Easy Access to Guns | Violence in Video Gaming | Role Playing of a Disfigured Youth |

Bet you any amount of money that the black trench coat sporting, automatic weapon carrying kid that blew away his mother and 20 children and 6 teachers at her school, regularly played video games…that lovely multi billion dollar industry whose number one participants are 17 to 37 year old males worldwide – involving extreme violence and compulsive playing tactics. [I’ve since learned that he lived in a windowless basement, bunker type atmosphere and played World of Warcraft and Call of Duty.]

The only reason that i know a little bit about video games, is that my German ex boyfriend (who was physically violent towards me a number of times) was an alcoholic in addition to being a compulsive gamer. He’d prefer to stay in his room smoking cigarettes, in need of incessant stimuli (mediocre to lowbrow TV), instead of engaging in nature, hobbies to develop himself or interacting with real people. I hadn’t known about this until after I’d already been enamored and charmed by the otherwise gregarious & friendly sportsman who played on my team.

Seems that a number of these black trench coat wearing guys with weapons and ammunition tucked in their coats are playing out an imaginary role, because they have ‘no life’ to engage in to otherwise empower themselves and feel happiness, satisfaction and pride.

Instead, the laziness combined with psychological disturbances and feeling lost in an already misguided society (which puts greed, money and superficial accoutrements ahead of honesty, an esteem for learning and education, curiosity, appreciation and love for life). So that distractions, drugs, games, TV, various stimuli and artificial identifications take place of real life, real people, real engagement and active involvement in things in which one can develop feelings of pride, satisfaction, a sense of achievement and feeling a part of a community.

The drugs of choice differ in the different countries. Otherwise, the fantasy and gaming are the same. The only problem is that in the United States, guns are so easily acquired, like buying a six pack, that the sickest individuals can play out their darkest uncontrolled fantasies of power, devastating the lives of innocent people as fast as it takes to pull a trigger. I think that not only are the manufacturers of weapons to blame, but the dominant war happy country that we live in, the Hollywood idealization of violence and the gun lobby of the narrow minded people who think that their rights are wrapped up in their ‘right’ to protect themselves. I bet that this kid’s mother who bought the weapons in her name, thought that she was doing the right thing, that people need to protect themselves in this ‘dangerous’ world.

However, the more this mentality is toted; of locking doors, fearing strangers and being afraid, the more people will keep buying weapons, and arm themselves. I find the huge number of SUVs that blanket America, sport utility death machines to save their own ass in case they’re involved in an automobile accident also alarming. In which the owner who sports this oversized machine will typically inflict massive damage and more than likely death, to whoever is involved in an accident with them and their over-sized vehicle. Yes, I rant about the U.S., yet there are plenty of countries throughout the world with very misguided priorities and more maligned actions; towards people with less power, woman, animals which can’t defend themselves and the environment. Yet there’s something terribly wrong about this opulent country with a preponderance of fat cars, fat guns, fat houses, fat drug use, fat bodies and fat denial. Yes, I’m angry and listened to this information with tears running down my face.

And it appears that this is the case, looking at the headline in the British newspaper, the Independent “Adam Lanza: A head full of video games and a house full of guns” “When investigators found his computer at the house, the hard drive had been smashed, presumably by Lanza. He is said to have been a fan of computer games featuring warfare and killing.” Perusing the internet on this subject, I also found this article. “College Killer Crazy for Violent Video Game” “The man who gunned down five people and wounded 16 in an Illinois classroom rampage was a loner who preferred studying to partying and was obsessed with an ultra-violent video game, dormitory mates said yesterday.”

And this one in The Daily, “Video Game Killer”, regarding the Norway massacre. “For years, people have been trying to link video games and violence. Yesterday, Norway’s Muslim-hating mass murderer made the connection.Anders Behring Breivik, on trial for last summer’s bombings in Oslo and shooting massacre on an island summer camp that killed 77 people, testified that he used an edition of the first-person shooting game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to train for his heinous crime.”

In his most recent “Note From Michael Moore“, he states “I’m convinced the majority of Americans will now back strong gun control laws. And a better mental health care system. And perhaps a few are willing to look at the deeper issue of how this country officially sanctions violence as a means to an end…you know all those nuts that fear you’re going to take their guns? You can take their guns now.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky has some thoughtful words to help those people who were immediately involved to heal, and is negotiating and talking with a lot of people to come up with ways to avert these crisis in the future.

I just learned through the Independent News broadcasters, Democracy Now, that there had been another mass shooting in Newtown Australia. “In the wake of the Newtown killings that left 27 people dead on Friday, we go to another New Town — in Australia — the home of a mass shooting that killed 35 people in 1996. Just 12 days after what became known as the Port Arthur massacre, Australia’s government responded by announcing a bipartisan deal to enact gun control measures. There have been no mass killings since. We’re joined by Rebecca Peters, an international arms control advocate who led the campaign to reform Australia’s gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre. She also produced the landmark report, “Gun Control in the United States: A Comparative Survey of State Firearm Laws,” with the Open Society Institute in New York.