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Chris Leigh
17 Apr, 2007

Thompson blames US school shootings on...

PALGN News | You've got three guesses.
Anti-video game critic Jack Thompson has claimed that there is a link between video games and the latest round of U.S. school shootings. Earlier today, a gunman at the Virginia Tech university killed 33 people, before turning the gun on himself.

And, while the dead are still being counted, Thompson has leapt on the story with all his usual levels of sensitivity and good taste in a bid to further his own political agenda. Referred to as a "school shooting expert" on Fox News, Thompson suggested that the shootings could be tied to video games, singling out Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto games for special criticism.

"What the FBI and secret service found after the Columbine shooting was the common denominator being the immersion of the perpetrators in incredibly violent entertainment, most notably violent video games," stated Thompson, who then went on to use previous school shootings as examples of the supposed link between video games and violence. One of his examples was Jeff Weise, the perpetrator of the Red Lake High School massacre in March 2005, who Thompson claimed had, "rehearsed for the massacre by playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in order to get his heart-rate down and be able to kill."

"So that's one thing the authorities are going to be looking at, because to be able to pull this off, with this high body count, one has to have rehearsed it in order to get ready to do it," concluded Thompson.

Thompson's interview with Fox News can be heard in full here.

Related Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories Content

Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories Review
13 Mar, 2007 We take a trip back to Vice City for a third time.
Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories trailer released
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Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories images released
20 Feb, 2007 The PlayStation 2 version that is.
53 Comments
5 years ago
They cant blame a single game on this what game tells u to kill 32 innocent people in cold blood?
5 years ago
definitely not the games fault, but i would be surprised if a prof came forward and says that games are actually the reason why crime has gone down oO...
5 years ago
NASA gunman kills hostage, himself

Saturday Apr 21, 2007
An armed man killed a hostage, then himself, at NASA's Johnson Space Center overnight, the latest incident to rattle the United States after the shooting massacre this week at Virginia Tech university.

Thompson: '.........Damn........Star Wars!!Ban Star Wars and space related video games!'

God Bless/Help America

EDIT-Does anyone else find it ironic Thompson is named after a sub-machine gun that killed thousands in the second world war.He signs the name of the problem off on every cheque he writes.
5 years ago
Karai Pantsu wrote
Really? Fair enough, my mistake. At least they're har to get, I guess - although I really can't see a reason for them to be on the market at all.
I used to go target shooting with a handgun when I was a kid, and it is a legitimate and skillful sport. Having said that, I am now a parent and would much rather have handguns banned altogether. I can see both sides of the argument, but innocent lives will always win it for me.

Handguns make it easy for any fool to go on a rampage. Look at all the mass shootings, and ask yourself how many more people would have survived if the killer had to resort to using a knife or other improvised weapon.

As for the NASA thing, first you had the diaper-wearing space psycho who went to kill her love rival the other side of the US, now this? Those guys are nuts.
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