In Vigil for Newtown Victims, Video Gamers Will Put Down Their Weapons

Early in the morning on Friday, December 14, 20-year old Adam Lanza, authorities say, “perpetrated the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history,” killing 27 people, many of them children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. In the wake of the tragedy, many took part or will take part in vigils to mourn the dead, moments of reflection and remembrance held in locations across the country.

The sorrow surrounding the Sandy Hook shooting has prompted Antwand Pearman, head of GamerFitNation, to bring the vigils to the virtual realm. On Friday, December 21, Pearman is calling for a “day of cease fire for online shooters,” a time for video game players lay down their virtual guns in honor of those lost in the shooting. Pearman to TheAverageGamer.com:

I’m asking for one day to put your controller down and show some love. We play fake wars while real wars continue. War is a very consistent thing. War is constant and daily. How about peace?

The call is not meant as an admittance that shooter video games cause violence, says Pearman to Polygon. Indeed, increasing consumption of video games does not correlate with increasing gun violence, says The Washington Post. But, for people who hang out in a virtual world where the population of the Earth has been killed many, many, many times over, a day of peace can’t hurt.

December 21, the proposed day of video game ceasefire, comes a week after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, and three months after the official United Nations International Day of Peace, a day that the Culture of Peace Initiative has dubbed the “day of Global Ceasefire.”

More from Smithsonian.com:
In 2010 $600 Million in Guns and Ammo Were Exported from the US
In Canada, People Gladly Trade in Guns for Shiny New Cameras

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.