Before I asplode in a ball of righteous anger, I would like to preface this rant by saying I my thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the people who were killed in the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday. Also, my thoughts and prayers go out to all of the Virginia Tech. This event was an act of senseless violence and although I’d be lying if I said I knew what they were going through, I can only hope that time heals these wounds.

That being said, Jack Thompson and Dr Phil are idiots. The bodies aren’t even cold, yet these  two “experts” put the blame on violent video games. Call of the police investigation! The answer was under our noses the entire time! If you’re under 30 years of age and snap and start killing people, video games are to blame. Nevermind the fact that according to most of the reports I’ve read don’t mention video games at all. Infact, they mention that he was a disturbed individual who probably had some sort of mental condition.

Now some of you are probably wondering “Matt, why are you taking this so personally?” Well, it’s because I’m a gamer and I have never once thought “You know? That guy’s pissing me off, I should shoot him in the face.” I’ve been playing video games for most of my life, starting with Super Mario like most everyone else in my generation. I’ve played ‘em all, Sim City, Half-Life, Madden, GTA, DDR and even a little World of Warcraft. I’m not a violent person. Angry person? Yeah I have a temper, but not a violent person. I can count on three fingers the number of fist fights I’ve got into in my life, not counting sparring when I was in Tae Kwon Do. And those were all times I defended myself in high school from bullies.

Not only am I a gamer, but a lot of my friends are as well, and I get deeply offended when some nobody lawyer and a snake-oil salesman who have no idea what the hell they’re talking about con someone in the media to give them an open mic and decide to run their mouth. And I don’t think my anger is out of line. I mean, how do you think the Korean-American population would react if Dr Phil had blamed the shootings on the fact that this young man was Korean? I’d think they’d be a little pissed off.

But then again Video Games are the scape goat for this country’s problems. Americans have a long history of this: first it was alcohol, then jazz, then rock and roll, then television, then drugs, and then rap. Video games weren’t the first scape goat, and certianly won’t be the last. Heaven forbid we place the blame where it should be for this disturbing event: a troubled young man who just snapped. But we as Americans don’t want to place the blame where it belongs, we’d rather put it on a convent scape goat.

It’s not like these comments are unexpected. I mean, I’m pretty sure Thompson or McGraw would blame a 100 point drop in the Dow Jones on a new Grand Theft Auto game, it’s the nature of how the comments came out. I mean, we as a nation didn’t even know the shooter’s name and these two “experts” were already blaming video games. You know, it’d be nice if we let the police and the FBI investigate the crime before we start shifting blame on scape goats.

I believe these two aren’t motivated my some deep seeded morality either, or they’d be preaching their anti-video game rhetoric anytime there was a domestic murder, not just these massacres and school shootings. Let them come out anytime someone murders one person and blame it on video games and then I’ll stop thinking that comments like these are desperate attempts to extend their 15 minutes of fame.

Categories: rant
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