That movies and games are saturated with violence is an idea sadly heard too many times but one that refuses to lose bearing. The latest to get swayed by the larger-than-life graphics of an overdramatized video game was a 14-year-old, who in his determination to complete a “task” gunned down not one, not two but four members of his family. While the self-confession landed the culprit behind bars, police have already put forward the demand to ban these games wreaking havoc upon innumerable lives.
Considering this is the fourth such crime to take place in just Lahore, it is high time the department’s recommendation is brought outside the dusty files so that much-needed reforms might help nip the gory tragedy in the bud before it gets a chance to do some irrevocable damage. Since newspapers are littered with stories of violence getting the better of angry spats between sore losers, gamers losing track of space and falling prey to a moving bus or train or the most horrific of all, shots opened in the open.
Mass shootings on school campuses across the US skewer just one perpetrator far and wide: video games. But finger-pointing does not do any good alone. An overwhelming number of researchers jump to the defence. They maintain that these accusations could not be further away from the post.
The rush to blame characters jumping around obstacles, shooting enemies at point-blank range conveniently forgets how individual characteristics and the prevalent mental health are trickier parts of the debate. Leaving the pages upon pages of striking arguments to the more civilised ones, let us focus on measures that actually make a difference at home. If Punjab parliamentarians can unleash like a tornado on Hindi voiceovers and cartoon series deemed an “existential threat” to our values, surely, they can pluck out the same courage to call for a ban on the fantasy-lands of extrajudicial killings.
