“This is not going to end well, is it?”
This was Fortnite. And no, it was not going to end well.
(Yes, this pro-gun control progressive allows his kids to play Fortnite. You want to fight about it? Let’s go: virtual tactical shotguns at 15 digital paces. You usually can find me between the Wailing Woods and the Lonely Lodge, hovering at the edge of the storm.)
My kid was right though, it was not going to end well for us. It almost never does.
Someone is always quicker on the draw, or luckier with the loot.
We’ve been sniped and ambushed, shotgunned and taken out with an imaginary submachine gun. We’ve been blown apart with pixelated missiles, blasted into oblivion with a glowing green assault rifle, even chopped down in 94th place with a pretend pickaxe.
It’s a dangerous game, Fortnite. But there is always that sliver of hope. You take that leap of faith out of the Battle Bus and deploy your glider confidently. You build your fortress tall and strong from the finest wood and brick and metal, hoping – even expecting, beyond all logic – that the odds will favor you this time.
The odds almost never favor you.
It’s a shooting gallery out there, peopled by 100 or so moving targets. And the targets shoot back.
It’s a fantasy world for some, a nightmare for others.
Firearms and ammunition lie around in broken-down houses and barns, in attics and shining gold chests. Gather the loot, move and shoot.
It’s a game. My kids are not more likely to harden into cold-blooded, real-life killers because we play Fortnite or Star Wars Battlefront or Fallout 4. New research out of the University of York shows that there is no correlation between video games and increased violent tendencies.
As a parent, I don’t even think twice about video games as a launchpad to true villainy.
As a parent, I think A LOT about the real-life shooting gallery that our country has become.
I think about the parents of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Sandy Hook. I think about the parents and I think about the kids who are gone and I think about the survivors.
I’ll think about them Saturday as I walk with my kids and hundreds of thousands of other Americans during the nationwide March for Our Lives demonstration. It’s by, for and about the kids, the kids of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
My kids.
Your kids.
My kids know where I stand on this. They know because I’ve told them I grew up around guns and hunters, and I’m not anti-gun.
I am anti-gun massacre, and pro-regulation of weapons of war.
I support groups like Every Town for Gun Safety, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and Sandy Hook Promise, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Giffords Courage to Fight Gun Violence.
These organizations and the determined, compassionate people behind them share one cause – to end the ever-present threat of violence with firearms in the United States. They face equally determined opposition in the form of a gun lobby that loudly defies the will of the majority of Americans for the sake of a few more gun sales.
I won’t get into that discussion now, because honestly, I’m tired of it. Instead, we’ll rally in support of the kids.
Instead of trying to change the minds and hearts of people who will never budge off their belief that the Second Amendment trumps our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we’ll take a day off from Fortnite — no great sacrifice, I know — and March for Our Lives on Saturday.
It’s a start. And, we hope, this will end well.
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