Rubbing Our Collective Noses In It

 A very good friend of mine suggested many years ago that it would be appropriate, if not required for every video game death to be accompanied with a video game funeral. It was her contention as a new parent whose son seemed destined to experience a great many simulated final exits so there should be a commensurate moment to mark those who passed. Aside from the scoring bonus. This became our own family's sentiment as our son began to test the first-person shooter waters. The fact that he was limited to games in the Star Wars universe that provided him opportunities to kill faceless Stormtroopers and alien beings who certainly deserved to die didn't keep us from flinching at the body count. 

Killing without conscience seemed like a bad idea. 

Not that I didn't spend my own youth chasing my friends around the neighborhood with a cap gun, snapping off round after round in hopes of mowing them all down. The rules of our game were not unlike freeze tag. If the Gunner, that was me, shot you then you were to lay still until someone else who was still alive came by to tag you. It didn't occur to me back then that I had the job of taking life while the other kids were able to restore it. An odd choice on my part considering the rest of the pacifist tendencies I professed as a child. 

Which is probably why I did not argue long and hard for a prohibition for shooting games in my home once I had a kid of my own. Buried somewhere in there was this feeling that we all have a streak of homicide within us and it would be best if it had an outlet that could be tapped for maintenance purposes. Being able to talk about the distinction between reality and make believe seemed important. Thirteen years ago when I was writing about this, it was something I wanted to express as a defense for walking that thin line. 

All of this came tumbling back into my head after I read what John Mellencamp had to say about our country's gun problem. Not the virtual ones. Not the cap guns. The ones that have made guns the number one killer of young people in the United States. More than motor vehicles. More than cancer. Mister Mellencamp made the following suggestion in the aftermath of the shooting in Kansas City: “If we as a country want to find the collective will within ourselves to change our gun laws, let’s stop playing silly political games. Show the carnage on the news. Show the American people the dead children and others who have been struck down. Show us what guns and bullets can do to the human body.” I would also like to point out that the shooters in the post-Super Bowl shooting were newly minted "adults," aged twenty-two and eighteen. Eleven of the victims shot that day were under the age of sixteen. 

None of them were Stormtroopers. None of them were aliens. None of them were bad guys. And it will take considerably more than a tag from a friend to make their wounds heal. 

There is no reset button.