The Sandy Hook shooting is a tragedy and it should not be treated as anything less. It is clear that something needs to be done in order to prevent such tragedies from occurring again in the future. But what? There are two targets that typically come up after shootings and those are guns and video games.

Video games have been criticized for promoting violence through their game play, but are they truly responsible for someone’s actions? A video game’s primary purpose is to entertain, which it does very well. I believe I can speak for all gamers when I say we do not want to defend our right to play video games, we just want to play them.

To say a game is crafted just for the sake of violence is to completely ignore all other facets of the game: the story, the art, the philosophy and many others. To experience the emotions the characters in a game should be feeling allows a level of empathy that used to be reserved for only the most well written books and movies.

The heart of a gamer is not that of malice, hatred and anger. It is that of someone who has passion for their hobby much like the bookworm or movie-lover. We all have our hobbies and our passions, so why must the passion for gaming be wrapped in ignorance and hate?

Instead of finding a solution, we pick an easy target like video games to explain to someone why their child will not be there tomorrow when they wake up. The banning or heavy regulation of video games will not stop tomorrow’s shooter. It will only affect a rich community of people who just want to do what they love: play video games.