Absolutely Appalled

On this, the morning after a pilot deliberately flew his small plane into an IRS building in Austin, I was checking news stories for more information and to confirm that fatalities and injuries were limited. In spite of the horrific nature of the act, I was feeling truly grateful that the numbers were so small, not like the Murragh building in Oklahoma City.

I scrolled down the page, looking for any information that was more current than the earlier links.

And there it was. The Austin Airplane game.

I couldn't believe my eyes, so I clicked on the link. Yes, less than 24 hours after a deliberate attack on a building with what had to be more than 200 innocent people in it, killing at least two, injuring around 11, there is a video game where you, too, can crash a plane into an IRS building in Austin.

I had hoped that the comments section underneath the initial link would be filled with "Sicko." and "How could you possibly?" and other expressions of outrage.

Wrong.

There were numerous comments praising the game, saying how "awesome" it is, and that they had "hit a car on the very first try" (not completely sure what that was about, but apparently taking out a car with even more innocents scores points). Out of the 41 posts on the first page, only 4 of the comments were about the tastelessness of the game. Most were ecstatic that someone had 'stuck it to the man' or that the IRS deserved it.

Absolutely appalling!

I'm still sitting here more or less in shock at the callous nature of the game's creators and those who revel in playing it.