Student disciplined for making video game map of his high school

The Fort Bend Independent School District (in Texas) is upholding the suspension and subsequent placing in an "alternative education center" of a Clements High School student whose only crime was... get this... building a video game map from his high school!

Here's more of the story:

...on April 17, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 dead, Clements High School officials learned a student had been playing Counterstrike, an Internet-based shooting game. The locale of the shootings depicted on this student's game were the hallways of Clements High School.

School district police investigated the report and questioned the student at school and then visited his home. The student's parents gave police permission to search the 12th-grader's room and computer. Simpson said police determined no criminal charges were warranted but that disciplinary action was.

Simpson said because of the violent nature of the game and because the actions had taken place in a computer-generated rendition of the high school, official consider the matter to be very serious.

"This was nothing to kid around about," she said.

Simpson said the student was transferred to an alternative school for the remainder of the school term.

The teen's parents appealed the decision. The school district has a four-step appeal process at the end of which a student can make a final appeal directly to the board of trustees...

Magee said he thinks the district probably reacted too strongly to the situation.

"He did it at his house. Never took anything to school. Never wrote an ugly letter, never said anything strange to a student or a teacher, nothing," Magee said.

Bryant said police need to take situations like this seriously.

If we have come to the point where we are threatened by a video game... then I'm sorry, but America has completely lost it. These school officials are blithering idiots and the people who started this mess against this student don't possess nearly enough spine.

Look, this is something of a tradition. Making video game maps based on real-life locales is nothing new. It started over ten years ago with Doom, and people hacking that game so that they could run around Notre Dame or their office or some other place they were familiar with. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know of anyone who used those home-brewed maps to practice a real-life killing spree. It's just natural that if you have the time and talent to do this sort of thing, that you would use a place you know like the back of your hand.

And notice that this student did this at home, on his own time, without using any school time or resources. So I have to wonder: what the hell gives these damned busybodies in the school system the right to intrude on his domicile?

Oh yeah: based on what they're saying in this story "Virginia Tech changed everything!" is what they'll probably say.

More reason why our children's education should not be trusted to those who are riding mental tricycles.

I still remember quite a lot of detail about my old high school. I wonder if I would get in trouble for making a Doom or Quake or Counter Strike map based on it?

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Politicians exploiting Virginia Tech in the name of mental illness

"President Bush says he has directed federal officials to conduct a national inquiry into how to prevent violence by dangerously unstable people."

He can start with those who want the war in Iraq because as Einstein put it: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

For me, the red flags started going up yesterday when Senator Charles Schumer from New York said that he wanted mental health workers to report to the federal government on who is "mentally ill" for the express purpose of the feds denying them the right to own a gun.

For one thing, this is a knee-jerk reaction. For another, the existing gun laws are adequate already... maybe too adequate. For yet another, no matter how much law gets passed, eventually someone is going to break it and cause something like the incident at Virginia Tech to happen. Sorry to say this, but there can be no guarantees in life and you certainly can't expect... and shouldn't even want... the government to try to protect you from everything.

But most of all: should we really want politicians to be the ones defining what "mental illness" is? Seung-Hui Cho certainly had problems that should have discouraged him from having ready access to firearms. But I've come to know many people who although they have to take anti-depressants and other medication to function day to day, they are as healthy and fit as you or me (okay, I'll admit that some have questioned my own soundness especially after my first school board campaign commercial, but I digress...). A lot of these people show much more sense and compassion than many who have never had to take medications for depression and other conditions. Are they going to be denied a permit to have a gun for self-defense because just on the basis of being prescribed these drugs, the government declares them "mentally unfit"?

And if so, then where will it stop? Where can it stop? Because if government has the power to deny a basic right because it has the authority to declare someone a "mental invalid", then there is nothing to keep it from defining that condition in any way that it sees fit. Would political dissent be grounds for branding someone mentally unstable? Hell, there are apparent cases where dissenters have been denied the right to travel in this country: why wouldn't the federal government stop there and insist that they not be allowed the means of self-defense, either, because it declares these people's "behavior" to be symptomatic of mental illness?

