SouthingtonSOS, a community organization based in Southington, Connecticut, has announced that they are canceling their “Violent Video Games Return” event, as the media surrounding it has been enough to meet their goals.
The event, first announced at the beginning of this month, asked people to bring in their copies of “violent” video games, movies, and CDs, to be broken, tossed in a giant dumpster, and eventually incinerated.
They claimed that the event was not to be taken as a statement on the cause of recent violent massacres such as the recent Sandy Hook elementary school shooting – but that evidence suggests that violent media is responsible. So video games didn’t lead to Sandy Hook, but they totally did. Something like that.
SouthingtonSOS planned to hand out $25 gift cards to anyone brave enough to snap a copy of Call of Duty in order to tackle the real problem behind the gun violence plaguing the nation. If that sounds like it’s dripping with sarcasm, that’s because it is.
The two goals that they met, they say, were to raise awareness and get parents talking to their kids.
“We are pleased to announcethat awareness here has been raised significantly, thanks to the support of the media and widely disseminated e-mail communications within our community through our local Southington SOS member organizations. The result has been a swift, positiveand supportive response of parents, young people and the general population of our community,” said SouthingtonSOS in a statement.
“An equally important goal was to encourage parents in Southington to have a courageous discussion with their childrenabout thistopic. Day by day the response has increased and continues to increase, making it clear that parents are having these conversations. So, this second mission of inspiring conversations at home has also been accomplished.”
For those reasons, the group has “reevaluated” and decided to cancel the “return” part of the “Violent Video Game Return” program.
Now they won’t have to hand out any $25 gift cards, I guess.
No word on whether SouthingtonSOS has any plans for a future book burning, to tackle the disturbing problem of teenagers making out behind the library.