The Reverand Richard Patrick is a Pastor in Newport Virginia with some pretty crazy ideas for the year 2008. He is seriously considering holding a video game and CD burning rally because he blames violent entertainment for crime. Apparently he didn't get very many stories from his relatives about what their lives were like before video games came along.

To quote him "We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television ... television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality... [Violent media] has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas — they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade.

Now the immediate lulz come from the fact that here we have a church upset over "telling young people a vision but something that's not reality... " I mean hello, do you have any clue how out of a job you would be if there were some type of law against making stuff up? The really funny part though is just how stupid it is to blame video games for violence in the first place. Look at the crime rate in NYC since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. I'm sorry if your area of Virginia has a bad crime rate, but it's because of social programs, economics, and families. It's not video games. We have video games everywhere and they aren't causing a problem here. It's not a coincidence that the REAL factors we understand to cause crime are high in your area. Video games have nothing to do with it; ask anyone in Rwanda.