JACK THOMPSON'S AT IT AGAIN (shocker)

Jack Thompson Blames Bill Gates for VT Shooting

By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar" Apr. 19th, 2007 4:27 pm Last time we published a letter from Jack Thompson, we had to clarify it wasn't joke. His messianic words and biblical quotes indeed came from the attorney and Christian conservative activist obsessed with video game violence. Once again, we need to clarify that what you are about to read is a real letter coming from Thompson.

Game Almighty has received an email from Thompson that includes an open letter sent to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. The letter reads as follows:

April 18, 2007

Bill Gates

Microsoft
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052 Via Fax and e-mail

Dear Mr. Gates:

On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company's game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn't even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did.

Sure enough, last night I was doing a west coast radio interview when the host said to me, "Mr. Thompson, you are right. The Washington Post is reporting right now the following:

'Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.'"

I thus went back on the Fox News Channel, and Bill Hemmer and I explained not only that I was right about your game figuring in the Virginia Tech massacre but also that the Washington Post excised the above excerpt from the story this morning. That is yet another story. The bad news for the Post however is that you can still get the excised excerpt at http://www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2007041700563_3.html?hpid=topnews. Thus, the cat is out of the bag, and his paw prints are still on the bag. Is this a great Internet, or what?

As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC's Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo. NBC reported that three months later, and it was part of the criminal trial of Malvo.

Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time!

Yet, here you are, five years after "Erfurt," still marketing Counterstrike. having done nothing to disable the server(s) for this mass murder simulator, and it looks like "Virginia Tech" is a consequence. There's more going on in the world than Vista. Just ask the bereaved Virginia Tech families.

Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? "Virginia Tech" was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one.

Regards, Jack Thompson

At least he's not blaming GTA... what a joke

Ok, that is just completely stupid and can't believe I wasted my time reading that ;)

For some guy that probably doesn't even play games or knows anything other then that they have violence in them, to make a point like this is just preposterous. If he wants to blame video games, why not TV, Movies, Books, Magazines, Sound Effects on the Radio, all and everything that could remotely show violence? Movies show detailed violence that is way worst then a video game and even so they are suppose to be mature enough to play or watch the game or movie in the first place.

If this guy expects everyone to live in a hole and not live an enjoyable life by means of entertainment then let him live that way and let us live our lives. It's suppose to be a Free World so let people live it freely. Why doesn't this Jack Thompson go ask the Middle East countries if video games are causing all the violence over there. I'm sure they all have Xbox360s and PS3s and definitely Wiis. Where they are strapping bombs to their chest on their version of GTA and chasing down cars. That must be the reason why they do it. :roll:

Whatta joke....is this guy freaking serious? How the hell can aiming in a video game using a mouse and keyboard help you to shoot a real gun with great precision?

I agree 100% with you guys. He just likes seeing his name in the paper and his face on T.V. If what he is saying were true, why aren't there thousands of massacre's like that. There was something messed up with those people already and videogames had NOTHING to do with it. I personally own several firearms and one is an assault rifle. I also enjoy playing violent videogames, but I don't want to go out and actually shoot innocent people, because I know it's wrong. Also, in no way did they get gun training from a videogame. Those of you who have shot real guns and play games shooting videogame guns can tell you it's a lot different holding a gun in your palm or pressing a rifle against your shoulder, than just moving an analog stick and pushing a button. Jack Thompson....what an idiot!

Yes because Counterstrike is developed by Microsoft... not Valve. Maybe he should get his video game facts straight before throwing accusations at Microsoft. Plus, a search of Cho's house revealed he didn't own any video games. GLHF JT you're one hell of a nob.X_BOX_ROXS89

Wow, that must be one of the dumbest things i ever read and sometimes i read System Wars.

It is umbeleaveble how someone will misportrait reality to prove a point..disgusting .

And even more disgusting is the fact that jopurnalists give this disgusting human being space in TV shows

to voice his  histeria.

