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Maria Butina: Cybersecurity charlatan, spy
Russian spy Maria Butina's cover story was her academic interest and expertise in cybersecurity. As cover stories go, this unfortunately wasn't a hard one to pull off. Except anyone holding even the barest minimum of cybersecurity knowledge could've figured out in minutes that Butina's interest in cybersecurity was minimal.
For the people in the back: Video games don't cause violence
Video games do not cause violent behavior. There is no scientific, consensus-backed research supporting the idea that playing video games -- even bloody, realistic shooters -- leads to real-life acts of brutality. However, this misguided theory prevails. After a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead on February 14th, a handful of politicians decried video games for corrupting young minds and inciting violent behavior. Days later, President Donald Trump said during a meeting about safety in schools, "I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts." Tomorrow, video game industry leaders are scheduled to meet with Trump to discuss the (non-existent, completely imaginary) problem. The Entertainment Software Association will be there and it has a clear message for the White House: "Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the US has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation."
What you need to know about smart guns
It's increasingly difficult to have a rational discussion about gun violence. Thankfully for us, we're not here to do that. We're here to explain what the concept of a smart gun is, beyond what you've seen in hit Sylvester Stallone film Judge Dredd. Lost amid the shouting and hand-wringing of American politics are a bevy of technologies that aim to skip the argument, instead aiming to decrease gun violence through advanced technology. Barring a dramatic shift in American culture or politics, however, it seems the smart gun concept may wither and die. So, what are smart guns?
Give NRA Gun Club a shot
Video games have been teaching kids about the right to bear arms (as in blow away anything that moves) for years, but it still seems odd to find a target shooting game sponsored by the National Rifle Association. Developer Crave stresses the "non-violence" of NRA Gun Club -- but you don't have to be Sarah Brady to find that ironic given the "100 faithfully recreated firearms," including everybody's favorite plinko pistol, the Intratec Tec-9. With a graphical upgrade and perhaps a voice-over by Charlton Heston, Gun Club would be a great Xbox Live Arcade title, but instead its shot-to-hell visuals are likely to be forgotten during the PS2's waning summer. Too bad. You can never be too careful with that virtual shotgun.
