33 murdered students, Elephant, video games

April 16, 2007 — A tranquil college campus in Virginia became a killing field Monday morning. At least 33 people are dead in the worst mass shooting in modern American history. - ABC News

Read the full story here
Good report on the massacre on freestudents.blogspot.com

This is extremely hard on everyone. Trying to get your mind around the concept of someone murdering a whole lot of defenceless people - and then killing himself.

No, 33 people is not all that many. But it is the way they died, why they died, how they died, as well as who died.

Video games such as Unreal Tournament, F.E.A.R., Half Life, Doom and Quake. These are games that idolise, sensationalise, stylise and glorify violence. Gore (blood) levels can be increased or decreased to suit the gamer. In F.E.A.R., extremely violent acts can be perfomed in explict detail on your victim (ie. a guard). Games such as these are immoral and have been proven to be the cause for gamers getting out there and "playing it real".

Heck, I do like BattleField 1942, Day of Defeat (First person shooters) and Age of Empires 2 (real time strategy).

If you haven't already, watch Elephant, directed by Gus Van Sant. It is a documentary/parallel story film, based on the Columbine shooting where 15 high school students died. Apart from being exceptionally well filmed, it is a very moving film, and relevant to this latest shooting.

Just you watch. The communist bandwagon is going to get rolling again and the bleeding heart left, flower power types are going to be grabbing at this story. Having watched Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore, I would agree that it does seem a bit too easy to get a gun in the USA.

However, it is important that the legislators don't swing too far the other way.