Lawyer Blames Video Games for NIU Shootings
Few things makes us more angry than taking advantage of tragedies to push personal and political agendas, especially when when that agenda lacks things like supporting evidence... or logic.
Jack Thompson, a self-described Christian conservative and Republican (which is an insult to Christian conservative Republicans everywhere), has made a career of crusading against so-called obscenity and violence in media such as rap music and video games.
His latest rant came on Fox News about the Northern Illinois University shooting and its connection to the first person shooter 'Counter Strike.' The Fox News interview is shameless on so many levels. Thompson refers to video games as simulators for practicing massacres, implies that he predicted the NIU shooting in a book he wrote (plug, plug), and he referred to a Harvard study suggesting that people are likely to copycat behavior in video games. He failed to mention that the killer spent time in a psychiatric institution or that he recently decided to stop taking his prescribed anti-depressants.
Let's take Thompson's logic and apply it elsewhere. According to him every school shooter has played video games, therefore video games are the cause of school shootings. The Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11th attacks were perpetrated by morally and socially conservative religious fundamentalists, so perhaps Thompson is a potential terrorist -- let's ship him to Gitmo. We still water-board don't we?
From DailyTech
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ben @ Feb 19th 2008 2:32PM
What a douchebag...
Steven @ Feb 19th 2008 3:47PM
Yeah let me go get strapped up after playing video games. Oh yeah, I forgot I'm not a psychotic idiot and I see games for what they are. I guess I am the stastical anomaly because according to this idiot I am one of the few who i going around shootng up schools after playing video games.
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 5:27PM
This is clearly a right wing "wag the dog" to divert any blame away from the easy availability of weapons in our society without background checks
Jim Green @ Feb 19th 2008 5:28PM
Lets just call him what he is A DICK
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 5:29PM
I guess the right wingers would rather their children play cowboys and indians with loaded semiautomatic weapons
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 5:31PM
doesn't anybody want to ask why Fox news had this particular person on? is this lawyer really the only bad guy, or is it fox news?
sharonsnewlife @ Feb 19th 2008 5:31PM
I don't play video games, but I get so mad when I hear idiots like this guy (who can't put together a coherent sentence)blame games for shootings like this.
There's this thing called mental illness that causes people to harm/kill others. I suppose it could be argued that a mentally ill person with delusions and aggressive urges might be attracted to a "violent" game, but to blame the game/movie/song is not going to help anything.
Jim Green @ Feb 19th 2008 5:32PM
Charles the guns cant work alone its the people. if he hadn't bought it legely he could have gotten it anywhere on the street
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 5:37PM
Jim Green,
I am so sick of hearing this argument.
Jim Green @ Feb 19th 2008 5:43PM
Charles YOU LIVE IN A FANTASY WORLD just take a walk on the streets
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 5:57PM
You've just proven my point - the fact that the streets are infiltrated with guns is just another example of how wrong it is in this country that guns are so available. We spend millions on the "war on drugs" yet nothing to get weapons off the streets.
Charles @ Feb 19th 2008 6:01PM
What Fox news doesn't realize anymore is that with the exception of the religious right wing who want to take away all knowledge about anything in the real world from their children, most of this country just doesn't believe them anymore, and all the millions they are putting into this propaganda is now going to be wasted, which is what they deserve.
Ben @ Feb 19th 2008 7:46PM
Charles you're completely wrong. Do you know WHERE exactly he killed all these people? IN A GUN FREE ZONE! Looks like he didn't read the sign... Had someone with knowledge of how to use a pistol and the WILL, the could have been ended immediately. Police are minutes away, not seconds, and citizens should have the right of self defense.
Also, has anyone checked out the stats of school shootings since Columbine? They're all on these meds that fuck up your brain. If I had kids, I'd never put them on these meds. Pharma companies should be getting the treatment here, not video games.
ascatal @ Feb 19th 2008 8:43PM
I am so tired of hearing that video games are to blame for every massacre that happens. They are not to blame they are merely being used as scapegoats for the larger problems we as a society must face
Daniel Gaunt @ Feb 20th 2008 9:01AM
damn thats it! just stop the taliban and other fanatics playing video games and we'll have world peace! so obvious
http://freeextras.blogspot.com/
http://lifeorsomethingnotquitelikeit.blogspot.com/
Dragongurl392 @ Feb 20th 2008 10:01AM
I get so sick and tired of hearing morons blame video games for the behavior of the obviously psychotic. How far back was it that some douchebag blamed Final Fantasy VII for a kid getting killed? Sure, games like Grand Theft Auto are murder-simulators (there's no arguing that; what's the object of the game?), but leave the rest of them alone.
italo babini @ Feb 20th 2008 10:40AM
YES, possible to an inpressionable uncultured individio the tragic effect of the Hollywood movies, games and TV programs existing today can create a propension to imitate them---HOWEVER THE FACT REMAINS THAT A PERSON CANNOT DO ANY THING THAT HE/SHE DON'T WANT DOING--THIS FACT IS QUITE PRESENT WHEN INDUCING A PERSON iNTO A TRANSE. MOST PROBABLE WHEN A INDIVIDUO DOES SOME THING IS ""BECAUSE HE WANTS TO DO IT.
italo babini @ Feb 20th 2008 10:49AM
YES, possible to an inpressionable uncultured individio the tragic effect of the Hollywood movies, games and TV programs existing today can create a propension to imitate them---HOWEVER THE FACT REMAINS THAT A PERSON CANNOT DO ANY THING THAT HE/SHE DON'T WANT DOING--THIS FACT IS QUITE PRESENT WHEN INDUCING A PERSON iNTO A TRANSE. MOST PROBABLE WHEN A INDIVIDUO DOES SOME THING IS ""BECAUSE HE WANTS TO DO IT.
italo babini @ Feb 20th 2008 10:51AM
YES, possible to an inpressionable uncultured individio the tragic effect of the Hollywood movies, games and TV programs existing today can create a propension to imitate them---HOWEVER THE FACT REMAINS THAT A PERSON CANNOT DO ANY THING THAT HE/SHE DON'T WANT DOING--THIS FACT IS QUITE PRESENT WHEN INDUCING A PERSON iNTO A TRANSE. MOST PROBABLE WHEN A INDIVIDUO DOES SOME THING IS ""BECAUSE HE WANTS TO DO IT.
italo babini @ Feb 20th 2008 11:02AM
YES, possible to an inpressionable uncultured individio the tragic effect of the Hollywood movies, games and TV programs existing today can create a propension to imitate them---HOWEVER THE FACT REMAINS THAT A PERSON CANNOT DO ANY THING THAT HE/SHE DON'T WANT DOING--THIS FACT IS QUITE PRESENT WHEN INDUCING A PERSON iNTO A TRANSE. MOST PROBABLE WHEN A INDIVIDUO DOES SOME THING IS ""BECAUSE HE WANTS TO DO IT.