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Media links Montreal mass shooting to games

Wednesday shooting spree in a Quebec college that left one dead tied to games by apparent killer's blog.

A 25-year-old Montreal man went on a shooting rampage at one of the city's colleges Wednesday, killing one and wounding 19 others before being killed by police, various media outlets reported yesterday. Today the same outlets are piecing together a picture of who the alleged shooter, named Kimveer Gill, was and are focusing on the fact that he played violent games, among other things.

Alleged Montreal murderer Kimveer Gill.

Alleged Montreal murderer Kimveer Gill.

The BBC News is reporting that the shooter apparently posted numerous times on a gothic lifestyle site, indicating that he liked to play Postal as well as a Web-based game called Super Columbine Massacre RPG.

The gunman also posted scores of photos of himself posing with a rifle, a hunting knife, and a black trench coat. A journal entry from the morning prior to the shooting said he was drinking whiskey and had been "crazy" and "postal" the night before. In one post, he wrote, "Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime."

A similar sentiment was expressed by convicted killer Devin Moore when he was arrested for the murders of two police officers and a police dispatcher. Moore, who was ultimately convicted, told the arresting officers: "Life's like a video game. You've got to die sometime."

The creator of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG has since posted a statement on his Web site, which reads, "I am, like most, saddened by the news of the recent shooting at Dawson College. I extend my condolences to those affected by this painful event."

Florida lawyer Jack Thompson wasted little time in linking the tragedy to his ongoing attempts to have violent games curbed. In an e-mail sent to various press outlets with the subject heading "Jack Thompson Right Again," the lawyer said the shooter "literally trained on his two favorite murder simulation video games to go on his college shooting spree..."

"The massacre in Montreal is simply the latest tragedy of mass killing linked to violent virtual reality murder simulators," Thompson wrote. "The worst is yet to come. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., is set to release on October 17 the game Bully, which in every sense is a Columbine simulator."

Ironically, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board gave Bully a relatively tame rating of T for Teen earlier in the day.

373 Comments

  • fighterace10

    Posted Oct 30, 2008 10:35 am GMT

    @JSharpe_187
    LOL

  • gangsterjc

    Posted Jul 18, 2008 12:11 pm GMT

    Man amaricans are psycoh's! god video games are somthing to vent yourself with! not Training

  • WARxSnake

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:03 pm GMT

    "
    ...USA should someday reflect on the gun policy it has. I don't think I would be as relaxed if I knew that all of my neighbours in my building are packing."

    do you even know where the hell Quebec is???

  • MartyredShadow

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 12:07 pm GMT

    Normally I see the media is alarmist and ridiculous. But in this case... I mean, Postal is about being a psychotic killer, and Super Columbine Massacre RPG doesn't even need to be explained. It's likely that he sought out these games because he was violent and disturbed, but it this case it does seem like they probably were a bad influence on him.

  • Neil__

    Posted Jun 26, 2007 4:50 am GMT

    You see this sort of nonsense all the time.
    Some untalented idiot using scandal and fear to try and get the sort of attention they are incapable of getting by normal sensible debate.

    If these people had any real intelligence they would see what they are saying is rubbish.

  • joemic393

    Posted Jun 22, 2007 6:02 pm GMT

    So... lets count up the amount of high school / college shootings that happen in any given decade. I'm going to say roughly 4 or 5 which are thoroughly covered in the news media (...there might be more but I don't know about them simply because they aren't massively reported on). So 6 crazy people shoot up a lot of innocent people. Its known that most of these 6 crazy people play violent video games....

    ...How many other people play violent video games? Considering the marketing and the amount of money that goes into creating these games: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! So lets say there are 4 million people who buy violent video games (I may be under-estimating the market size) and 6 of them are crazy people who shoot innocent people. That means that 0.00015% of people who buy violent video games will go nuts and shoot people! Lets apply these odds to ... hmm.... coffee? I'd be willing to bet the ratio of coffee drinkers to murderers is higher. My point: BAN COFFEE!!!!! .... hehe

  • mealex

    Posted Jun 22, 2007 12:03 am GMT

    Jack Thompson is so full of **** You can't "train" on a video game.

