In the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting incident, it seems that the issue of violent video games will be figuring in the 2008 presidential campaign. Yesterday, the first volleys were fired by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney during a graduation speech at Regent University in Virginia.

Here's what Gov. Romney said as reported by the Deseret News:

Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this cesspool.

Romney, a Republican presidential hopeful, was at Regent speaking to a conservative Christian audience. So, what do you think folks? Will the issue be brought up again and again during the campaign? Leave a comment below and tell us your thoughts.

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin has given his own two cents on the matter concerning Paul Hwang, the Chinese student from Clements High School in Fort Bend who was expelled for playing on a Counter-Strike map that resembled his high school.

In a statement to GamePolitics, Halpin said that "Paul Hwang's only crime was bad timing. He had the misfortune of uploading his mod during a period of time in which the nation was, perhaps unduly, made sensitive about the supposed link between violence and video games."

Here's the rest of the statement:

It seemed to me that the law enforcement authorities acted with prudence and that the school board should do similarly. This will likely be the first of many such instances where older generations who don't understand a medium, fear it, and as a result there will be reactionary decisions made. It's incumbent upon gamers to persevere and to prove the rule and not the exception. Only together, and over time, can we accomplish such a lofty goal.

A lot of people have pointed to the recent Virginia Tech shooting incident as one of the reasons for the seemingly hasty expulsion. However, some reports also say that Hwang's Counter-Strike map had already been uploaded prior to the Virginia Tech shooting. So, is it timing or something else? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

We just reported earlier about the rather belated news of the expulsion of a Chinese student. He was expelled from Clements High School because he was spotted playing a game of Counter-Strike on a map that, according to the police, was based off of his own high school's floor plan.

Unfortunately, because many facts have been hidden from the media, I, for one, am very skeptical about such a claim. I've searched high and low for more information on the story, but all of it revolved around relations to the Virginia Tech shooting and some executive board members soiling their underpants fearful of another incident. The most specific of facts were hidden, but to what aim? Fairness? Speaking of fairness...

Authorities claimed that hallways in the map were reminiscent of the student's high school's hallways. Granted that may be so, is the high school made up of just those hallways?

It's sad that we ended up drawing speculations here, but because the evidence (the map layout coupled with the high school floorplan) was never revealed to the media, can you blame us for doing so?

But let's take this into another point of view. There are many issues that gamers and some third-party onlookers have raised with this development, just about equally for and against the rash decision of the district board. First is the issue of maps depicting real-life locations and understanding what map making entails.

The second issue that people have had, which includes the 17-year-old senior's supporters, involves blowing the Virginia Tech shooting to proportions way off the "common sense Richter scale." In fact, it either began to look like the budding of another racial stereotype or, as one district board member claimed, the first of probably many overreactions, thanks to the VA Tech shooting and anti-video game activists. But let's tackle these one by one.

Click on Full Article to read more on this opinion piece.

Recently, a Chinese student in Clements High School was expelled for having played Counter-Strike in a level that had hallways reminiscent of his own school's hallways. Following the parents' appeal for reconsideration, the Ford Bend Independent School District had postponed the meeting because four of the school board's members refused to show up.

The appeal was the fourth part of a long appeal process, ultimately ending up with a meeting with the Board of Trustees.

Defending their stand, the FBISD trustees who stayed away said that the meeting itself "circumvented" the disciplinary process. Board member Stan Magee stated that the meeting could have expedited the resolution of the case. Unfortunately, third-party onlookers have began to say that the board's rash decision was an overreaction to the Virginia Tech incident.

Coupled with the video game-related banter coming from anti-video game media icons, even Magee admits that their resolution was an effect of fear, stating, "I think we overreacted as a result of the Virginia Tech ordeal." Although the Chinese community rallied behind the 17 year old boy, there are many sentiments that have risen against the act despite people applauding the quick response of the board.

FBISD spokeswoman Mary Ann Simpson stated, "This goes back to Columbine. Ever since that horrid incident took place schools today have to take every incident that is reported very seriously." She iterates that these things had to be taken seriously, and that students needed to know that such things aren't taken lightly anymore.

Only Magee, Simpson and Ken Bryant appeared in the meeting on Monday at the districts headquarters. The other four members, namely Steve Smelley, Sonal Bhuchar, Cynthia Knox and Laurie Caldwell, did not arrive for the 5:30 p.m. meeting, which became cause for the meeting to be cancelled.

Ultimately, the 12th grader has been barred from graduating from the school and has been transferred to  M.R. Wood Alternative Education Center. What do you think? Feel free to discuss, but keep it clean people. We might just give out two-cents worth on this, too.

Hot off the heels of Jack Thompson's request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do something about Kotaku, Jack Thompson amended an earlier lawsuit filed against the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court dated March 13th and April 11th respectively. The amendment seeks the inclusion of game blog Kotaku and parent company Gawker Media in the case.

The suit is in relation to an article published by the blog on its site which blasted away at Thompson for commenting on national television that the tragic events at Virginia Tech were related to violent video games.

Thompson also seems to have taken offense in one comment posted by a reader that accused the activist lawyer of using the Virginia Tech tragedy to feed off his cause and run his own agendas.

Now that evidence shows that Cho Seung Hui didn't own a single video game at the time of the Tragic shooting, a new article over at MSNBC questions Thompson's fervent accusations. This is in light of his recent interview wherein he responded to IGDA criticism.

The MSNBC article notes that contrary to Thompson's claims of counterstrike being a "killing simulator" for youths, Cho didn't need much skill to shoot as many people as he did. Eye witness accounts indicate that many of the victims were shot at point blank range.

Moreover the article notes that Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California and author of the book "Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth" points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin way back in 1966, before the days of pong.

The article says that nobody realises that since the advent of videogames, violence rates in the US have declined "precipitously." Sternheimer even notes that it is likely that any 23-year-old man living in America has already played a videogame. How many 23-year-old men go out on a killing spree?

The MSNBC article goes on to note this nice gem:

For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.

As a commenter on Digg noted, the truth is that massive multiplayer killing fests are really just slightly more complex and themed versions of cops-and-robbers. An online and engaging visual form of "tag" wherein players "tag" one another in the form of virtual kills, in a world where there are no real consequences. A game of tag in a world where death isn't really malicious or evil, or "desensitising" - death only means waiting for the next play round or respawn.

It is a competitive environment where sportsmanship is still the norm; where it is expected that after all the boasting and chest-thumping is done, the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."

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.

 Due to the recent tragic event at the campus of Virginia Tech, Jack Thompson has been increasing his efforts to get media exposure. Gaming news site, GameAlmighty has posted a report on his latest open letter. This time it is addressed to Bill Gates:

April 18, 2007

Bill Gates

Microsoft

1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052 Via Fax and e-mail

Dear Mr. Gates:

On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company’s game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn’t even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did...

Get the rest of the letter to Bill after the jump.

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.