Lessons Learned From Adam Lanza's Video Game Obsession: Blame Dance Dance Revolution

from the just-kidding dept

The Sandy Hook massacre has been back in the news as of late for a multitude of reasons. The anniversary of the shooting is coming up soon. Someone decided to release a game associated with the tragedy to send a message and everyone lost their damn minds. And, finally, the government is releasing a full report of their findings of the shooting and of Adam Lanza, the disturbed perpetrator, which includes his possessions and specifically details his video game collection.

Now, if you'll recall, the NRA and several conservative and/or gun rights organizations found themselves the reactionary targets of people who don't like them in the wake of the shooting. Much of this was essentially undeserved fervor, which effectively drowned out any reasonable middle-road discussion we might have had about the issues of firearms availability and their effects on shootings such as this. The mass media supercharged the stupid on both sides, which produced equally stupid results from, you know, everyone. Included in that everyone was the National Rifle Association, which proudly defended our 2nd Amendment rights by suggesting maybe we should shit all over everyone's 1st Amendment rights. Their argument was essentially that guns don't kill people, all those violent video games played by the person folks mistakenly misidentified as the perpetrator shot those people. Yippee for American discourse.

Well we now have a list of Adam Lanza's video game collection, and it indeed includes games of violence, such as Splinter Cell, Mercenaries, Call of Duty, and others. Case closed, amirite? Mmmm, no. Here's some other games on the list: Spiderman, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, and Pikmin. Oh, and the game he reportedly was totally obsessed with? Dance Dance Revolution.

So here's the deal: people that want to draw conclusions about Adam Lanza from his gaming habits don't get to cherry-pick their facts. If we're blaming the games that include violence, surely we must include the games that don't, particularly the game with which he was most obsessed. And I sincerely want to hear the proponents of restrictions on the 1st Amendment by way of video games to argue to the world that we must restrict access to DDR, because I know exactly with what kind of reaction such an argument would be met: derision. Which is exactly what it should be met with, because all this low-hanging fruit-picking over video games is stupid.

Filed Under: adam lanza, dance dance revolution, newtown, video games, violence