  • CrzyOz300

    Posted Jun 21, 2007 9:25 pm GMT

    If people actually believe was the main reason he killed someone they are out of their mind. If video games was the main reason then almost every gamer would be phyicotic. The man was just out of his mind, even if games didn't excist he would just go crazy from some violent movie so then the movie industry would be blamed, lol.

    Dude, Bully wasn't even close to a columbine simulator. Man i hate it when people talk out of there a$$ . Please make sure you know all the facts about anything before you start make accusations, or start to make statemets like that.

  • JSharpe_187

    Posted Jun 21, 2007 7:08 pm GMT

    You know why he went on a rampage? Cuz his name's Kimveer

  • andypipkin85

    Posted Jan 7, 2007 10:17 pm GMT

    yawn. Another ego-trip from Mr jack thompson.

  • pinktoque

    Posted Oct 12, 2006 4:32 pm GMT

    Jack Thompson is a moron. If he'd like some facts on the TRUTH about violence and video games, he needs to read this article:
    http://www.gamerevolution.com/static/index.php?section=featureāŠ‚=violence&page=violence

    Funny how media and the government can hype up that video game violence causes things like school shootings, yet at the same time they publicly display graphs and charts that prove otherwise. Learn2Propaganda.

  • NobuoMusicMaker

    Posted Sep 20, 2006 7:31 am GMT

    I don't think it's the games fault. It's the society. The games are just a reflection of what gamers want.

    I think these types of games act as a vent. Keeps your mind off the world into a world of imagination. It's not influence. The damage has already been done to that guy.

    And he had blamed society in his blog. Not in the same fashion as my statement, but how this world is run made him like that. He mentions how men disrespect women. Being a man himself, he probably been thinking pretty deep.

    So if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, announced he started playing MGS, should we assume he's building a Metal Gear to launch nuclear missiles? Shut up Jack Thompson. You're way out of your league here.

  • jillwarrior

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:43 pm GMT

    HERES AN interesting note from all this, gamespot has removed from this website a newsstory they ran last week in which they had an interview with SUPER COLUMBINE MASSACRE RPG's creator and a link to the website of the game. why did they decide to delete this story??? can anyone answer that?

  • metalXIII

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:27 pm GMT

    Right you can train on video games that are super fake! Postal, wow thats total BS! YOu cant train on something that isnt close to reality.

  • Cloud_Strife89

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:10 pm GMT

    Right, because obviously the fact that he was a crazy gun-nut with mental issues who was drunk off his rocker had nothing to do with it, it's clearly the games fault. O btw Mr. Thompson, in the game Bully, you fight AGAINST Bully's not as one and are discouraged from fighting fellow classmates and teachers and there are no firearms or dangerous weapons in the game and certainly no killings, that doesn't sound like a Columbine simulator to me.

  • jakob_187

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 2:27 pm GMT

    In all truth, Jack Thompson has a point when it comes to games like Postal or Super Columbine Massacre RPG. I mean, honestly...THE GAME IS CALLED SUPER COLUMBINE MASSACRE RPG!!! Not only is it a pathetic and downright wrong game, but it's definitely the kind of game that...well...a future violent killer would more than likely play! That's not to say those same people couldn't play something like Grand Theft Auto and do the same thing, but I don't know. The violence in video games argument is getting to be so damn pathetic, and honestly, most people only make these kinds of games with one reason in mind: sales. They know that the violence will create the controversy and in turn, the controversy creates free "forbidden fruit" publicity. The Grand Theft Auto series did present us with a very new idea of how to design a video game with open-ended environments and such...but they could've done the same thing with a far tamer demeanor.

