One word. Malarkey. I’ve been playing violent video games since I could hold a controller, and here I am writing articles for a theology web site. The links between violent games and killers such as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are shaky at best. Let’s forget for a second that they had broken homes, were probably psychotic, were bullied in school, felt like outcasts, were apparently prone to violence anyway, ignore any other contributing factors, and then blame the gaming industry! Aha! We’ve found the cause!

I don’t think it’s even necessary to mention that this is clearly a fallacy. If you want to take this “rational route,” since all the shooters used guns, the guns must be the cause! They all wore shirts! That’s what did it! They all breathed oxygen, ate food, drank beverages, drove on the right side of the road. It could be any number of things!

Games appear in all of the scenarios. So what? That doesn’t prove squat––certainly not causality. A factor, perhaps, but not the dominant one.

Another thing I heard––even just last night––as a psychologist, a congressmen, and a few friends of Eric and Dylan (who are intense gamers) went back and forth on the issue was that these gams teach children how to kill cops. Let me repeat that, even though I know it hurts. Grand Theft Auto teaches children how to kill cops.

Good. Ghandi.

You know what, they’re right. And I’ll prove it.

#1. AJ’s pre-GTA concept of cop killing: First I’d have to fly of to Ireland and acquire a band of Mafia-connected leprechauns to back me up if things got shaky. Then I’d load up on fairy dust and toothpaste. Once the crew was assembled and we found our target, I’d brush my teeth with my finger and hurl the dust in the cop’s eyes and then spit poetry at him while he thrashed around trying to rub the stuff out. It’s the perfect plot, until we get to...

#2. AJ’s post-GTA concept of cop killing: Forget the leprechauns, forget the fairy dust, forget the poetry. Instead I’ll get a flame thrower or a rocket launcher, wait until an unsuspecting patrol car turns around the corner, and blast the sucker into a million pieces! Then I’ll proceed to steal a random car off the street, drive it in police chase in which no matter how many times I crash I’m inevitably unharmed, end up busted at some point, and get out of jail two minutes later. Great merciful Athena! The boy’s a genius!

I don’t know about you, but I am hard pressed to find any distinction between these examples. They’re both so equally absurd that even a five year old would roll his eyes should either be presented. I’m sorry, folks, but GTA no more teaches you a realistic way to kill a cop than Halo teaches you to kill a space alien. There’s a reason that they don’t. Wanna know what it is? Anybody have a guess?

BECAUSE IT’S ALLLL PRETEND.

The games are purposely exaggerated and falsified so that they’re intense. You can run red lights, jump off of buildings, fly Apaches without the air force shooting you down, and a host of other obscenely unrealistic things that would never work should you attempt them in real life.

And the police shootouts in GTA are merely a televised version of the Cops and Robbers games I played as a child. In fact, throughout all my childhood the imaginary worlds we invented were full of fictitious violence ranging from gangsters to ninjas to samurai to cops to monsters to aliens to old people...whatever. And my parents never sat me down and said, “AJ, these games will not be allowed in our home.” But I bring in a video game featuring the same concept and the world has tilted off its access.

I have quite a few friends who have suffered the same double standards when attempting to play certain video games as I have. And I know for a fact that this problem ranges far beyond our safeguarded little town. Parents have no problem sending their kids off to The Matrix, a movie in which numerous police officers meet their doom to the awe and wonder of parents and children alike. However, when Mom walks down and sees little Johnny blasting away at his imaginary protecter on a PS2, he’s suddenly done something wrong.

I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the only people who don’t realize these games are fake are the parents refusing their children.

And when I say children, let me be clear that I do agree with the rating system. I don’t think kids who are highly impressionable should be playing games far before their maturity level and mental state help them understand that the only place it’s okay to run over someone is in the game.

Some parents complain about the sexual content of many popular mature-rated games. “There’s just too much sex in them.” If we back up for a second, I’ll say that first hand I have never witnesses a single nude scene in any game I’ve ever played, and that includes the GTA series, the baddest of the bad. But regardless, we can’t allow this smut in our entertainment.

At this point it’s like who can say the stupidest thing with the most conviction.

"Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury..."

Did you know that something like 80% of the fiction market is geared towards middle-aged women. You know what that means, fellas. Romance novels. My mother is quite a reader, and no doubt once in awhile an unexpected sexual scene comes up in some of these books. Am I to hasten to the library having stolen her books and return them because of this minor sequence? Or am I to say that the reason she got the book had nothing to do with the sex scene, therefore her intentions were correct. Also, it’s likely that, having read such things before multiple times, this will have little impact on her.

How about movies? Movies are filled to the brim with nudity, lust, scantily clad models, and all varieties of temptation that, if we agree with Jesus when he says that if you look at a women lustfully you have committed adultery, should never ever ever be viewed. And I’m talking about good, meaningful movies such as One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest and Forrest Gump. Should we ban movies from our homes for displaying such vulgar sin?

To tie this all together, let’s recount. So what some people are asserting is that it’s not okay to play a video game with violence, language, and sex, but it’s perfectly okay to read a book that contains these things and watch movies and TV shows that contain these things.

Can you see it, dear reader? Even now a word appears on your computer screen. The ink is spreading fast, black as the transgressions of our entertainment. It’s almost here! Watch! Watch...

Hypocrite.

That’s right. The gauntlet has been thrown down. I hereby demand that if people are going to criticize gamers that we get rid of every single shred of language, sexual content, and violence in all forms of entertainment. Period. To do otherwise is hypocritical.

Or we can admit it’s just a game, it’s not that important. The real trouble with gaming isn’t really the content but the overuse of time on such things. It’s hard to cross the boarder between fiction and reality when all you do is drive around a city in a fast car for thirty minutes and maybe do a couple of missions or go at it with a group of friends on an alien home world.

There is a point to these games, one which may even be disputed amongst gamers. Some play them for the concept, others for the thrill, and yet others for the challenge of completing missions. I have been known to take a particular interest in the storyline. Games are unlike any other medium in that you, the player, are a part of the action. Games today are moving more and more towards free roam environments which allow you to travel across massive city-scapes and mysterious fantasy lands like never before, enjoying the rich characters and places at amazing new levels.