Number One With A Bullet

 On the day that I read about how the new release of Call of Duty was "the best in recent memory," I had just finished reading about the Michigan teenager who had agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder a year after his attack on his high school. He killed four of his fellow students, then surrendered to officers responding to the scene. The day before the murders, the killer had been in trouble with a teacher at his school for searching for ammunition on his phone. At that time, his mother texted her son: “Lol. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”

These are the lessons you can only learn at home, I suppose. The killer's parents are facing involuntary manslaughter charges. They are accused of making a gun accessible to Ethan and ignoring his need for mental health treatment. Prosecutors suggested in a court filing, "Put simply, they created an environment in which their son’s violent tendencies flourished. They were aware their son was troubled, and then they bought him a gun.” The parents said they were unaware of their son's plan to commit a school shooting. They also dispute that the gun was easy to grab at home.

About Call of Duty: I am not traditionally one of those who makes direct links to violent video games and school shootings. Nor do I blame the music shooters listen to. Or their choice of outer wear. I do wonder what signs we might be willing to accept, since there are often such familiar connections as we walk back down the path to the moment the trigger was pulled. 

Full disclosure: My son players a number of different first-person shooter games. It was a line his parents drew in the sand many years ago, but not one we were able to maintain when he moved away to college. When he returned home, we found that online gaming had become a large portion of his lifestyle. During isolation for COVID, he had made connections with his friends by playing any number of games over Al Gore's Internet. Including Call of Duty. He has even spent some time reviewing these games for other players. I have yet to read his review for the new release. 

Before Columbine, I played Doom on my computer at home. Once the stories about how Dylan and Eric had modified their version by setting it in the halls of their high school, I didn't see it as a game. It was a training exercise. All these years later, I still have questions about how our society has drifted to a place where we have assigned a point value for killing. I understand the abstract and how playing a game is pretend and the toy guns of my youth have given way to the video games of the now. 

But there is still so much that I do not understand.