    As for Bully, that's one thing that keeps ticking me off with Jack Thompson. I mean, the kid is a bully, but he's also bullied around to create his bully nature. It's a payback game, but he's not shooting kids with guns and crap like that. Nonetheless, Thompson calls it "a Columbine simulator". You want to know what a true Columbine simulator is? When you dress up as two guys in black trench coats that are completely disturbing people, walk into your school with heavy guns, and you open fire and start killing people. THAT is a Columbine simulator. I think Thompson is just mad because he's too old to understand video games, and moreover...the ESRB gave the game a T rating! They don't usually do much wrong with ratings.

    Here's a fair point I can make. I work at a PC and Xbox gaming center in Texas, and we are also a family-friendly center, which means we will not carry games like Doom 3 or Quake 4. The furthest we go for is Halo 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004, but 2004 is so fake looking that it's hilarious, and the parents haven't expressed any concern over it. Either way, we recently got Company of Heroes in. I want to say what a fantastic and fresh RTS game this is, and the gameplay is incredible, but it's our first age-restricted game as we are sure the popularity will be big (given the Victory Point battles are much like BF2, our #1 game). The reason it's age restricted is not because of anything other than the language!!! There is no need for the guys to drop an F bomb every time I attack something. It's stupid that the only reason it's rated M is for language!

    Why do we continue to tolerate developers allowing certain audiences to be excluded from incredible games? I'm not saying I don't play violent games (I love The Suffering games, and GTA III is still my fave of the recent GTA games...and yes, Soldier of Fortune is a guilty pleasure). I am, however, saying that I get more enjoyment from games that aren't that violent in a mature manner. Give me World of Warcraft or Battlefield 2 or some lightsaber duels or something...I have plenty of fun.

    But on this one case, with Postal and SCM RPG, I have to say I agree with Mr. Thompson.

  • McDog3

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:46 pm GMT

    If he had been posting pics of him with rifles while in trenchcoats, wouldn't that be the first clue to try and help the poor man out? That photo of him above doesn't exactly make him look like the hunting type....

  • manapsal

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:07 pm GMT

    idiot gives games a bad name by acting out crazy dream, and Jack Thompson licks it up

  • dragkill

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:07 pm GMT

    "people need to man-up & take responsibility."

    I'm afraid to say that humanity does not go by that. We always have to find a scapegoat one way or another, because we try to avoid complete punishment.

  • grave_rob

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 12:31 pm GMT

    this is one of the oldest & probably stupidest debates of all time. no one is to blame except the person pulling the trigger. you could put me in a room full of my worst enemies & hand me a granade. but I PULL THE PIN. not the fact that i've watched horror movies my whole life or played my 360 for an ungodly amount of hours. the deciding factor in action was me pulling the pin. you always have a choice. walk away or don't. people need to man-up & take responsibility.

  • capthunt

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 12:06 pm GMT

    Figures.... just link everything to games. OF ALL THINGS IT HAS TO BE GAMES. The dumbest and most ridiculous conclusion ever and its becoming a really annoying cliche

  • Acobb8787

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 10:02 am GMT

    The statement "Life is like a video game, you've got to die sometime" is indicative of the mentality of the person who said it. It's an unintelligent, foolish phrase that does not logically make sense. Equally illogical is the idea that a video game is even part of the reason why this person decided to kill 5 people. It's been said before, if there were no video games, chances are this guy would have done something similar to this anyways.

  • SoralinkGS

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 8:39 am GMT

    You know, Why does Jack Thompson have to make himself a jerk everytime? The moment I read that he put "Jack Thompson Right Again" in his title of E-mails, I knew he had something bad to say. Anyways, I would have to say that fellow Gamespotters should stop this "DIE Jack DIE" stuff, since it really just feeds the beast...

  • Lunatic816

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 7:58 am GMT

    i agree with Murpheus007. we are contradicting ourselfs here, we say violent video games dont make you go and kill people, but then the next sentence we say "shoot jack thompson in the face with a sawed off shot gun" yea jack is a pain in the ass, but we are not giving gamers a rood reputation.

