Ignorant bliss died in our family the same day 17 students lost their lives in a high school in Florida. My daughter asked why someone would shoot kids in a school. She asked where they got the gun. Her ignorant bliss of these terrible acts shattered in an instant, never to return.
We can all debate what laws or background checks or other regulations should be implemented, or not. Here’s a good place to start. Here’s the call for action at home, from a teacher of the year. And, of course, you need to hear it from a student of Parkland who was literally in the line of fire.
But I found myself asking what can I do, today, not during the next election cycle or after an incident happens more close to home (god forbid). I looked in the mirror, and then in the basement. My answer was right there in the new X-Box Santa brought my 8 year old son for Christmas. Star Wars Battlefront. Now, I’ve been out out of the game of video games for quite some time… and even when I was in it – I was never a fan of what’s called First Person Shooters in the biz. The games literally have you in the ‘first person’ view of a shooter, blasting away at anyone and anything you want with a dizzying array of armory. There just wasn’t much skill in it for me. But I am a Star Wars fan.
And I wasn’t aware that Star Wars Battefront is a First Person Shooter game. I thought it was a Star Wars game, flying ships around, figuring out ways into secret bases, wielding light sabers, and so forth. The TV ads sure don’t show the ability to zoom in on some unsuspecting targets head with a scope and neatly execute them. So the game came for Christmas, it was loaded up, and with a little apprehension on the parents part, the kids played it. They weren’t all that excited about it, mainly because its sort of hard when you start out – getting gunned down rather quickly. But it was down there as an option and something they might play on and off over the coming years.
But then came the tragedy in Florida and the impassioned speeches and protests. And some “innocent” fun shooting fictional characters in a beautiful looking Star Wars universe felt terribly empty and terribly tone deaf. The decision was made then and there – no more first person shooter games in this house. There’s research that it’s bad for you brain, and they aren’t the type of intellectual challenge some other games present. But the decision was way more obvious than that – do what you can to not normalize shooting dozens of characters as quickly as you can. Do what you can to not expose your kids to the first person view of shooting someone.
This is admittedly a super small, probably insignificant step in what is now a lifetime battle for people like this Dad of a victim. I’m just starting the conversation among those I interact with. If we all just engage in it. If we all do just one small step, perhaps we get closer to making sure this type of violence isn’t a problem in our kids schools. Maybe we can get kids back to having fire drills instead of active shooter drills.