3.14.18

Today, I was proud to be a teacher. I was proud to watch 3000+ schools participate in a National School Walkout to protest gun violence and to commemorate the victims of school shootings.
Today, I was incredibly proud of our Bath High School students as over 200 of them walked in a silent vigil to remember lives lost from gun violence in our schools. They weren't chatting. They weren't on their phones. They weren't horsing around. Some of them were holding hands. Some of them were carrying signs. And all of them were silent. Reflective. Respectful.
There were tears, including mine.
There is fear, including mine.
These kids don't deserve to be afraid.
These kids don't deserve to be belittled for their desire to go to school in safety.
These kids don't deserve the implication that if they simply "walk up," gun violence will go away, as if these kids somehow deserve school shootings. As if being nice will eliminate school shootings.
These kids deserve to be heard. They are asking for the adults to do something.
Perhaps we could stop telling them what to do and stop talking over them for a minute and simply listen.
Perhaps we could be silent.

Reflective.
Respectful.
Perhaps.

Day 417 – Letter to Americans Who Believe that Video Games Cause Mass Shootings

Dear Americans who think video games cause mass shootings,

They don’t.   

Video games don’t cause mass shootings.

I know that our country doesn’t always like to believe in science, but it’s time we stop debating this ridiculous myth and start dealing with the actual causal issues instead.

Because video games don’t cause mass shootings.

Video games do cause a lot of things. They often cause us to be more isolated; they may make us more aggressive in the short-term. They definitely cause us to waste a lot of time. They sometimes cause us to eat too much and live in our moms’ basements. They may have indirectly caused my divorce. But they do not cause teenage white males to go out and shoot up their local schools.

Let’s conduct a thought experiment.

Let’s set up a hypothetical scenario with two countries, identical in all aspects, save 2 distinct differences.

Country A gives their children unlimited access to all the video games they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want. Country A has very limited access to guns with very strict regulations.

Country B loves their guns. They fetishize their guns, they ban federal funding of research on gun violence, and they have very lax gun regulations and many loopholes. Thankfully, Country B has very limited access to violent video games.

Let’s say that this hypothetical scenario runs for 5 years.

At the end of 5 years, how many young white men in Country A wandered into their local schools and shot as many of their peers as possible? How many school shootings happened in a country with very strict gun regulations but unlimited access to all of those terrible, violent video games?

How about in Country B? How many mass shootings occurred with unfettered access to all those guns, but thankfully no violent video games to stir up any aggression?

In simple terms: If Johnny can’t play video games but can play with real guns and real bullets, how many real people could he possibly shoot?

It’s time to stop debating this ridiculous myth.

Video games don’t cause mass shootings.

Unregulated and fetishized access to guns does.

Sincerely,

Sharon Murchie

(Originally posted at Letters2Trump.)