  • Metllica97

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 7:58 am GMT

    I think that Jack Thompson would probably be all for a "simulator" that would allow the player to take on a Grand Theft Auto-esque role at an abortion clinic. Funny how people like him never seem to link religious fundamentalism to sectarian violence...

  • dragkill

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 7:40 am GMT

    I find it funny how Jack Thompson is an old guy bent on trying to ruin/control the minds of people about video games. It reminds me of a situation way back that involved him. If i remember correctly, Jack Thompson held a little event saying if that someone creates a game about what happened at that time, he'll donate the money to them. However, he didn't expect for someone to do that, and when a person came out with the game, he denied saying any of the things he said. Thus this is where the people from Penny Arcade jump in. They take over the event that Jack said he was gonna do, and basically it was a smack in the face for him. I know this was so vague, but basically all I'm saying is that Jack is not a dependable person, and is partially on the deep end of craziness and deceitful.

  • Murpheus007

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 6:04 am GMT

    With people like Lustingfordeth out there why would anyone give credit to this stuff. I like how Mr. Thompson constantly refers to violent video games as "training". He trained on those games. WTF! And as far as Bully being a "Columbine Simulator", not sure about that either. It must not have too much cussing or extreme violence in it. Otherwise the ESRB wouldn't have hesitated to give it an M rating. And as much as none of you want anyone to say this, Jack Thompson is not evil, he is just stupid and zealous. An infuriating combination to be sure, but I am about sick of hearing people even mention killing him, or that he should die. Anyone who says that is sick, and you only give argument to him and people who think like him. Even (god forbid) if he were to succeed in his endeavors, he would not deserve to die. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about things. The right way is to get in contact with your state representatives, and those in office in your district and tell them, in an intelligent way, that you disagree with Jack Thompson. The wrong way is flaming the man on a forum he is never going to see, and anyone who does see it is going to think, "Hmmm, not the most civilized bunch" You know you're civilized, why not show the rest of the world you are.

  • dbeddow

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 5:52 am GMT

    Andron666 has it right. Events in his life (that we dont know about) brought him to point of suicide. He was too much of a coward to do it himself, so he had the police do it for him. This unfortunately happens all the time EVERYWHERE... I truley think video games prolonged his own distruction. I also think that if he was truley influenced by video games he would have been a little more creative. Video games are more of an outlet for something else that is wrong mentally.

  • Falconsmoker

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:36 am GMT

    One more guy made his Postal dreams come through. What a lame game it was indeed.

  • Andron666

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 2:33 am GMT

    It's good to have something to blame.

    Shame it makes as much sense as it did when they blamed movies for the same thing.

    It is nice for an incompetent government and a sensationalist media to have something other than wars, famine and racism to report on.

    When people like that play "violent" games, read "violent" books, listen to "violent" music and see "violent" movies it is merely a symptom. Not the cause.

  • Lustingfordeth

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 2:02 am GMT

    lol oh yeah, any psycho gamers out there? why dont u kill off that jack (off) thompson, if you dont you may lose your good games :-P lmmfao

  • Lustingfordeth

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:57 am GMT

    that game sounds cool, im downloading super coulumbine massacre right now. Look at these pansy americans, "video games make u murder people" WTF is this crap govt doing? its training hundreds of thousands of its citizens to go out and kill off middle eastern people, regardless of them being men women or children. Suck a big one if your against violent video games, as your likely the type of freak supporting war IRL. I used to play tetris a lot when it came out, and im not trying to move boxes around to get a 4 row completion hoping fiddlers play for me and they shoot off fireworks for my superbeb stacking skills. It has nothing to do with games, some of us just get sick of most of you and decide one day its time to clean the world up a bit, by taking some of the trash out

  • redgopher

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:51 am GMT

    "Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime."

    In most respects that's true, and admitting that it is so doesn't make you a murderer. Although, it's more accurate to argue that if you have enough skill in whatever game you're playing, you'll never die. I suppose that's true of life as well, as long as you have the skill to create some sort of immortality mechanism.

