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Don’t blame the game


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This past weekend, over a dozen competitors gathered at the GLHF Game Bar at the Jacksonville Landing to compete in a Madden 19 competition. Two people were shot dead while another 12 were injured either by a bullet or while trying to run away from a bullet at the competition.

As I sat on my couch Saturday playing video games, I sat with a smile on my face. Some 30 miles away, competitors from around the country sat in chairs in downtown Jacksonville doing the same thing. Later that night, I munched on some candy while watching a movie with my wife. For those people that sat in chairs playing video games in downtown Jacksonville, later that night, they’d find themselves in a hospital and in the case of two of those people, dead.

Dead. That’s a striking word, isn’t it? Dead.

Before this past weekend, dead was an easy word to use. I used it to describe enemies in the games I was playing. I’d use it to describe people I never knew. I’ve never experienced a death in my family.

No longer can I say that.

No, I didn’t lose a family member as a result of the tragedy that occurred this past weekend but my world, the video game world, did. In fact, we lost two and we lost those two at the hands of one of our own. Two people that I have never met, and likely never would have, but through video games, knew so very well, are now dead.

I know most of you reading this are likely quite unfamiliar with video games. You know what your chosen TV media channel anchors have told you.

“Video games are bad,” they’ll say. “Video games cause violence,” they expound, with no real facts to back it up, save for a few choice studies that happen to somewhat align with their thinking despite the fact that there are thousands more proving them wrong.

“Don’t let your child play video games.” And let’s not forget to point out the fact that the game this shooter was in Jacksonville to play, Madden 19, is a game about football, America’s most-beloved sport.

I’ve played video games as long as I can remember. I still play them today, more now than ever. I’m married, I have a social life, I graduated high school as sixth in my class and I have a bachelor’s degree with plans to obtain a master’s. I have never been to jail.

In fact, the only trouble I’ve ever caused the police is my occasional speeding. You see, video games never brought about anything negative in me. I kill thousands of enemies in video games with guns, melee weapons and even bare hands. I lay waste to entire planets. I scream and I shout as my character’s body grows covered in the blood of my enemies and still, I live a fairly “normal” life.

How can I play such violent games (and mind you, violent games are only a fraction of the types of games I play) and not grow violent myself? Well, as any of the fellow millions upon millions of gamers in this world will tell you, it’s because we know games aren’t reality – they’re simply technological interactions that happen in a system that are then displayed on screens. Yes, there are bad apples in the video game world, but there are bad apples everywhere.

You see, video games aren’t the cause of this shooting. In fact, video games have nothing to do with it. Video games simply happened to be there. This shooter could have been a football player that lost on the field, a fry cook that dropped yet another patty – he could have been anybody doing anything.

The problem isn’t that this guy was a video gamer (and one who competes professionally for more money than you’d guess). It’s that something wasn’t right in his head. Healthy people don’t kill other people like this. This man was not healthy.

We don’t know of a motive yet, but we do know that clearly something wasn’t right. Maybe he was bullied throughout his life. Maybe his parents were abusive. Maybe he was depressed. Maybe he felt alone in this vast world. Maybe he was misunderstood as an individual and as a result, isolated from the rest of the society.

Regardless of what it was, I can promise you video games were not something negative in his life – there’s a good chance video games were the only positive in his life actually. Still though, whatever he had previously endured, whatever he felt, whatever was going on in his mind, he wasn’t OK and as a result, lashed out at the world in the most sickening way.

And this isn’t a defense for him. What he did was terrible, and he has left a dark mark on this world that will never disappear. This is, however, an opportunity to examine questions that need to be answered. Why did he do this? How did he become someone capable of that? Could it have been prevented?

I’ve been to that game bar. My best friends have been to that game bar. That could have been me shot dead or at least injured. That could have been my friends shot dead or at least injured.

Next time I go there, will I sit in a chair that someone died in? Will I walk on a floor that was covered in blood this past weekend? Will I exit a door safely and calmly that so many ran out of Saturday, praying and hoping that a bullet didn’t find their back?

My bones hurt. They ache for the video game community, for Jacksonville, for those injured and for those who died and not just because of the pain – they are wrought with guilt America should be feeling today.

This man needed help and we failed him. Our country failed him. The United States of America, dubbed the greatest place on earth, failed to see that something wasn’t OK with this man and as a result, we failed to stop a man from becoming a shooter. And guess what? The guns protected by the Second Amendment failed to stop the shooter as well. And while we’re here, why is a man clearly encumbered with mental illness able to get his hands on a gun?

For far too long we’ve looked at these shooters as isolated incidents but that simply isn’t the case. There’s a trend with these shooters, and it’s not what you think: they’re male and they’re white. That’s not to say that all white people or all males, or all white males, are shooters or will be shooters. It’s simply an observation that shouldn’t be ignored.

There are those that would rather cast aside these people who need help, these people desperate for mental solitude, these people crying for someone, anyone, to come to their aid, than acknowledge that this country has a problem.

We Americans, we humans, need to be better. We need to help those in need. We need to love, nurture and help our neighbors, regardless of who they are, how they act, how they were born, how they live and how they simply exist. To do otherwise would be hypocritical across whatever religion or virtues you subscribe to, that is, unless your religion (or lack thereof) or virtues dictates the evilest emotion of hate.

We can’t continue to cast aside those society has forgotten – we must welcome them in with open arms, less they reach the darkest depths imaginable, depths dark enough to tell a person that committing the most atrocious of crimes – a mass shooting – is the only solution. I don’t know why this man shot those people, but I do know that something was wrong with him, something that America could have maybe fixed. If we really are the greatest country in the world, we should be able to fix this, right?

After every shooting, my mind goes back to an Onion article that explains this country so well: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

How can this nation prevent another shooting? Everyone, open your eyes. Research. There are signs that shooters like these demonstrate throughout their life. Look for those signs and when you spot them, don’t turn your back.

Acknowledge them and talk with them. Ask that person if they need help. Get that person the help they crave. Be the American we all act like we already are. And while we’re at it, how about installing some common-sense laws to prevent people, like this shooter, who clearly shouldn’t be in possession of a firearm, from obtaining one.

I hope one day the USA solves its shooter problem. I don’t know how to solve it, but I know how to help, and I worded that as best as I could above. Maybe it’s less guns. Maybe it’s mental health education in our schools. Maybe it’s free therapy. Maybe it’s a mix of it all and more, but not even one of us has the power to make any of that change alone. Together though, we do. Together, we can stop the senseless killing of lives that happens far too often. Together, we can be better.

It’s time to stop casting blame and time to start helping.