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LaRouche PAC implicates games at Va. Tech. review panel

In the weeks after the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, the search for answers focused mainly on germane issues like gun control and mental health rather than simple mediascapegoating. At least one group seems unwilling to let go of the games-made-him-do-it angle, though. Speaking to Governor Tim Kaine's official Virginia Tech Review Panel, Larouche Youth Movement leader Paul Mourino warned of a "potential epidemic eruption of a 'new violence,' driven, in part, by the mass distribution of killing simulators to youth."

In addition to the familiar games-create-killers arguments, Mourino's comments included the remarkable implication that the game industry caused a "media blackout" on discussion of Cho's interest in video games by "pour[ing] millions of dollars into a public relations and damage-control campaign." Mourino cites the removal of a Washington Post mention of Cho's Counter-Strike playing as evidence of the conspiracy; this despite the Post author's explanation that the factoid was removed simply to make room for more recent, more relevant information.

You may remember Lyndon LaRouche from his support of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, his implication that the British royal family are drug dealers and his stories of Soviet secret police brainwashing of his supporters. So, all in all, there are worse people to have on the other side of the game violence debate.