What Bush and Schumer and too many other politicians are suggesting in the wake of the Virginia Tech slayings, is a potential start on the road to the gulags. Remember how back in the day in America we heard about how dissidents were declared "mentally ill" and sent off to Siberia for "treatment" for the next forty years? Apart from physical relocation (for now), how was that different from what a lot of politicians here are wanting?

Think that federal government wouldn't ever practice such gross abuse? Remember: President Bush wants mandatory mental health screening of every schoolchild in America... to say nothing of his wanting to medicate them against the wishes of the children's parents and physicians. This was apparently being promoted at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry: the same industry that talked Governor Rick Perry into mandating an uncertain cancer vaccine on every girl in Texas. That came soon after after the vaccine's manufacturer Merck gave Perry a substantial political contribution. If they can sell out principles for money, they can sell them out for power, too.

It's like this: if the government can declare huge portions of the population "mentally unfit" to own firearms, then there is nothing preventing the government from defining "mental illness" in whatever way it believes necessary. Anyone and everyone can be deemed mentally "unsound" for the most ridiculous of reasons. Inevitably, a person will have to produce official documentation showing that he or she is sane, instead of it being determined that they are unhealthy based on prior behavior. So it will be that only the "super sane" will be authorized to own firearms by the government. Anyone want to take a guess at how many of those there will be?

Well, it won't be very many. And they will be far too few in numbers to be an adequate bulwark against the government deciding that it needs even more power.

Tell me again how this doesn't sound like we're headed to Siberia, comrade.

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ConcealedCampus.com

There's a new website called ConcealedCampus.com. It's advocating the right of college students to carry concealed firearms as a means of self-defense. Needless to say, I am 100% in agreement with their position.

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Harsh but true insight from the Virginia Tech tragedy

You'll have to read Kathy Shaidle's commentary about the Virginia Tech thing for her complete thoughts on the subject: I'm not going to summarize it here. But I do believe she is making a good but sadly seldom-considered point.

Thanks to Jenna Olwin for the find.

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The "ARMED STUDENT" t-shirt

Shortly after posting about Bradford Wiles, who called on Virginia Tech officials this past summer to allow students to be able to defend themselves, I had an idea. Police wear badges and carry guns as a visible detterent against committing a crime. Maybe it's time for civilians to start boldly doing the same...

The "ARMED STUDENT" t-shirt. Whether you actually choose to carry a firearm while wearing this shirt is entirely up to you. Imagine just a few dozen students walking around campus wearing these shirts and the effect it would have on someone contemplating another shootout. Now available for $8.99 at CafePress. Firearm not included.

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Virginia Tech student pleaded for school to allow guns

Virginia Tech grad student Bradford Wiles pleaded with school officials to allow students to be able to defend themselves by having guns on campus. To say that Wiles has considerable frustration with the Virginia Tech administrators would be putting it mildly...

Would my wife and family, knowing how much I have written and spoken about allowing me my most basic right of self-defense on campus, feel any comfort in the policy that supposedly protects me?

Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations, in response to a column I wrote in August asking that the university change its policy forbidding law-abiding concealed handgun permit (CHP) holders from carrying on campus, wrote the following in The Roanoke Times: "Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."

Do you still feel the same way about your policy now, Mr. Hincker? Will your faith in that policy provide comfort to any of the victims' families?

Very powerful essay that's definitely recommended reading. Thanks to Chaplain Geoff Gentry for finding this article and sending it this way.

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The Pornography of the Real

Paul Harrill talks about the media circus at Virginia Tech this week, before NBC did or did not do a wise thing in releasing the video and photo material so soon after the shootings. What makes Harrill's voice one to pay heed to is that he is not only an independent filmmaker, but a teacher at Virginia Tech. Thanks to Shane Thacker for finding this.

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Town with mandatory gun ownership celebrates 25 years without a murder

A couple of days ago, I wrote here that the Virginia Tech massacre proves that gun laws don't work. And that a civilized society needs more decent people with guns.

