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Warriors Of Freedom Prompted Rampage Attempt?
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Philadelphia Inquirer article linking videogames to an alleged spree killing attempt. According to the article, "Investigators suspect the three teens arrested.. as they allegedly were about to launch a killing rampage in the small town, found inspiration in violent computer games.. [police] learned that the name the three reportedly had given themselves - Warriors of Freedom - is also an Internet-based combat game." But only a few media reports mention that the violent game connection was made by Jack Thompson, a Miami lawyer and outspoken critic of violent video and computer games - is this a case of shameless Googling to find any obscure game with a similar name and make a connection, or is there genuine evidence here?
Are you referring to the popular "Apocalypse Now" movie? Or is that a reference to the real Anthony Poshepny, who just passed away? (I'd be suprised if many US citizens have heard of him- even his obituary didn't circulate much in the American press)
Think of how they portayed killing in the basement scene in the first matrix, how 'COOL' was that; a computer hacker/nerd in sunnies and a trenchcoat, with a hot female in latex blasting away numerous innocent people without even flinching - with the propellerheads soundtrack pumping.
Should we question the sanity (or the potential to "snap") of the people who had a hand in this particular scene? The actors, screenwriters, sound crew, etc... Can we make a reasonable leap of faith and say that they are not all riding the edge of sanity and insanity? How can one say then that the ability of a group of moderately sane people can visualize, then act out and produce a scene that can not be visualized by a creative but mentally unstable person -- a person who has "snapped"? Remember the postal worker fiasco? Should we assume this person played violent video games or had an above average desire to watch bloody action flicks? Remember the Dungeons & Dragons fiasco? I don't recall how they killed but I am pretty sure they did not wander around with a Bastard Sword +2... Maybe this whole vengeful killing spree is triggered by the carbinated beverage Coke? Ah, maybe there's some strange chemical in Wonder Bread; have we checked to see if all these killers liked white bread???
Sorry, this isn't a flame on you and I agree, I'm divided to a point... Sure I concede that it's possible that violent media may provide a seed for an idea that has already started festering. Is that bad? Let's look at this a different way.
Let's say Joe Shotgun is a farm kid way out in the boonies, no TV, no movie theaters, no computer, but an excellent collection of books are available for his enjoyment. Now Joe Shotgun is not ignorant, nooooo. In fact he's pretty damn intelligent, is a voracious reader and is even more advanced in his home schooling than a typical city kid. But therein is the problem. Joe spends most of his time alone (awww). None of the other farm kids like him because he's different from the norm and they don't understand him. Now kids will be kids and poor Joe has lived with the occasional pranks and name calling which is all too common the world over.
The thing is, Joe is slightly, um... unstable. Maybe pa dropped him on his head when he was young, who knows? But the Shotgun's have always known about Joe's dark moods. They usually leave him alone and after a while he's back to his good old self. One day Joe just snaps... Pa's been yelling at him, Ma got mad at him because he knocked the apple pies from the sill. The kids have been unmerciful lately, etc. Poor Joe hatches a plan. He hates being different, he's tired of always being alone. Nobody ever understands him and in his teenage angst ridden mind, it is just not worth going through what, 50 or 60 more years of this shit. Suicide??? Hrm, let those little bastages grow up and make more little shits that will make some other kid's life miserable? Hell no, if he's going out, Joe's gonna take a few with him.
So a few days later Joe has a plan. What's his plan? I leave it to you to think of various violent ways a farm boy could take out people based only on literature you've read.
My point? Joe is isolated from all the vast media that is (ironically enough) so big in the media as being responsible for inspiring killers. We give him one link to the rest of the world (the books) and now we have to place the blame on this one form of media. Should we revert to book burning in this farm community? Whatever means Joe decides to use as his vehicle of vengence, it is resonable to assume he will be influenced by the literature he read. Maybe Ma and Pa (if they survived) should go through the books and censor out the violent parts of this vast library, you know, to keep other kids from getting these crazy ideas in their heads.
In my opinion, this is very similar to the idea that there are many bad things to be found on the Internet, so let's heavily regulate it and make it completely 'G
I am an avid computer usr/programmer/gamer now, but in my youth I grew up in the bush.
My formative years were not spent playing violent computer games, but instead wandering through miles of thick bush, practising survival skills, and highly intellectual pursuits like trying to catch live Goannas (6 foot long lizards with huge claws/teeth) armed only with a hessian sack (yes, I still have the scars).
I made napalm, black-powder, and nitro-peln bombs with gay abandon (spare time and sheds full of farm chemicals are a dangerous combination). Then I turned my attention to projectiles and hand weapons (my favourite was the 8 foot, 12 kilo pike that I made, although the old style scythe was pretty cool too) both offensively and defensively (which meant getting two neighbours to repeatedly fire stone headed arrows at me from a variety of ranges).
I lived on a farm and was expected to be able to hold my own when it came time to kill a chook or a snake or whatever. The realities of death were neither glossed over, nor glamourised. You understood what it meant, how you could do it, what it looked like, what it felt like, why you would do it, and why not.
A few years later and I was being consistently bullied at school. Not because I was small or slow or whatever, but because I chose not to follow the "cool kids" and their self-supporting persecution of others to appease their own insecurities. I also made no attempt to hide my opinion of them - unforgivable from their perspective. (And I was smart - nothing pisses of a dumb jock more than that).
Although I had spent a lot of time "playing" with various deadly weapons (and school did nothing but provide me with a plethora of additional ideas and resources) I did not choose to target these individuals.
(At least not willingly: Once I found a friend being held down and beaten by a number of the "in crowd", I tackled the main offender off my mate and dared the rest of them to take me on as well - they didn't. After that incident I was cornered by an even larger group of them, out for some "retribution" for being made to look like weak fools - I still think I would have taken a pretty severe beating if I hadn't had a large knife in my pocket to convert the situation to a stand-off (I had been teaching myself knife juggling at the time)).
Unlike much of the student body I was always certain on two things:
1. Knowledge is a hell of a lot more deadly and fear inspiring than strength. (Someone overpowering you? Stomp on the bridge of the foot and sweep your palm sideways across their nose. I don't care how strong they are, their bones aren't.)
2. School will end, I will leave, and the next time I meet one of the bullies they will be smiling and saying: "Would you like fries with that, sir?"
So tell your children, tell your friends, tell your neices and nephews: THERE IS LIFE AFTER SCHOOL.
We need to do something about the horrendous situation the current youth is facing: depression, suicide, hoimicide - they are all different faces of the one die (or dice for the uneducated). It is not the fault of computer games except in as much as they continue the bizarre abstracted existence we are taught to call life.
Thanks for reading, spread the word to those who need most to hear it.
Q.
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