First they called mass murderer Adam Lanza a "deranged gamer." Now they're amending things just a bit.
According to the official report released by Connecticut state attorney Stephen Sedensky, the young man responsible for killing 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 suffered from "significant mental health issues." No…really?
There is no conclusive evidence to support the idea that video games played any role in Lanza's evil acts. Sedensky did say the mental issues from which the shooter suffered affected "his ability to live a normal life and to interact with others." He also exhibited an obsession with firearms and mass murders, specifically the Columbine shootings. As for the games, Lanza was found to be in possession of titles like Call of Duty , Half-Life , Left 4 Dead , Grand Theft Auto: Vice City , Battlefield and Doom .
But he also enjoyed the music game Dance Dance Revolution , the fantasy RPG Phantasy Star Online , and Nintendo games like Paper Mario , Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin . In fact, the report says the "majority" of his play time was spent with non-violent games.
"He played video games often, both solo at home and online. They could be described as both violent and non-violent. One person described the shooter as spending the majority of his time playing non-violent video games all day, with his favorite at one point being Super Mario Brothers."
To me, it seems painfully obvious that games played absolutely no role in the committed acts. The dude's mother described him as having "no emotions or feelings," he hated all holidays (wouldn't let her put up a Christmas tree), and he couldn't even have certain foods touching other foods on his plate. His relationship with his father also went south in 2010, and he kept trash bags over the windows in his room.
Yeah, issues. Bet you'd find that most serial killers on record had watched plenty of movies, too. A lot of 'em read books. Should we start worrying about avid readers now…?
