Sickening New Video Game Lets Users Be Adam Lanza and Shoot Up Sandy Hook Elementary School

Culture

On Tuesday night, Fox News host Sean Hannity featured a violent video game that allows users to to assassinate NRA President David Keene and Vice President Wayne LaPierre. Although that was shocking enough, what Fox News and others didn’t realize is that this shooting is just a “mini-game” in a larger upcoming game called “Class Warfare,” which takes place at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“So now I’m trying to recreate the tragic events that happened in Newtown Connecticut using a video game,” writes user gizmo01942 on an online thread. He says he plans to virtually recreate the building, classrooms and even students from Newtown Elementary School. Here's a screenshot from this work-in-progress:

Gizmo01942, responding to another post writes, “I’ll definitely have child death screams, but no tutorials,” and plans to include “clear and offensive references to autism.” The implication here is that the gamer “plays” as Adam Lanza — the Sandy Hook murderer.

The anonymous author has made his reasoning for creating the game clear: “I’m doing this as my own way to deal with the events, and releasing only because it will entertain you guys, and any controversy it generates will serve as a nifty sociological experiment.”

This sickening game and following statements are accompanied by a video posted by gizmo01942, in which an unknown man criticizes the NRA for having weak leaders.

He later states, “The media here is really the problem … the media immortalizes these people … and then they can be remembered forever.”

He continues, “I can’t remember a single one of the victims … that’s because of the way [the media] report … they immortalize these people and I think that’s just plain wrong.”

He further says that the media “pressures our law makers to pass unconstitutional legislation and they further shred the Constitution. All law-abiding citizens should be in an uproar.”

The author of this game and video has made a point: the media promotes violent games, movies, and acts simply by airing them on Hannity or other news programs. I am guilty of such promotion as well just by writing this piece. And why do we do it? Because the people want it.

Stories like this are what the people like to watch and read — these are the stories that get “hits” and ultimately increase viewership. They are the stories that the people, by virtue of their attention, ask us to write — and we without good conscience give the masses what they want.