  • nirvana_2

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 11:42 pm GMT

    @to mYslead:
    "They just blame everything that can take the heat away from the obvious threats. What about the gun law, they passed around over two millions of permits in the recent years, but they only refused 18000. If they really want it to work, they should make a following for everyone that wants one. And what about the goddamn parents?"

    Right in every point. Perhaps we should mail them free copies of that movie "BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE", specially to Jerk Thompson, who has obviously not seen it already.

  • anjul

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 9:50 pm GMT

    @ kenerhai
    Actually, more recent studies have showed evidence that the human brain continues developing to a significant degree until the age of 25. But seeing as how he passes that too, we're logically safe from his accusations on that point too. But then again, if ol' Jack was logical.... he wouldn't have called Bully a 'Columbine Simulator' before having seen ANYTHING on the game.

  • Sam_Lowery

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 9:19 pm GMT

    "Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., is set to release on October 17 the game Bully, which in every sense is a Columbine simulator."

    Ironically, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board gave Bully a relatively tame rating of T for Teen earlier in the day. "

    lol

  • kenerhai

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 8:18 pm GMT

    number one this guy is over 18, so he should be of enough sound mind to know right from wrong, so thompson cannot link this to violent games and youth. obviously he was not, obviously he was off his rocker. and Super Columbine Massacre RPG?!?!?!?! are you freakin kidding me?!?!? how the hell can people make that sort of game, let alone get an chance tomake it available to the puclic wihtout being hunted down like a terrorist and taken out?!? i wouldnt be suprised if thompson found this wacko and convinced him to do it and the guy was nuts enough to think he wouldnt get away with it.

  • DrKill09

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 7:27 pm GMT

    not this nonsence again.

  • anjul

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 6:39 pm GMT

    Of COURSE they linked it to video-games. I'm not going to waste much of my precious time on this. Just as all other media can influence one and give you ideas, the perpetrator should be hated, not his interests. In the end it was all HIS decision to do this. Doesn't matter what games he played. He was obviously already messed up if he really DID act on something he saw in a video game. People are violent, and need to quit blaming it on anything other than their natural characteristics. Of course there are always people who are pacifists and so on, but that's because they made a specific choice to try and rid themselves of that natural human trait. People are, have been, and will continue for some time(if not till out species' demise) to be violent.

  • Flakor

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 5:17 pm GMT

    No! It wasn't the video games that made him violent. He was playing those games BECUASE HE WAS VIOLENT!|

    Hell, if I was extremely violent I would be playing Postal too, but I'm not so there.

  • Miltonelite

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 4:46 pm GMT

    dammit here we go again

    CORELATION IS NOT EQUAL TO CAUSATION

    If people are Violent in real life, of course they will be drawn to violent entertainment as well.

    Also if Jack Thompson honestly believes video games cause violent behavior, then why does he feel like it's a sane move on his part to continually harrass and otherwise piss off millions of gamers? Obviously the answer is that he doesn't believe for one second the crap he constantly excretes from his own mouth. He just can't find anything better to complain about.

  • rokkuman09

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 4:40 pm GMT

    Sergsky:
    Please think this: There are people that will kill with or without videogames. There are millions of people, and videogames are a very fast growing industry, ergo many killers and would be killers are probably engaged by this medium, and obviously, if you are so incredibly obsessed with killing which games would you play? Probably not a karaoke game. Does this mean that the game "made" him do it? Or that the killer has something in common with the rest of us. Maybe he loves hamburgers too, they are made with ground meat which some can deem gross!


    Go Sergsky!!!

  • darth-revan

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 4:12 pm GMT

    look.... i play games a lot and if videogames and if videogames train people to kill then i guess im a master.... Spy, wizard, mage, swordfighter, ninja, surgeon, general, god, assassin, solid snake, clone trooper, GDC commando, orc, night elf, miner, master chief, spartan, god of war, jedi, despensable soldier, hobbit, gandalf, dude from fear, scientist, gordan freeman you get the idea. i guess i should start a real dark brotherhood then huh. according to jack "a$$ wipe tompson im real good at all that.

