Jack Thompson

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Game controllers are guns in disguise!

Jack Thompson is (or rather, was) a lawyer infamous for his agenda against video games, actively intending to create moral panic.

He's been playing those video games an awful lot. Makes him a very good shooter. Holding that controller's like holding a gun, they say in the news. You gotta help me, I fear for my life!
Max Payne 2

Thompson blames video games as the primary cause of violence and crime among young people.[1] Like others of his ilk, he doesn't care about the facts, and he shamelessly takes advantage of tragedy to further his agenda. He became notorious for popping up as a news network "guest speaker" in the aftermath of school shootings to claim that the shooter practiced killing with violent video games.[2] He has even accused the U.S. Department of Defense of colluding with video game producers.[3]

He was disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court, effective October 2008, for "professional misconduct." This ended a long-running feud between Jack Thompson and the Florida Bar Association going back to 1992 (at one point he accused them of having a secular humanist agenda). What actually got him disbarred, however, is filing frivolous lawsuits and defaming various people who opposed him, even accusing them of child pornography. Having gotten his just deserts, he then claimed to be the victim.[4]

What, exactly, he is infamous for among various circles could fill an entire article by itself, but his exploits include mass-mailing thousands of game industry employees and threatening to press harassment charges against them when they responded, flooding the judge's bench with over a hundred pages of gay pornography as an illogical and crazy attempted bribe during a case, and other unintentionally hilarious shenanigans. Most of his opponents were deeply saddened to hear that this talented amateur comedian has been forbidden from performing.

[edit] Penny Arcade antics

Jack Thompson has had a couple interactions with the gaming webcomic Penny Arcade, to hilarious results.

Did we mention that Jack Thompson got himself disbarred on Gabe's birthday as a birthday present to Gabe?Do You Believe That?

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. This is why the popularity of Tetris has led to more people killing others by dropping oddly shaped blocks on them.
  2. Brian Crecente. Dissecting Jack's Lies. Kotaku. 2007 April 17.
  3. Jack Thompson Has Defense Department in His Sights. GamePolitics.com. 2007 December 27.
  4. Brian Crecente. Thompson Responds to Disbarment. Kotaku. 2008 September 25.
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