A new pro-gun-control game allows players to reenact last year’s Sandy Hook elementary school massacre.
The game, The Slaying of Sandy Hook, has players to carry out a bleak, stylized version of the shooting, which took the lives of 20 children and six adults. Players take on the role of Adam Lanza, the perpetrator, and text boxes prompt them to pick up a Glock pistol, move into the bedroom of Lanza’s mother, Nancy, and shoot her four times, just as Lanza did in real life. They are then directed to pick up an AR-15, ammunition, and Nancy Lanza’s car keys.
The game then moves to Sandy Hook Elementary where players have an 11 minute time-limit to kick in classroom and bathroom doors and slaughter students and teachers as they flee or cower on the ground. There are no voices or music; the only sound effects come from gunfire and bullets impacting bodies. When prompted, players may also end the game by committing suicide.
Players are then presented with a results screen, which informs them of the number of surviving students and teachers, including whether they hid, played dead, or were wounded. There are 58 potential victims in the game, though the screen informs readers that the total body count in real life was 26 dead and 2 wounded.
The game also has a “gun control mode,” which allows players to attempt to carry out the massacre using a katana—after sarcastically challenging the player to open a gun safe—and suggests that Lanza would have been able to break into the school anyway if a sledgehammer “happened to be . . . available.”
The game’s credits urge players to contact lawmakers and urge them to pass gun-control measures. It also links to the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action as a means to “keep up with important gun legislation.”
The creator is credited as Ryan Jake Lambourn, Twitter handle @googumproduce, who claims to live in Australia. Lambourn has tweeted that the game is “about importance [sic] of gun control.”
The game is available on several websites, but has been removed from popular flash site Newgrounds.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364341/pro-gun-control-game-allows-players-reenact-sandy-hook-sterling-beard
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/199731/sandy-hook-inspired-game-sparks-outrage/
