288 thoughts on “point of clarification”

1. Some of you are pathetic and twisted. Some of you would rather sit in your complacency and your security that it will never happen to you than care about the lives of anyone else who isn’t covered by your magic sky daddy.

   I hope one day you experience what it’s like to live through one of these. Or to lose a loved one to one of these. Maybe you’ll grasp the principles of common decency then. I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I’m pretty sure it will. And I’m pretty sure that even after some of you are shot or lose loved ones to being shot, you’ll still cling to your murder machines.

   America. Land of the terrified, home of the dead.

   1. “I hope one day you experience what it’s like to live through one of these.”

      That’s so fucked up.

   2. I’m in favour of gun control but holy shit you’re so fucked up. Please see a therapist to sort out your issues. Hoping that other people go through that kind of suffering is fucking psychopathic.

   3. I am a nonbeliever, but I do believe that wishing this kind of horror on others impugns one’s character and values. And I’m curious as to what you would recommend doing, in order to make this country better, beside wishing ill on your fellow humans? That’s why I read comments, because among all the bile and spittle, occasionally someone will say something wise and incisive that points us in a better direction. Where are you pointing us?

   4. If there is no God, then life has no ultimate meaning anyway, does it? So what are you truly complaining about?

2. You didn’t offended me. I just wish all the shootings will stop. Also i wanted to say I respect you as a person.

3. Thank you for making atheists look like self-righteous bigots. You get ’em, tiger…

4. To all the people saying that gun control doesn’t stop shootings or “guns don’t kill, people do,” I’d like to point out that there is actual evidence to support that gun laws can greatly reduce mass shootings and even smaller-scale crimes. I’m from Australia, and in the 80s and 90s here there were multiple massacres and street shootouts here, a little like America now, maybe. In 1996 there was a massacre in Port Arthur, and that’s when the government finally acted. The Prime Minister at the same, John Howard, later said that he knew he had to act absolutely immediately while the public outrage and political will were still there. That same year, the government bought back more than one million guns and tightened the restrictions on owning them. A lot of gun owners weren’t happy, especially farmers, but the results began to show the PM made the right choice.

   Quoted from wikipedia:

   “Following the National Agreement on Firearms, the number of deaths by firearms in Australia, initially declined slowly. Overall homicides immediately after saw a decrease of less than one per 100,000 persons. Over the medium term homicide by firearm dropped from 1/200,000 to 1/670,000.[26]

   Between 2010-2014, gun related homicides across all of Australia had dropped to 30-40 per year. Firearms in 2014 were used in less than 15% of homicides, less than 0.1% of sexual assaults, less than 6% of kidnapping/abductions and 8% of robberies.[27]

   Since the 1996 legislation the risk of dying by gunshots was reduced by 50% in the following years and has stayed on that lower level since then.”

   Between 1976 and 1996, there were 13 massacres in Australia. After the 1996 Gun laws were introduced to present day, there have been NONE. Not one.

   Now I wasn’t even born in 1996, but I’m so grateful that I was able to grow up in a country that is, for the most part, safe.

   Do gun laws completely stop gun violence, of course not. But the evidence shows that it can help to reduce gun-related crime.

   And Wil, thank you for always speaking your mind! I was already a fan of yours for your acting but I admire you even more for your political beliefs and just general good-ness haha!

   1. You may be confusing causation for correlation.

   2. Does Chicago count? Criminals will get them no matter what. Vietnam Vet here, how did our weapons work in the wars? All you who hate America, want people controlled & our enemies set free…are killing all our soldiers all over again. Songs on Youtube: Soldiers & Jesus, God Bless America Again, Deck of cards by FLOM, Not for Sale Mike Combs….When we are bombed,,the weapons will not pass Will and Others whio are Athiests.

   3. Between 1976 and 1996, there were 13 massacres in Australia. After the 1996 Gun laws were introduced to present day, there have been NONE. Not one.

      Um. Wikipedia thinks there have been TWELVE massacres in Australia between 1996 and the present day, which is about as many as it thinks there were before 1996. Did you leave off a qualifier? Perhaps you meant to add something along the lines of “…using GUNS as the method and killing more than NUMBER people”?

      [The raw number-of-massacres hasn’t actually changed much, but the methods used more recently have become more varied, including “arson”, “vehicular”, “stabbing” and “blunt instrument” alongside more traditional methods.]

