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 Sandy Hook slaughter Flash game (courtesy indiestatik.com)

The above still was taken from the Flash game The Slaying Of Sandy Hook Elementary. Click here to play. Although one wonders why one would unless one was a very sick individual. Or wanted insight into the mind of Australian game designer Ryan Lambourn. Mr. Lambourn created the game as anti-gun agitprop. “Here we are, a year after the Sandy Hook shootings, in which 26 people were killed, 20 of which were first-graders, and absolutely nothing positive has come out of it,” Mr. Ryan opines in an audio clip provided with the game. “I’m someone who rarely follows the news, so these [new games] have been a constant reminder of just how commonplace mass shootings and school shootings have become.” So the Flashy gun control bloody shirt waver doesn’t read the news. Quelle surprise. It gets worse . . .

Not content to encourage sick bastards to reenact horrific mass murder exploit unfathomable tragedy to argue for civilian disarmament Ryan wants to undermine gun rights advocates who suggest that an armed teacher would have saved lives at Sandy Hook and other state-sponsored “gun-free zones.” Indiestatic.com:

There’s another mode called “Eagletears.” The guns are back, and at first, there doesn’t appear to be any difference to the Historical mode. In fact, there’s only one change. Now the teachers are armed with pistols and shoot back, but don’t manage to be very effective in stopping the killer.

As TTAG proved in our post-Newtown school shooting simulation study, that’s simply not true. Then again, what’s truth got to do with it? And while we’re asking questions, can you imagine the media shitstorm if a pro-gun group had created a game that did show teachers stopping the Sandy Hook spree killing—but not before, say, ten children were slaughtered in vivid hues?

It’s interesting to see how the mainstream media deals with The Slaying Of Sandy Hook Elementary. The story is catnip to the anti-gun caterwaulers. How do they deal with the wrong game for the right reasons? The usually bellicose nydailynews.com is strangely short on outrage, and ready, willing and able to repeat Ryan’s ridiculous self-righteous rants. To their credit, even the huffingtonpost.com is a tad—if not entirely—huffy.

It’s sad, really. On the other side of the aisle, here’s foxnews.com‘s take:

Families of the victims nevertheless told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers they found the game repugnant.

“It’s absolutely disgusting that somebody thinks this is funny,” said Donna Soto, a Stratford mom whose late daughter, Victoria, 27, was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for shielding her students from the gunfire during the rampage.

“We’re all suffering. All the families are suffering. We’re coming up on December. My daughter’s birthday just passed. It just adds insult to the suffering that we’re dealing with. It’s just incomprehensible that someone would think this kind of thing is wanted.”

Shame on this man and any and all of those who support him. [h/t Valter]

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71 COMMENTS

    • I don’t really think these people are anti-firearm. I think they are anti-human.

      I think it really just boils down to people wanting to be “cool” or associated with the powerful or the ruling class. 1000 years ago, people like this would have argued in favor of the divine right of kings, in hopes that they would inch closer to the “in-crowd.” Today, the “in-crowd” is the state and the state is the enemy of the individual.

      Not unlike those who mocked me in 1989 for not rolling my pants.

      • Also not unlike people who I know, and people in my state, who started to identify with Bush, the Republicans, and the rich in the ’00s: people who work minimum wage jobs and get assistance, who now rail against people who receive assistance in the hopes that they, too will someday (inexplicably) become rich.

        *Not singling out Republicans; both parties have their share of loony followers*

    • There are no children in GTA V and killing innocent people has consequences in that game. You get hunted down by police (and they’re a lot more competent than the real life LAPD).

    • In Grand Theft Auto, actions have consequences. Yes, the game is quite violent. But it’s also intelligently written, beautifully produced and well executed. This game is none of those things. It’s some ex-pat’s idea of political commentary–instead of leaving you to make your own conclusions, it beats you over the head with “THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THINK”. GTA is a difficult, complex game in a huge, sprawling world. This game is shooting fish in a barrel for the express purpose of making people feel guilty that guns exist.

  1. That’s odd that the game developer is anti-gun. I got an email from Josh Horowitz (Executive Director of Coalition to Stop Gun Violence), asking that I sign a petition asking the designer to remove the game from the internet (I guess anti-gunners don’t understand the nature of guns or the interwebs). So, you’d think if they had the same motivations, they’d be working together.

    Here’s the petition:
    http://csgv.org/action/tell-animator-newtown-massacre-game/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=csgv&utm_content=1+-+Click+here+to+sign+our+petitionnbspaskin&utm_campaign=NewtownVideoGame&source=NewtownVideoGame

    • These people understand the Internet all too well. It can make people like Josh Horowitz an instant celebrity for an hour or so, and respond with buckets of cash for one cleverly-worded piece of partisan spam like the one you got.