Now comes an article proving my point: WorldNetDaily has a story about Kennesaw, Georgia: a town where there are not only no anti-gun laws, but it's mandatory for every home owner to have a gun. And in the quarter-century since enacting this law in 1982, there has not been one murder in Kennesaw. Also worth bearing in mind that in 1982 the population of Kennesaw was 5,242: at last count, the present population is 28,189... but the crime rate has dropped significantly since passage of the law.

Sounds like a nice place to live.

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Bush at Virginia Tech

I remember, back in the day, when people in some quarters would lash out at President Bill Clinton for "crashing" a solemn occasion like the memorial service for those killed in a senseless act. And, they were right to do so. Clinton had to show up and be in front of the camera and become the focus of attention at a completely inappropriate time. It was all about "me me me" to Clinton.

I watched practically the same thing happen today. Just a different President is the only thing notably different. And this time I'm hearing many of those same people swooning over how this President is "wonderful" and "is so compassionate".

This President won't even attend the funeral of any service member who has died in his war. But he will show up - with a speech that he most likely didn't or couldn't write on his own - at a somber moment for a photo op.

Look, if we are going to condemn Clinton for this, then we'd darn well better be ready to condemn George W. Bush when he does the same thing, if we're concerned with anything like consistency.

In my opinion, Bush should have stayed away. This is a time for the Virginia Tech family to come together and comfort each other. The rest of us should not be like "Job's comforters", especially if we want to be there just there for sake of "being there". Right now the people of the Virginia Tech community need our thoughts and prayers more than anything. This is not something for outsiders to exploit for their own selfish gain.

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Virginia Tech massacre proves: we need more guns

I'm absolutely damned serious about that.

Or let me put it another way: a situation like this proves that we need more citizens walking around who are carrying guns.

No, I'm not advocating all-out anarchy here. But how far would Cho Seung-Hui (that's the name of the Virginia Tech killer in case you haven't heard) have gotten if just one other person in the vicinity had a gun yesterday morning?

I hate to be the one to break the news about this, but: we live in a hopeless, broken world. Man's efforts to make it a perfect place have utterly failed. It's impossible to achieve the "utopia" that some dream of. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could all get along and be kind to one another and not be hurtful or exploitive of our fellow man. There are some of us who do believe that. But there are also plenty of others who don't consider the lives of others with that kind of sanctity. Cho Seung-Hui seems to have been one of them.

What do we do about them, if the law has proven incapable of reigning them in?

If law and government is no longer sufficient in maintaining a civil order, then it falls to regular citizens to enforce that civility.

Three things are needed on the part of those citizens. First: a good conscience, particularly a good conscience before God. Second: the will to act upon that conscience. And third: the means to enforce the right to conscience while itself being reigned in by conscience.

In other words: a model citizen must be one who realizes that he is empowered to carry deadly force, who actively does possess deadly force, and also understands that with this right comes terrible responsibility. So much so that he or she will not actively seek to employ it.

Now imagine a large segment of the population that believes in such a thing as absolute right and wrong, and understands it well enough that its individuals are willing to carry firearms as a last resort against acts of evil.

Wouldn't those who contemplate evil be a lot less likely to carry out their actions, knowing that they stood a far greater chance of being killed before they could accomplish their goals to the fullest?

How many people would Cho Seung-Hui have been content to kill if yesterday morning he knew he would probably be taken down that much sooner by someone with a gun?

There are going to be some who will scream for more gun control laws, in the wake of this tragedy. Tell me: how much gun-related violence have gun laws prevented? The people who use guns to carry out these evil acts don't give a damn about gun laws. If they want a gun, they are going to be able to find one no matter what.

The only thing that will stop evil people with guns, is to have a lot more good people with guns.

Maybe if there were more good people with guns, then this country and its government would not be as screwed-up as it is.

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Virginia Tech shootings

Unbelievable. I visited Virginia Tech a few years ago and thought it was one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen. Hard to comprehend that something this horrible could happen there.

Don't know much else to say except that my thoughts and prayers go out to them.

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