Videogames get the blame for almost everything — from gun and knife crime, to drugs, to simply doing badly at school. Now, conservative author Bill Croke has stained gamers’ hands with the blood of deers, elk and grizzly bears. Yes — videogame fans are now animal murderers, who finish a night’s play session by going out and shooting woodland creatures for a laugh.
“It’s a sickeningly familiar story. Two moose shot and left to rot … Two yearling grizzly bears killed … An increasing wasted antelope body count … Senselessly murdered mule deer left on the ground … All this has nothing to do with the legal autumn hunting seasons … it’s “thrill killing,” as wildlife managers call it … It’s actually a national problem.
According to studies extant, these wildlife atrocities are committed mostly by young men aged 15 to 22, the video game generation. Much has been written about the nihilistic violence that kids are exposed to when they play some of these games …
I think it might be an easy jump to get up from a computer game, go out and pull the trigger on an elk or a deer, and then walk away with a laugh. After all, it’s only a game … Yet, I think our four-legged friends will get a break soon, as the video game-thrill killing trend graduates to a higher plane: human beings.”
The anti-game set never fail to amaze me with some of the wonderful logic jumps they make. Yes, old man Croke not only suggests that animals are killed by videogames (outside of hunting season, which suddenly makes animals more sympathetic to this guy), but that they will move onto human beings eventually.
I guess it’s true — after one particularly lengthy Gears of War 2 session, I took a butcher knife and slit a hamster in two, from the balls to the eyes, then kicked my girlfriend in the vagina while laughing. It’s just that easy, and happens to everyone who plays videogames.