    • How about this for a start:

      “Anti-gunners, taking waving the bloody shirt to a whole new sick level…”

      or

      “Anti-gunners, gleefully dancing in the blood of innocents to push their ghoulish agenda since, forever…”

  2. Someday Ryan may find himself in an unfortunate situation where a firearm could save his life and he may question his beliefs. It’s a shame when people find themselves defenseless by policy.

    • It’s sad when people have to learn about reality the hard way. It’s tragic when their epiphany happens just a fraction of a second too late.

      • “Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime. the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” – Robert Heinlein, “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”

  3. I do not support his fucking idiotic message he is trying to send (I guess bullets don’t hurt bad guys in his world. I think he plays too many video games where the main character just runs through bullets) but I will defend his right to send that message out in whatever media he sees fit. Sad that liberals aren’t demonizing this like they should be, but like you said… if a progun group had you playing as a teacher trying to kill the killer as he shot at innocents they would freak the fuck out.

  4. Games like this have been around for at least 25 years. There used to be a video game called “going postal”. It was just as offensive. There are some f’d up people in this world who will do anything to make a buck or get their 15minutes of “fame”. Just FYI…the “final” final Sandy Hook report is due out (again) this month and supposedly the victims families have been given a sneak preview. Just google “sandy hook final report”. Just in time for the anniversary of the event and another round of demands for more gun control and never mind about the real issue of mental health control.

  5. Mr. Lambourn (Lamebrain) has nothing to worry about being thrust into a shooting situation, persons of his ilk hangout on their computer generated world whilst their arse gets fatter & fatter. Not knowing anything of a constitutionally acknowledged natural right & being brainwashed during his formative years, that guns are dangerous in the hands of civilians, he doesn’t really know any better. On arming teachers or having armed guards on campus @ schools, this will stop the rare massacres simply by their mere presence as the maniacal nutbags will simply cross the location of their list of shooting sites because, they may run across someone that will prematurely end their attack. GFZ’s (free fire zones) GET PEOPLE KILLED. I know I preacheth to the choir but on the off chance a low info sapien reads this maybe it will ignite a spark of understanding somewhere deep within the recesses of whatever they are using as a brain. Sigh, if only…

  6. I tried to play the game but I could not get past the part where for some reason it asked me to shoot my mother. Since it was clearly wrong to shoot my sleeping mother because she was sleeping and not a threat, also she was my mother.

    So I really couldn’t progress any further still I guess I won because at the end of the game I still had my mother, a TV to watch and a sweet new glock.

  7. This is a completely shameless attention grab. I recognize the need cover this kind of thing, but I really wish it got NO coverage. Not just here, but everywhere.

    Like you said, though, this is like catnip. Not just to the anti-gunners, but to every media outlet there is.

  8. You do realize that Lambourn did not create or have anything to do with the Columbine game. I guess you didn’t take the time to read up on it, even understand it, or browse the website. But it was created by one of the victims, Danny Ledonne, of Columbine.

  9. I played it, it appears there are three variants to the game, one is the “historical” where he goes in and kills. Second is “gun-control” he uses a sword (implying that that going to kill less people, although they’re stilled kill its just less…). Third is “where the teachers are armed” but of course he quicker then them…basically bull doo doo. The person made this game is a moron, and should seek help.

  10. He’s an ex-pat living in Australia, and his little rant goes on to mention how Chicago has no gun control whatsoever and is the murder capital of America. He’s half right…

    I went on in the comments thread (on Newgrounds) to debunk as much of his claptrap as possible in the limited space afforded. I said if you’re going to spout off about gun control the least you can do is get your facts straight. The author of the game has ignored me, but the commenters seem to have found my review helpful.

  11. The site that previously hosted this, Newgrounds, got rid of it after contacting the Sandy Hook victims families about it and agreed that it was to be taken off the site, which they did. It’s asinine and disgusting.

  12. So “Eagletears” mode is just a repeat of the belief that criminals are super ninja assassins who are masters of their craft, and anyone else with a gun is a doddering idiot who can’t hit the broadside of a barn (or depending on the liberal fantasy, will only shoot the kids)?

    • Oh, apparently that is this flavor of liberal fantasy, from http://eriksoderstrom.com/6667/anti-gun-propagandist-creates-game-players-re-enact-sandy-hook-shooting/

      “The game is programmed in such a way that the teachers, while armed, will never actually shoot Lanza, but only hit more children. The player can position Lanza immediately in front of the armed teacher, but instead of hitting the player’s character, the bullet magically passes through him and hits one of the children behind him. As we all know, evil people are immune to bullets which is why the police responding to active shooter situations don’t even bother bringing firearms.”

  13. “Here we are, a year after the Sandy Hook shootings, in which 26 people were killed, 20 of which were first-graders, and absolutely nothing positive has come out of it,”

    Wow, just wow. There is nothing positive about the murder of innocent children. It’s as though these people like mass shootings, and hope for more of them, just so they can use them politically.

    • I’m wondering how long it will take them to start using that recent incident of that Virginia Legislator who was stabbed and his kid found dead of a gunshot.

