The Australian Christian Lobby is using the Oslo massacre to call for a ban on violent videogames in its home country, stating that the behavior of murderous idiotAnders Behring Breivikwas evidence that games are evil, due tosome logic.
“The studied indifference of this killer to the suffering he was inflicting, his obvious dehumanizing of his victims and the evil methodical nature of the killings have all the marks of games scenarios,” said Lobby MD Jim Wallace. “How can we allow the profits of the games industry and selfishness of games libertarians to place our increasingly dysfunctional society at further risk? Even if this prohibition were to save only one tragedy like this each twenty years it would be worth it.”
Federal Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor, however, is backing games and still pushing for a widespread R18+ rating in his country, stating that we can’t blame games for the actions of “a madman.” Breivik didpraiseModern Warfare 2as a training tool, although it clearly didn’t damage an already diseased mind.
Of course, given the possible religious motivation behind Breivik’s attacks, it’s hardly surprising that some Christians (no,not all of them) want to pin the blame on something else. After all, I can think ofa certain bookin which several protagonists inflict suffering indifferently while dehumanizing their victims.