  • MasterAsh42

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 4:04 pm GMT

    You know, this guy sounds more like a copycat of what Thompson wanted Devin Moore to be, i.e. already unstable yet deliberately wanting to have his criminal intents blamed on video games.

    I bet dollars to donuts if the police hadn't have taken him down and he got to see trial, that certain Florida-based attorney would've gotten a call from Mr. Gill asking him to get him off the hook.

  • mYslead

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 2:50 pm GMT

    Ridiculous as ever.

    They blame the goth culture, the heavy metal and video games. I'm not a goth, neither listen to heavy metal but all the accusations are laughable.

    First of all if Kimveer Gill would have been a baseball player, i don't think the media would have focused their attention on baseball players accusing them to be potential threats.

    Of course they blame video games, they always do. Now we'll see knows-it-all on tv saying that according to their studies, video games makes people more violent and more proned to violence, ie : killing people. We are stuck with incompetent leaders that don't understand anything from this modern society, but still try to trangress their religion based values on the youth of today. First of all Kimveer Gill was obviously a schizophreniac. He was absolutely positive that the police was unto him. I'm not trying to make him look less mad than he the guy was not right in the brain. Now we're seeing in the newspapers, everything that could have triggered Kimver to kill people. Everything from the vampirefreaks website to Megadeth. They just blame everything that can take the heat away from the obvious threats. What about the gun law, they passed around over two millions of permits in the recent years, but they only refused 18000. If they really want it to work, they should make a following for everyone that wants one. And what about the goddamn parents? As you learn, your parents trangress unto you, values. Values that will lead you throughout the rest of your life.

    Jack Thompson couldn't be more wrong. Kimveer Gill didn't train himself at shooting in video games, he was probably jerking off to it. He was part of a gun club, shooting targets with his Beretta Storm since last year and I guess he got bored at shooting non-living targets.

    Anyway media are all about sensationalism, and I think they've hit the spot when they've put Kimveer's face on their frontpage for the three days following the shooting, when there was about twenty injured including eleven in a critical status. They've put more importance into the killer than Anastasia De Sousa, it makes me sick. I knew that girl, not alot, but I knew her. But money rules the world, and killers always sells more papers than the victims. They should stop trying to cover up the real issues of why this society is messed up, and why there's sicko's like Kimveer Gill out there, instead of blaming everything that seems to be sub-culture to them.

    Hail the day when we'll be free - Anastasia De Sousa R.I.P.

  • Sergsky

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 2:08 pm GMT

    Please think this: There are people that will kill with or without videogames. There are millions of people, and videogames are a very fast growing industry, ergo many killers and would be killers are probably engaged by this medium, and obviously, if you are so incredibly obsessed with killing which games would you play? Probably not a karaoke game. Does this mean that the game "made" him do it? Or that the killer has something in common with the rest of us. Maybe he loves hamburgers too, they are made with ground meat which some can deem gross!

  • zerodark9

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 12:47 pm GMT

    BTW people this is in Canada.

    EDIT: Due to a comment sent to me I would like to point out that I made this comment because I just wanted to point out that the shooting took place in Canada, not the USA. I do feel for the victims and their families of this shooting. Farther more I have a friend in Montreal near the college, and have spoke with them since then so please don't say I don't care, because I do.

  • nemes1s3000

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 12:20 pm GMT

    Was wondering when this would pop up.

  • EICD

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 11:27 am GMT

    I WON'T DO THAT. THAT GIY WAS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • rokkuman09

    Posted Sep 17, 2006 9:56 am GMT

    Oh, of course it's video games fault. He knew what he was doing! He had a choice! He wasn't brainwashed by video games and he had no choice about killing! Jack Thompson needs to get a life and stop blaming it violence like this on other things than the PERSON WHO ACTUALLY DID IT! He's just taking the blame from the person who commited the crime and blaming it on somthing else acting as if they had no choice!

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