[Nettime-bold] Bush Master

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

The objective of the video game Grand Theft Auto is to steal cars, as it is 
probably obvious from the game’s title, and to kill as many people in the 
process without getting killed by the cops. This is a pretty 
straightforward proposition. Player can chose a weapon. Probably the 
most graphic weapon is a chainsaw. You run around the virtual city 
streets and cut people in pieces with a chainsaw. Body parts fly around, 
blood splatters the screen, but you don’t last very long, because you 
have no defense against police, that comes quickly shooting at you.

Today I play sniper. This is the longest game. It takes about twice as 
long for police to come than if you use hand grenades, for example. I 
wonder if I just kill one person a day and then leave the game running, 
without actually playing it, would it take for the computer fourteen days 
to get virtual cops to catch me and/or kill me? I can just come to the TV 
once a day, park my car with a view of some open area, turn up the 
reggae-punk song from the all-white DC punk band NOFX, “Kill all the 
white men” on the mp3 player (Thanks, Napster), do the shot, and go 
about other business the rest of the day. Did anybody actually try that?

If Mr. Williams / Mohammad and his illegal immigrant protege were 
wealthy enough to have a normal home, a TV set and a Nintendo 
playstation, they could just live out their sniper fantasy in the safety of 
virtual reality. But they were homeless. I am curious whether they even 
knew about the game. Mr. Mohammad was so poor that he could not 
afford better than a $250 wreck of a car. Yet, he owned a high powered 
rifle, priced higher than his car - and with an ominous name at that: 
BUSHMASTER.

I don’t know, maybe it is just me, but I find something terribly disturbing 
about a society in which it is easier to own an expensive gun, than a 
decent housing. The sniper couple operated in DC suburbia, inhabited 
largely by federal government employees, who predominantly vote for 
Democrats - so, if Democrats do not turn their constituents paranoia into 
a tougher and more efficient gun legislation, depriving Republicans of 
their foot soldiers in NRA (Republicans rely on NRA for campaign 
volunteers), they are really incompetent, and deserve the dismal fate 
Master Bush has in store for them.

Ivo


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