DEVIL IN A BOX

I showed you the cute pictures because this is a serious subject. Like the rest of the world, I was shocked and saddened by Kimveer Gill's senseless shooting rampage in Montreal. When I read that one of Gill's favorite video games was called SUPER COLUMBINE, crafted after the Columbine tragedies, I was ashamed that we, as a society, would allow such a game to exist. What is next? Super WTC, where kids can practice flying planes into building as aferschool entertainment?

I realize that Gill wasn't a child, and whatever violent games he played were no doubt labeled "Mature". From the reports I've heard, however, he was clearly influenced by the Columbine murders. He wore a trenchcoat, as in the trenchcoat mafia, which the two young men in Columbine had called themselves. When Gill opened fire, he shot randomly and without emotion, as if he were shooting targets in a game. This was meaningless, senseless violence, so much so, that it can only be viewed as evil. People will may claim Gill was suicidal, when in fact, he was homicidal.

I've sat and watched a son of mine, who is an adult and father of three, spend hours playing online games which are both excessively violent and shockingly realistic. Since you play these games with other inidividuals while on line, you must shoot down the targets with lightning speed or you won't keep up with the other gamers. The targets are lifelife looking human beings. When you kill someone, blood squirts out and the imagine looks so real, its easy to see how someone, whether an adult or child, could quickly desensitize themselves to violence.

We are a society who has commercialized evil. The debate about violence in the gaming world reminds me of the debate about cigarettes, where tobacco companies claimed no responsibilty for the millions of people who have died from their products and laid the blame on the consumer. Listen to me! VIDEO GAMES ARE ADDICTIVE, just like cigarettes are addictive. People are lonely, disallusioned, and desperate. Think of all the people who spend a large portion of their days either gaming or surfing the net. We're sitting in our homes, staring at computer screens, and longing to somehow connect with real people. Look at the success of Myspace, where today's news carried a story of a wife who tried to contract a murder for hire because she found a woman's picture on her husband's space. The whole point of Myspace is for strangers to connect and form frienships, but we have no idea who is behind the pictures. Here's another place where we are trying to treat the new "disease" of lonliness which we ourselves have created.

With younger children, parental supervision can been blamed. Just like Big Tobacco, the manufacturers of these games say no one is forcing them to buy them. I visited one of my adult children several years ago and was appalled to find my nine year old grandson playing a game called "Grand Theft Auto". How could anyone want their child to play a game based on a criminal act? I used to send people to prison for Grand Theft Auto.

The games today are far more violent and realistic. Its not always that the parents are negligent. Many times the content isn't reflective in the title, or the game is borrowed from a friend, maybe even a friend with an older brother or sister. Some of the kids get the games from their parents. If you've ever been in the family room of an active family, you'll see games and toys tossed everywhere. Parents are so overwhelmed, particularly since we've sent them back to school with the huge amounts of homework kid now receive daily, how can they keep track of everything a child does or sees?

Evil is at play in the world on so many fronts. Some of it we can do nothing about, such as the wars, acts of terrorism, and misdirected hate. But can't we censor games which glorify killing with more than an "M" on the box? The least we can do is to refuse to buy the devil in a box, then carry him into our homes. www.nancytrosenberg.com


Nancy