I don’t normally like calling attention to stories that talk about a killer who played video games. It’s always a huge logical fallacy to leap. “He played video games”, “he is a killer”, “killers play video games”, or “video games turn people into killers”. It’s a classic in flawed logic. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s better to quash something before the flames spread into an uncontrollable wildfire. I am specifically talking about this article posted on The Blaze, which highlights a few excerpts from the recent Santa Barbara shooter’s manifesto. In it he discusses how women are inherently evil, they think like beasts and, in fact, are beasts, and how he should be the divine ruler. No seriously, he should be the divine ruler. And his main goal as divine ruler? To round up all of the women into a huge camp and starve them to death. This guy was a narcissistic, psychotic bastard. It was only a matter of time before he snapped. His writings show someone who not only doesn’t think about people as people, but someone who thinks of himself as far superior to everyone else. Everyone gets delusions of grandeur occasionally, but once we are placed into situations where we are leading a group of people, we realize how difficult leadership can be at times. This kid didn’t care about leading, he cared about dictating. And let us not overlook, not for one second, the fact that this kid was in therapy since he was eight years old. EIGHT! Even in an age where every other kid is diagnosed with ADD and ADHD, the idea of a kid being in therapy starting at age eight is ridiculous. He had serious mental issues, just like every other mass murdering kid ever. But no, that isn’t enough. The Blaze decided to test the waters and throw out the fact that this kid mentions playing “violent video games” (The Blaze’s words, not mine). What were these games? What could possibly be so horrible that they’d drive a poor, helpless teenager to mass murder? Halo and World of Warcraft. No, seriously. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, take a look at every Halo review I have ever done. I rate these games extremely low on the age rating for a reason. Yes, these games do involve violence, but they’re lightweight science fiction shooters. Watch my Halo 4 review and then go watch The Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones. Cortana never gets stabbed in the baby. Master Chief never gets beheaded and paraded around with a wolf’s head sewn onto his neck. Oh, and this is World of Warcraft. If this kid was playing Jericho or Dead Space or something else seriously graphically violent I would understand where the argument stemmed from (even though it would still be ridiculous). But Halo and WoW aren’t the source of this kid’s problems. We should focus on this kid’s real mental issues, the ones he had since he was a child, and not what he used as a mental crutch in his teenage years.
But The Blaze got my attention with its story, so I suppose in that way the trick worked. I focused on the “video games” specifically and less on the mental issues the kid was going through. For now this story hasn’t gained much traction, but this highlights that some media outlets find it more important to post ridiculous content just to generate buzz.
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The Legendary Carmine
Andrew Clayton (a.k.a. The Legendary Carmine) is SSG's Executive Editor. He toils at the stone to make sure this site brings its readers valuable content on a daily basis. Like what we do? Want to see more? Donate to the site using the button below!
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