New low for Jack Thompson?

“In the wake of Monday’s horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, video game scourge Jack Thompson went on Fox News and argued that violent video games were probably to blame. … he went on TV to make the claims before anyone really knew anything about the shooter or his reason for doing what he did.” (Daniel Terdiman, Gaming Blog, Apr. 17; video clip; Brian Crecente, “Dissecting Jack’s Lies”, Kotaku, Apr. 17). More: Mike Musgrove, Post I.T., Washington Post.com; Geek.com; Palgn.com.au (Australian); Wired.com Game/Life blog (TV’s “Dr. Phil” takes same line).

11 Comments

  • Jack, I know you read this blog. On those nights when your anorexic conscious keeps you up until the crack of dawn…you will let me know when those lambs stop screaming…won’t you Jack?

  • I was watching FOX when he came on and the second he started into it I switched back to the NBC affiliate here.

    I live approx. one mile from Norris Hall where the 30 students were gunned down.
    For someone to start pushing their own personal agenda so quickly, without the facts disgusts me.

    Its been approx 36 hours at this point and so far, the blame has been laid on the VT Police, The President of VT, The expiration of the assault gun ban, and now video games.

    Shame on you Jack Thompson.

  • I’d say that Jack accomplished his objective. He got his agenda out to alot of people. How many of those that heard him are really look into what he said? The old “I saw it on TV, so it must be true.” is going to work in his favor. Who knows there might even be some potential jurors for one of his suits in the audience.

  • Sheesh.

    Whatever happened to blaming THE SHOOTER?

    Jack, if you read this, please, start playing videogames so you too may go on a rampage, hopefully a failed one that will end our misery without any victims.

  • Jack Thompson was just one of many who jumped on this instantly, while the corpses were still warm, to use it for their own political ends. From what I’ve seen, the others were almost exclusive gun-control advocates.

  • Deoxy,

    Just as many gun-rights advocates have used it for their own political ends.

    Not to mention the anti-immigration stalwarts…

  • Yeah Cendand, only thing is their political ends involve trying to coax America back into being a free country. A bit more righteousness in that, I’d say.

    They also are smart enough to realize it could have been their kid, and maybe 30 out of the 30-some deaths would have been prevented if there were no law against on campus fire-arms.

    Oh, wait the cops had guns – I saw lots of them hiding behind cars and wall – very brave government officials they have in the Old Dominion.

  • Dave,

    “Yeah Cendand, only thing is their political ends involve trying to coax America back into being a free country. A bit more righteousness in that, I’d say.”

    So your opinion determines what is righteous and what is exploitation? Im fairly certain the gun-control folks think greater gun-control would have prevented this.

    That said I really don’t have a dog in the whole gun-control fight. I was just pointing out that both sides have tried to capitilize on this for political ends.

  • Cenrand,

    In my experience, gun-control advocates begin dancing on the corpses immediately; gun-rights advocates are then forced to respond. This has been the nature of it for years. In a few recent cases, some gun-rights advocates have indeed begun to jump as quickly as possible as well, but after years of such behaviour by gun-control advocates, it’s hard to blame them for assuming.

    Also, in this particular instance, it was most definitely the case that gun-control advocates were easily the very first on the political scene. I heard about the shootings less than two hours after they were over… and there had already been several major “we need more gun control” comments and rants in the major media (among other places).

    What, gun-rights advocates should just roll over in order to “maintain the moral high ground” or something? In my exprience, it’s clear which side is willing to stand on still warm corpses for political purposes, even when those corpses were already protected fully by their advocated “gun-free zone”, which protected them so well that they are dead.

  • Deoxy,

    “In my experience, gun-control advocates begin dancing on the corpses immediately; gun-rights advocates are then forced to respond. This has been the nature of it for years. In a few recent cases, some gun-rights advocates have indeed begun to jump as quickly as possible as well, but after years of such behaviour by gun-control advocates, it’s hard to blame them for assuming.”

    I don’t disagree with this.

    “Also, in this particular instance, it was most definitely the case that gun-control advocates were easily the very first on the political scene. I heard about the shootings less than two hours after they were over… and there had already been several major “we need more gun control” comments and rants in the major media (among other places).”

    I heard many of these, but I also heard many people say if CCW had been allowed, the death toll would have been lower.

    “What, gun-rights advocates should just roll over in order to “maintain the moral high ground” or something? In my exprience, it’s clear which side is willing to stand on still warm corpses for political purposes, even when those corpses were already protected fully by their advocated “gun-free zone”, which protected them so well that they are dead.”

    In my experience, all sides are willing to exploit these corpses for political purposes. I’m not saying you should take the moral high ground and not respond to those advocating greater gun-control, but neither should you claim the moral high ground by saying that only gun-control advocates are using this tragedy for political ends.

  • Cenrand,

    I don’t think there’s a choice: that is, one side has chosen to make use of them for political ends, therefore they WILL be used for political ends. That the other side then seeks to take that advantag away (or even take it for themselves) doesn’t mean they would have done so had th other side left well enough alone.

    As to people claiming that CCW could have saved lives… yes, there certainly were, but all the ones I heard and saw were in direct reaction to the statements of gun-control supporters.

    As another example of what I’m talking about, the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control Inc, IIRC) made a public statement about “the availability of high-powered weapons” in relation to the tradgedy before any details wre known (afternoon of the shooting) – the NRA made a public statement of condolences, and stated they would hold further comment until mor details were known. Sums things up pretty well, I’d say.