      • The local media (including the WaPo) seem to be homing in on whether or not the kid was able to find a slot in the mental health system, and ignoring the gun-related aspect of the story. Amazing. I wonder how long that direction will last…

  14. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t there also a game called ‘Super Columbine RPG’ or some jazz like that?

    Still sick either way, I’m really tired of gaming being thrown under the bus.

  15. I like what the original hosting service had to say in this article, when the press asked them about it:

    “It’s like YouTube (although we existed before YouTube), anyone can publish here instantly. Your news, however is by choice, so you should choose whether you really need to show this to the Sandy Hook victims.”

    Since the guy got his stupid game rehosted elsewhere, it was gonna turn into a story either way, but I like how the hosting guy put it on the press. “You’re making this a story.”

  16. This “game” and its attached gun prohibitionist agenda only goes to demonstrate that our enemies have no moral scruples, ethics or conscience at all. Our enemies are those who intend to destroy the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America and reduce The American People to feckless slaves in a Second or Third World Socialist/Totalitarian State.

    So, nothing about this is really surprising.

  17. Mr. Lambourn,

    Yes here we are one year after Sandy Hook but you are wrong about nothing good has come from it. We the People were able to fend off infringements against our rights, so yes something good did come from it you left handed wanker.

  18. It is ironic today, that at my game development master program, in Ethics class, we talked about something very similiar to this, what kind of social responsibilities do game devs have about what they create?

    This seems to be the work of one sick person who decided he wanted a bloody pixel shirt instead of an actual shirt.

  19. In another news source : “The liberals don’t like me because I’ve disrespected the dead. The conservatives don’t like me because of the gun-control message. The conspiracy theorists don’t like me because it risks informing people of what happened. And the trolls don’t like me because it wasn’t edgy enough,” he said via Twitter.

    The guy just doesn’t get it. No one like you because you are a twisted psycho. “Conservatives” or “liberals” or even most tin-foil hat people, generally have some semblance of humanity that balks at making a game out of killing children. This is the sort of guy that someone, normally gentle and calm, will have to punch in the face for being a jackanape. A disgusting cancer on the body of humanity.

  20. Here’s what I’d like to see:

    A game that counters this, where you play as an unarmed teacher who has to run from the gunman and try to save the kids.

    Then, after watching the gunman kill you, you get a firearm and get to shoot back. But, when the shooter sees you with a gun, he immediately puts his rifle to his head and shoots himself, which seems to be the most typical reaction of school shooters.

    • Actually, that would not be a bad idea. Make it an FPS. Have a Gun Free Zone version where you are a teacher, following standard procedure (lockdown, etc) and die predictably while waiting for the police to show up. Have a CHL version where you are the same teacher, but now you are packing heat (with options between several of the more common CCWs, from LCP to GLOCK to to compact 1911 to Baby Eagles or whatever). Be able to set whether it’s elementary, middle, high school, or possibly even college. Allow you to either stay in the room to defend or to go out into the hallways in search. Be able to set the panic level of the student AIs, to how likely they are to cower, to how likely they are to obey your command to get down and stay in the room, etc. If you search, set how likely students are to jump between you and the active shooter (just to allay those “you’re more likely to shoot a student”). Be able to mix it up by setting what percentage of fellow teachers are also CCing and how trigger happy they are (to factor in “you’re more likely to friendly fire”). I suspect that posting the finished product on reddit/buzzfeed/etc should go towards converting some fence-sitters on our side. Especially if you have the intro screen or downloader include a link to this game and said something to the effect of “Anti-gun makes a strawman that seeks only to shock where you play as the criminal. We made a hero simulator that hopefully sheds some light on what would actually work.”

      Above all, make the code open-source so that any tech-savvy anti’s can’t say you scripted the event to prove your point like this guy is doing.

  21. While I am not proposing any amendments be violated, if one were to really “care” about the children rather than going after the 2nd amendment one could argue changing the 4th might be a better way to go. Anyone who were to play this game, anyone who visits forums that discuss how many “points” you would get if and when you execute your planned killing spree, and other sick websites that promote mass murder or harm to the public would probably be a better method to stopping bad things from happening.

    Not saying this is what I would want as big brother would surely use this loophole to over reach but if one wanted to save the children this would be a better route. But I forgot gun control was never about “saving the children”

  22. “Here we are, a year after the Sandy Hook shootings…” I am not looking forward to all the media attention coming up on the anniversary of Sandy Hook. I plan on staying offline and not turning on the TV that day.

  23. There should be no response at all to this ‘game’. Every time there is some sort of tragedy, someone needs to try and use it and a little rudimentary flash skills to get some publicity and money. The less of the former they get, the better.

  24. I like how they make him incompetent and slow with the katana to make it less leathal. Also, in “eagle tears” mode, they give you a whole new level of the school and all of the doors are unlocked. Does this kind of crap really convince anyone to change their mind?

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