Video Games? Always a Scape Goat.

Yesterday was a dark day in video games, as 25 year old Gamer and Goth; Kimveer Gill walked onto Dawson college grounds and began to open fire on the college students. Leaving behind a blog full of references to video games, it will be only a matter of time before the righteous people of the world use this as another point in their crusade against the evil of violent video games and how they are the cause of violence acts such as this.

At around 1pm yesterday at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, Gill walked into his school with a rifle and proceeded to kill one woman and injure 19 others. Police brought the killing spree to an end when they finally shot and killed Gill. With little or no explanation for the occurrence, the media has turned their sights on his online journal posted on vampirefreaks.com in hopes to find something to blame for his violent act and so far they are making sure to include everything that could be linked as a reason for his violent behavior including heavy metal music, video games, and gothic culture. They make references to quotes from his page like:

“Wish they make Postal 3, like really really good. Postal 2 Share the Pain was o.k. but too childish, i want them to make a game so realistic, that it looks and feels like it's actually happening. Perhaps when they come out with Postal 4 (If they ever do)”

“Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime.”

They make sure to list all his favorite video games, and musicians and the fact that he enjoyed gruesome horror films.

Funny how no one seems to care about the fact that one: this guy writes two posts about how he hates bullies and how no one will put a stop to the bullying, which provides the real reason this kid went postal and two: how did this guy end up owning weapons in the first place. If you sit and actually read this guy’s blog, he was obviously a disturbed individual and was in need of some serious help. How could his friends and family not see that he needed help? I guess it’s just easier to point the blame on the games he played, the website he wrote on or the music he listened to.

The reality is that no music lyric or video game teaches you how to kill. Last time I checked using a game controller doesn’t train you how to shoot a rifle and loading a disc into a CD player isn’t the same as loading a gun. How long will it be before society sees that the real people to look to are those around this guy that failed to help him before this tragedy occurred? Where were his parents, his friends and his teachers when obviously this guy had some serious hate issues? Those are the people that should be interviewed, instead of the webmaster of vampirefreaks.com.

When is the world going to wake up and realize there isn’t one simple answer to the reasons behind violence?

I would just like to add that my heart goes out to the students who were killed or injured in this terrible event and their families. My hopes and prayers are with you always.