Halo: Child Killer?

In this modern age of gaming, politicians love ripping into video games as a cause for violence. Most of these allegations are ridiculous. On September 5, 2008, an eleven year old boy from Johnson Creek, Wisconsin accidentally shot himself. Instead of blaming parents for leaving a loaded rifle in the house and letting him skip school, let’s all sit back and blame “Halo.”

The story can be found here. According to investigators, they believe “…that after playing a combat video game called ‘Halo’, Nimm took the gun and tried to recreate some of the things that had occurred in the game.”

Why must an M-rated (M is for Mature Audiences Only) video game be blamed for the death of an 11-year old? Not only that, but in the entire Halo franchise has anyone, (and I’m talking main characters, side characters, marines, and Covenant), ever pointed a rifle to their own head? The answer is no.

The closest moment in Halo’s story that could possibly be considered as resembling suicide was towards the end of Halo 3. To prevent “The Great Journey” from starting, the Prophet of Truth needed a Human to get the ball rolling. Sgt. Johnson (ironic?) wanted his rescuer, Commander Miranda Keys, to kill him and herself.

Spoiler warning, Washington! Keys never pulled the trigger! The most that happened was Keys pointing the gun at Johnson. But seriously, who hasn’t seen someone point a gun at someone else in a video game? If Nimm was somehow emulating a game of Halo when he shot himself… he was probably pretty bad at the game. Jonathan, our Editor in Chief, loved playing Donkey Kong as a child. This didn’t cause him to run around with a mallet smashing barrels or throwing them down ramps and stairs (to our knowledge).

There’s a line between a plausible cause and manufacturing a thinly veiled scapegoat for errant parenting. If you suggest that “Halo” was the cause of the young boys accidental death, you are stepping over that line. I don’t know the parent(s). I can’t say that they are bad parents, but according to the article the boy believed the gun to be unloaded. It’s the same thing as messing with your home’s electrical system without turning the electricity off – it’s hard not to use the “loaded gun” colloquialism because it is that obvious that having one around a child is unsafe. This was the result of a tragic series of mistakes, the first one being allowing an 11 year old child to have unsupervised access to firearms.

–Jake108 and Brian Gilmore

This special edition of Teabag Prevention was edited by:

          Brian Gilmore and Jonathan London