Wow, that must be one of the dumbest things i ever read and sometimes i read System Wars.

It is umbeleaveble how someone will misportrait reality to prove a point..disgusting .

And even more disgusting is the fact that jopurnalists give this disgusting human being space in TV shows

to voice his  histeria.

I think we need to pull the plug on games like Monopoly.  Where do you think corporation CEO's like the ones in the Enron scandal and such get their training.  You guessed it, monopoly. 

I bet if we asked these CEO's/Presidents of companies what games they played when they were younger, or we did a search of their house, we'd find one copy of monopoly, directly tying them to where they get their training.  Mr. Monopoly guy, pull the plug on monopoly today, or do we need more scandals to convince you!

I'm all for violent videogames not being accesible to minors and maybe stiffer ratings for M and AO games that include gratitious violence and wanton murder (read GTA). But ultra-violent games are more a sign of a decadent society and as such aren't really the cause just one of the many results.

Counterstrike though can hardly be considered an ultra violent murder similutar (unless you really get into the role of the terrorists and start killing hostages for fun). My biggest beef with Thompson is his lack of tact and respect for anything but his own views and methods. I've never been a big proponet of tolerance (why do you think we execute murderers) but you should show respect to at least the people if not the their ideas.

i love it when he calls these games "killing simulators". anyway this guy really needs to chill out. although he really may be right that some of these games like counter strike or gta may have in some way "trained" these people to kill, or more like make them feel like they have the ability and/or right to kill people and commit crimes, it still doesn't really make sense to ban these games.  mainly because these people were already ****ed up to begin with and have little self control, anger management, and probably have a bad family or social life which pushed them over the edge.  playing counter strike was prob like 5% of the problem, and i highly doubt that if counter strike wasn't made this guy wouldn't have killed those people at VT.

if he wants to ban games or w/e for all this stuff how about ban cigarrettes for being the cause of thousands of deaths per year. or ban alchohol for all the drunk driving accidents that cause millions of dollars worth of damage and all the people that die or are seriouisly injured. and while we're at it lets just ban cars completely and we can all ride bikes because people like to speed and then cause accidents which kill people.  we should probably all run mcdonalds out of business too for selling unhealthy food that causes major health problems ( if you eat too much of it for too long).  but lets keep our troops in iraq for a couple more years and let them kill people and be killed day in and day out.

**** thompson 

God that guy is such a waste of human lifeform...viper3885

LOL ROFL LMAO LOLZ that was a good find, Jack Thomas just stop! Microsoft had nothing to do with Counter Strike (Value does) and why Microsoft? Why not Rock Star or maybe you failed and trying to find a more suitable target?

Jack Thompson should get sued for this in a similar way Take Two sued him. That way, he can't do **** against Bill Gates.

Hope this **** gets disbarred soon.

Im about to go off on one cus i hate Thompson so im sorry. So its safe to say that theres a small amount of violence in nearly all media. Does this mean that all video games, music, and movies are motivators for murder. This Cho character had serious personal issues years before this shooting. It is speculated that he was raped as a child, as well as having next to know contact with people. His dorm mates reported him stalking at least three females on campus, and taking pictures of women under tables in class. In fact, the pictures he took of himself holding a gun to his head, and the hammer, were imitations of a South Korean film about vengeance, so how can Thompson make the jump from a South Korean film to American video games. Thompson is yet again exploiting the fear and sadness of the American public to try and sway the uninformed to jump on his bandwagon. All I can say is that this shooting could have been prevented, not buy unplugging a video game console, but by getting this guy serious help after realizing he had serious personal problems. Video games won't drive you to murder if there isn't a pretext to criminal behavior already present. I'm sure most of us have been playing games for most of our lives, and are no more likely to shoot up a school because of it. But if you take a person who has already had run ins with the law, insane obsessions and has been bullied, and NO ONE has taken the action to get him help or put him away, i guess you have to blame video games, if you don't want to place responisbility on things that actually make sense.  And again sorry for the rant.