Anti-gaming Activist Jack Thompson Blames Bill Gates for Virginia Tech Tragedy

Violence happens every single day in the world. Virginia Tech was by far a more gruesome rampage than every normal day, but who was to truly blame for the actions that Cho Seung-Hui committed? According to Jack Thompson, an attorney and anti-gaming activist, video games are to blame for all violence, especially the violence that occured not too long ago at Virginia Tech. But one cannot merely point the finger at video games in general, so Jack Thompson is pointing the finger at Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

Jack Thompson wrote a letter to letter to Bill Gates proclaiming that Bill Gates is liable for what has happened at Virginia Tech. If you don't know already, Microsoft is the creator of X-Box, one of the big video game consoles on the market today with it's X-Box 360.

According to Jack Thompson, one game specifically "trained" Cho Seung-Hui to maliciously kill with no after thought. This game is a popular online first person shooter titled "Counterstrike.

Jack Thompson also had this to say in his letter to Bill Gates:

"Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time! Yet, here you are, five years after "Erfurt," still marketing Counterstrike. having done nothing to disable the server(s) for this mass murder simulator, and it looks like "Virginia Tech" is a consequence. There's more going on in the world than Vista. Just ask the bereaved Virginia Tech families. Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? "Virginia Tech" was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one." (Jack Thompson to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates in a letter. Source: http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-individual/story/Thompson_Targets_Microsoft_in_Latest_Crusade/)

Thompson has gone against many other games including video game giant Rockstar's "Grand Theft Auto" series and one of their somewhat newer titles "Bully". Grand Theft Auto is a game I can see being "crude" and "gruesome" in some ways. But anyone who has played Rockstar's Bully knows that it isn't as violent as it seems. There's no guns in Bully to simulate Columbine, yet there is fist fighting.

What will become of this? Will video games be further shunned due to a anti-video game activist? I'd hope not.

Personal Note: Video games have been being brutally pounded on by people such as Jack Thompson. However, in this case, I believe Jack Thompson is using the Virginia Tech tragedy for many reasons. One, to get his name more well-known in the media itself. Two, to help his crusade against video games, even when it comes to idiotically pointing fingers at innocent people such as Bill Gates. And three, to prove a point. Jack Thompson is trying to prove a ficticous point, that video games are bad in every single solitary sense imaginable. Using the Virginia Tech as leverage for his battle is obviously cowardly once further examined. There is already a clear motive for the shooting: greed, money, and loneliness. Why not blame the other media for these heinous acts? Why glare the spotlight onto video games alone, as if it were a direct link? Like I said before, he is cowardly using the Virginia Tech tragedy as leverage to manipulate people into believing what he think is righteous, although it is truly and utterly not.

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