has been given? We would love to hear what you have to say about this, so please have your say in the comments below.