Last week, Jack Thompson had spoken on FOXNews about the Virginia Tech shooting, saying that video games were somehow linked to the worst shootout in U.S. history. Later on, upon catching a video of ace attorney's said stint on the new channel, Brian Crecente of Kotaku did a bit of analysis and dissected Jack Thompson's statements on TV.

And with that article, Crecente seemed to have gotten the attention of Jack Thompson himself. It goes that Thompson asked Kotaku to pull down Crecente's "dissection" article, but Kotaku declined to do so. The following note was then faxed by Thompson to the FBI in Colorado:

Dear FBI:

This web site at the below url is targeting me:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/virginia-tech/

breaking-idiot-thompson-blames-va-shooting-on-games-252702.php

I ask that something be done by the FBI to stop this or prosecute it:

Kyle81 says: Actually the VT shootings are now the biggest mass shooting in US history with 31 dead, not just school shooting. Jack should be shot for taking the opportunity to leech off a tragedy to push his own agenda 04/16/07 03:25 PM

Regards, Jack Thompson

Crecente has contacted the said agency and was told that "it was unlikely they would handle such an investigation, if one was even needed, but that the local police might look into it."

Photo from Kotaku reader Torokun.

It seems that Jack Thompson has said another mouthful about the Virginia Tech Massacre in a recent interview on MSNBC. He has singled out Counterstrike in this specific interview and went on about how it should not have been released to the public. Yup, it's more of the same.

What should interest most people is the fact that Jack Thompson actually called Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), an "idiot" and a "jackass". This was because of a statement Della Rocca gave: "It’s so sad. These massacre chasers — they're worse than ambulance chasers — they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox."

Those are pretty strong words coming from Mr. Thompson who has recently settled with Take-Two Interactive. Check out the full interview and listen in on what Thompson had to say.

In the wake of the tragic events that ensued in Virginia Tech, Jack Thompson put the blame on video games. Don't look now but he's found a friend we're all too familiar with despite the fact that a lot of us have never watched his show. The well-publicized motivator unleashed a mouthful in Larry King Live with this statement:

The problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me - common sense tells you - that if these people are playing video games where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath, or someone suffering from mental illness, add in a dose of rage, the suggestability is just too high. And we’re going to have to start dealing with that. We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murderers of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.

I recognize Dr. Phil's point that a heavy dose of violent media will probably aggravate the violent tendencies of the mentally disturbed. However, arguing on the premise that violent games can influence kids to become mass murderers is unfounded and inaccurate. The sheer fact that the identity of the killer(s) have/has not yet been revealed is a testament to his premature judgment. What if the shooter(s) have/has never touched a control pad in their lives?

The (very, very, very) few who do play games and exercise their ability to inflict terrible violence do not reflect the majority of gamers worldwide. To say that exposing children to violent games breeds sociopaths is a vile misconception. An entire generation of people who played games as kids have grown up to be successful, peace-loving individuals who never once thought of blowing away friends and family with guns.

Violence is a natural human instinct. Take away all the guns and violent games in the world and people will still beat each other to death with their bare fists. Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler and Ivan the Terrible have never even conceived of the games of today and they are far worse offenders than any modern criminal. Dr. Phil and to other riders of "blame it on the video games" bandwagon, please get your facts straight.

First and foremost, we would like to give our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of those 32 people (33 including the gunman) involved in today's shootout at the Virginia Tech campus. While everyone is still reeling in shock from the events at Norris Hall this morning, we share everyone's sentiment that it is indeed a horrible tragedy. Already, CNN is even calling it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.

But why post something that's not gaming related? Well, we would have wanted to avoid this whole issue altogether, however, someone had apparently brought videogames (something oh so close to all of our hearts) into the picture. Hence, the relevancy to these blogs.

As Kotaku reports, Jack Thompson spoke on FOXNews about the Virgina Tech shooting, saying that the massacre is linked to videogames. Now, we do not know to what extent Jack Thompson said this and we do not know the exact context in which the attorney said this. While it's pretty hard to form any substantial and unbiased judgment from such a lack of details, CobaltBlue, as a comment to Kotaku's post, sheds some light on what happened in FOXNews for us:

@possiblymalignant: Fox News Live was calling him a "School Shooting Specialist", or that's what he's calling himself now. All he talked about though was linking video games and "murder simulators" to school shootings. I guess we can look forward to a new Jack Thompson crusade now.

Maybe there is more to Thompson's statement than just "the Virgina Tech shooting was due to videogames" after all? And we have yet to find an actual video, transcript, or news clipping from FOXNews or any other news source. For now, this is what we have.

Pic courtesy of FOXNews.

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Update: We've managed to grab the Fox News interview with Jack Thompson over at YouTube which was uploaded by rgbyhkr. Here's the clip.