Jackie T, Part 2

Well, good old Jack Thompson is at it again. Like a vulture, he has descended upon the latest gun tragedy, the mass shootings at Virginia Tech, where Cheung Sung Hui, a disturbed college student, killed 32 of his fellow students on April 16th. Before the victims could even be named, Jack Thompson, in his predictable weasel-like manner, came to the conclusion that video games were to blame.

Following the mentality that one is never to blame for one’s own actions in this country, Thompson has driven the anti-video-game bus since the days of GTA3. The man seems to have a personal hatred of games and tries to link the violent content in them to every crime that’s ever been committed. If he were genuinely concerned and honest in his actions against violence and his concern for the families that have suffered from such violent crime, I and many others might be able to swallow the swill that pours from his lips. Sadly, this isn’t the case. His incredibly thin attempts to hide the fact he is merely milking a subject he knows to be lucrative are more apparent every day. Add the fact the man shows no morals and often resorts to childish name calling and repeated lawsuit threats and he begins to appear laughable to many. None the less he is in the public eye, and unfortunately some listen to his drivel and take it to heart.

Jack never does his research. Only two days after the VA shooting, when he discovered that Cheung Sung Hui played Counter Strike prior to the killings, Thompson mailed a letter to Bill Gates. He chastised Microsoft for publishing the game and literally placed blame for the deaths at V.A. Tech on Microsoft’s shoulders! Thompson claimed they created a “killing simulator.” Just one problem there Jack, MS did republish the game on the Xbox, but the original PC version was published four years earlier by Vivendi Universal. Even if Microsoft WAS the only publisher, blaming the deaths of the V.A. Tech shooting on them is just sick!

As a gamer, I have NEVER had an urge to kill mass numbers of people, and I have played the gamut of violent video games, as have many of my gaming friends. I have a question to Jack Thompson. Since the video game industry has now reached revenues that rival the entertainment industry and the fan base of video games is in the millions, then where, oh where, are the millions and millions of mass shootings? Where are the millions of video game trained puppets who kill on a whim after being desensitized by video game violence?

Perhaps, just perhaps, Cheung did what he did because, as the reports from numerous news articles state, he wasn’t mentally stable. Perhaps when a shooting, or a stabbing, or a suicide or anything else horrific takes place, the blame should actually fall on the culprit…not a form of entertainment. Perhaps we should blame the actions of individuals … on the individuals. Sadly this way of thinking seems to have fallen by the wayside, and fools like Thompson feel they need to attack a subject they know nothing about with all their power. Every time a new form of entertainment comes along, it too will be blamed for death, violence, anger, hatred, and sadness. After all, these never existed before any of these scapegoats of pop culture did…did they?