Finnish shooter said games did not encourage his rampage

Tuusula, Finland was in shock following a fatal school shooting that killed six students and two faculty personnel, and wounded 10 others at Jokela High School in a small Finland town. Flags in Finland were flying at half-staff Thursday, November 8, 2007, and a moment of silence was observed for the eight people killed during a student’s rampage before the shooter, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, turned the gun on himself. Auvinen didn’t die on the scene, he actually died at a local hospital in the town from his self-inflicted wounds.

Auvinen, an 18-year-old student at the school, was the small town’s first known school shooting. During the probe police had found a suicide note bidding his family good bye. The motive was unclear and officials believed he picked his victims at random.

During the investigation, police reported that they found 69 shells and more than 320 unused bullets at the scene. All of the victims had multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body and head.

Because Auvinen happens to be a big fan of first-person shooters including Battlefield 2 which he played a few minutes before his rampage. I’m pretty sure gamers can expect to hear about this fact and the incident added to the arguments of anti-videogame propaganda and blame game circulating through the media in the upcoming days.

Auvinen was not shy about his intentions, in fact he posted tons of videos on YouTube about his hatred towards the bureaucracy of religion and anything else he found wrong with society, but most of his videos as well as his account on YouTube have been deleted since the shooting. His latest videos Most of his videos chronicled his angst against everything that is wrong in the world and his days leading up to the shooting.

Wearing a black t-shirt that read: Humanity is Over-rated, the student who calls himself Sturmgeist89 on YouTube and NaturalSelector89 on the Battlefield 2 stat boards, had been plotting this event since he turned 18 and was legally allowed to purchase a gun. He wanted media attention but he wanted the public to be clear that his movies and games had nothing to do with his decision.

“…Don’t blame the movies I see, the music I hear, the games I play or the books I read. No, they had nothing to do with this. This is my war: one man war against humanity, governments and weak-minded masses of the world! No mercy for the scum of the earth!”

Of course his list of games, movies and music will be blamed anyways. Auvinen’s online profile alone is enough for anti-gaming activitsts to use as fault to the violence situation of course so it wouldn’t matter if I listed what the teen’s profile reads or not. So, here it is. Note the profile says “computer games” with no specific game listed.

• Existentialism, Freedom, Truth, Misantrophy, Social / Personality Psychology, Evolution Science, Political Incorrectness, Women, BDSM, Guns (I love you Catherine), Shooting, Computer Games, Sarcasm, Irony, Mass / Serial Killers, Macabre Art, Black Comedy, Absurdism;
• Movies and Shows: The Matrix, A View To A Kill, Falling Down, Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, Last Man Standing, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Butcher MD (aka Zombie Holocaust), Saw 1-3, Lord Of War, The Deer Hunter, True Romance, The Untouchables, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Idiocracy, They Live, Apocalypse Now, End Of Days, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Dr. Strangelove, House MD (TV), Monty Python, TV Documentaries Relating To History
• Music: KMFDM, Rammstein, Eisbrecher, Nine Inch Nails, Grendel, Impaled Nazarene, Macabre, Deathstars, The Prodigy, Combichrist, Godsmack, Slayer, Children Of Bodom, Alice Cooper, Sturmgeist, Suicide Commando, Hatebreed, Suffocation, Terrorizer
• Books: Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), 1984 (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley), The Republic (Plato), all works of Nietzsche

This incident sounds very much like that of Virginia Tech, except VA Tech shooter Sueng-Hui Cho never played games except Sonic as a child. Looking through Auvinen’s list of videos, he has a tribute to CodeName 47, the name of the character in Hitman which I’m sure will be looked over with a fine tooth comb in the fight against violent games as well.

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