There are some things in life we can never predict. We can never predict where we may live or what job we have ten years from now. We may never be able to predict who we marry. We may never be able to predict what kind of children we have and how they turn out, whether they may turn out to be criminals or the president of the United States. Sadly, we may never be able to predict when someone goes on a rampage at a college campus and killing unfortunate victims. This is what happened at the Northern Illinois University yesterday. A gunman, who was an honors graduate of the university, went on a rampage killing five students before turning the gun on himself and commiting suicide. It was yet another shooting on a school campus. This nation has had too many of these campus shootings over the years...and by too many, I mean not one campus shooting should ever have happened. Sadly, we can never predict with complete accuracy when these shootings occur. These, unfortunately, are spontaneous. No one ever knows for sure when these sick acts of violence unfold.
However, we can predict with great accuracy this one sad fact. Whenever shootings occur, when gunfire rings out across a school or college campus, there will be those who capitalize on these kinds of tragedies. One of the most infamous and notorious of these massacre chasers is an attorney from Miami named John Bruce Thompson, better known to gamers as Jack Thompson. He has once again in an interview on Fox News faulted video games for the massacre that ended the lives of five innocent victims. He has, for the second time in less than a year, blamed video games for a shooting before any facts about the shooter were revealed. The shooter, according to local police, was a 27-year old honors graduate of NIU with an unknown mental condition. He, according to police, was not taking his medicine and began to act erratically recently.
I can not say for certain that the shooter's condition led to the massacre, but the fact that the shooter had some sort of mental condition along with the fact that he was off his medication should eliminate any possibility that video games were a cause of the shooting.
I am sickened, but not suprised, that Mr. Thompson would capitalize on a serious and sad massacre to push his agenda. He has taken yet another tragedy and, instead of waiting for all of the facts about the shooter to be known, he tried to fault something that has nothing to do with the tragedy. The shooter was suffering from an apparent mental condition. He was off of his medication. Does this not tell Thompson and anyone else who blames the games for these tragedies that the mental health of the killer is the real red flag for this tragedy? I would think that instead of faulting video games, any other kind of entertainment, or popular culture as a whole, we would look at what went wrong with the killer, especially if the killer was an honors graduate.
Silly me. When it comes to those who ignore the factors that are usually the cause of these campus shootings, they choose to go after entertainment, especially video games. These are the kinds of people that are wrapped up in their own ideology of a society that shuns free thought, free speech, freedom to think however the hell we want to think and to think whatever the hell we want to think. When people like Jack Thompson blame video games for campus shootings, they have an agenda. Their agenda is to stifle the content in video games and even an attempt to ban video games altogether. We have seen this again and again. They do not care if they are proven wrong. When an investigation panel, assinged by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D), found out that Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho did not play violent video games, Jack Thompson still claimed violent games were the cause of the April 2007 tragedy. Lyndon LaRouch accused the panel of a cover-up. To them video games are the cause of campus shootings. Do not try to convince them otherwise. They will not listen their critics and may stoop to McCarthyistic levels in their response to their critics.
I understand that we want to prevent campus shootings.These are tragedies that should never happen. We all want to know exactly how to prevent these sick and terrifying acts of violence and murder. However, when we have those who look for a scapegoat that had nothing to do with the massacre and stick with that scapegoat even when proven wrong and accuse their critics of being "on the take", we do not move forward in the steps needed to prevent further massacres. Cho was not found to be playing violent video games. Despite that finding by the Virginia Tech panel, Thompson and LaRouch still accuse video games for the shootings that took place ten months ago. Does this not sound dangerous? We are trying to find out how to prevent campus shootings and we have those who bring up something that was not a factor in the shooting. By the way, if the "theories" of Mr. Thompson and other anti-game activists were true, then why aren't campus killings widespread? Why don't we have campus shootings taking place at all of our nation's schools, colleges, and universities? More than half of this nations' people are gamers like myself. We need to make all campuses safer and blaming things that are repeatedly found not to have been a factor in these shootings does not help.
Why do you do this Mr. Thompson? Why do you ignore the mental health of the killer and instead bring up the "video games made him do it" card, thus capitalizing on a serious tragedy in which five innocent people are dead just to push your agenda and to make yourself a bigger media whore? You may sugarcoat it as protecting the public or acting in the name of God, but gamers, including myself that you put down, humiliate, insult, and defame have followed you throughout your so-called crusade and we know better than that. While you are out on your "media tour", why don't you stop by Chris Matthews' show instead of a channel that is known to sensationalize these acts of violence? And speaking of Fox News, did you, Fox News, not learn anything from Jack's lies? Did you not learn ANYTHING from the recent "Mass Effect" controversy? I look forward to the day when both of you, Fox News and Jack Thompson, learn from your past distortions. I am not holding my breah though. One more thing to Fox News: Why do you name Jack Thompson a "campus shooting expert"? He is an expert in something. That something is being a massacre chaser and if he is a "campus shooting expert", then I am an expert...in quantum physics.
I once heard this quote: "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it". I don't know who said that or when, but when Jack Thompson and other anti-game activists capitalize on the killings at the Northern Illinois University, I can't help but to think of that quote. They have done this before and have been proven wrong. They did not learn from the past. They are doomed to repeat it. They will be doomed to repeat it again until they learn from the past. I hope that happens someday...but I am not holding my breath.
Good night, and good luck.
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