Violent Video Games Pulled From Massachusetts Rest Stops — Artery-Clogging Treats Still Available

There is a gun issue bubbling over in this country. There has really always been a gun issue but the tragedies in Newtown, Aurora and Tuscon need a scapegoat besides, you know, the mentally unstable people behind those crimes. The pundits, politicians and 24-hour newsies needs to point the finger of blame at something and it's the people selling and buying firearms illegally Duck Hunt at the Nantucket Rest Stop near mile marker forty-seven.

Massachusetts officials have pulled all gun-based arcade games from state-owned rest stops up and down the turnpike and are organizing a video game turn-in program for all games deemed violent. The state DOT decided to remove nine video games from various rest areas after receiving an intense onslaught of letters from thousand of people traveling the busy highway. Kidding. They got one letter from two people traveling with their children.

"Just outside the rest rooms was a young man pointing a life-sized machine gun at one of the plaza’s video game machines, firing rapidly and with a loud rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat sound. The image of the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School immediately came to mind, and we were struck by the possibility that someone from the Newtown community, driving east for the Christmas holiday, might stumble across this scene. We don’t believe that violent video games are the singular cause of mass shootings; there are multiple and complex contributing factors. But games with realistic-looking and sounding plastic assault weapons, which likely desensitize players to the realities of mass destruction, have no place in state-sponsored highway rest stops."

So they see a "young man" (who, for all we know, could be thirty depending on the age of these people) minding his own business playing a video game. It bothered them so much they sat down and wrote a letter (well that mystery is solved -- they are both in their 80s because no one born after 1940 would grab a pen and paper in 2013) because they were concerned about people from Newton who MIGHT be traveling and see a kid playing a video game. Most likely in an effort to get out of a town overrun by a zealous media who wouldn't leave them the hell alone.

So based on one letter -- and local officials completely overacting -- nine games were pulled including Time Crisis (a game from 1998) and Beach Head. The DOT allowed Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga to stay because a giant yellow orb eating ghosts and space ships are fun, adorable and fine for kids.

Oh right.

So, um, anyone want a Cinnabon? Line starts behind those twenty fat people.