      Wikipedia’s list is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

5. Wil, as a person of Sincere Faith (thank you for capitalizing that, btw, to distinguish from “Highly Religious”), I was never offended by anything you’ve said about “thoughts and prayers”. You are exactly correct in your wording. When will the people in power DO SOMETHING to stop the killings?

   My God can hear my prayers to bring some peace to the families of the victims. I don’t expect Him to step in and change the behavior of all these angry white men, or angry black men, or angry whatever… Free Will is one of the tenets of my Faith.

   Anyway, thank you for this apology, even if it doesn’t register as “necessary” in my book.

6. You know, although Ive been a fully out Star Wars nerd for some time, I guess Ive been a bit of a closet nerd in a lot of other areas. Which is kinda nuts since most of my friends are improvisors and other nerds. But, anyways, I bumped into Table Top today and THANKS A LOT … I couldnt stop watching it! Ok, fine, guess I needed a night off. And that’s how I landed here.

   I respect your desire to do better, phrase better, but doing so assumes people will be interested in the facts, which is no longer the case. I have very dear friends on both sides of the isle. And although now a Buddhist, I was once a devout Christian and I have great respect for that faith and many people of faith. Guess what? The fact loving, sane ones of any political flavor tend to be willing to listen and talk to me. The ones that don’t, well, they don’t! So good on you for being a good fellow meatsuit. But honestly, the fair minded ones, the fact based ones, heard you the first time.

   Keep being you, which I am just one day into getting to know. The ignorant haters will remain such, and sane listeners will hear your message, even if they disagree with it.

7. Im a ex soldier I served my country 20 years and I know personally and professionally what guns do and its morally and ethically wrong for society to do nothing about a problem that just keeps happening if children kept drinking bleach you would do something about it by making it more difficult to buy the bleach and put child proof caps on surely gun control deserves more than talk. As much as it would be a perfect solution to get rid of guns that’s not going to happen so how about a little regulation so that buying a gun is as easy as buying a McDonalds ( its not it just seems that way ). I have faith and wasn’t offended by what Mr Wheaton said it was just a opinion and opinions are like arseholes everybody has one. We are all quick enough to attack Islam following a terrorist attack but get upset when its your own religion ( and the man said he wasn’t attacking faith ), I’m not a liberal I don’t agree with everything Mr Wheaton says but he deserves his say and shouldn’t be dragged onto Fox just because he expresses a opinion

8. Question: besides offering your opinion on Paul Ryan, what else to you plan on doing about it? Do you plan on offering your two cents about gun control? Or even better, how about offering your $1 behind the lack of money towards mental health issues in regards to this? After all, as you probably well know, there is still a serious stigma attached to having mental health issues (which is a contributing reason to why Sandy Hook happened). How about going after all those people who chose not to get involved in spite of the red flags being shown about truly fucked up this person was?

   Forgive me for showing your opinion about what happened in Texas one big fat yawn, because most celebs never quite focus their attention on those who were killed, only on asking for more gun control.

   But hey, you’re one of those big law and order kind of people, right?

   1. bot much?

   2. ummm. Wil is actually quite involved in the mental health community. so unless im missunderstanding what you are saying, you might want to find out about the person before you tell them what they should and shouldnt be doing.

9. As a person of faith I didn’t take offense at all – because my personal faith demands personal action to solve problems, not abdication. Saying you’re faithful doesn’t make it so, or make you better than anyone else. Faith also demands that one looks to the good in people, not for excuses to misinterpret their words and hate them.

   No worries from me

10. I’ll side with Team Professional Atheist.

    Faith is a dead end. For all of us.

    It is the root of human misery and must die.

    Reason.

11. You’ve completely ignored the mental health issue, the Air Forces negligence, and all the gun laws in affect. People were hurt and appalled by what you said. They expressed their opinions just as you expressed yours. Maybe we should ban Twitter. So many careers and lives have been ruined by that website. How many people have to lose their livelihood before we realize Twitter is bad. Well maybe not get rid of it altogether. Maybe we should regulate it so people with self-control issues don’t have access. Maybe we should allow a 24 hour waiting period before people who’ve made offensive tweets can have access so they can be checked out and can’t say something hurtful that can damage their reputations or hurt someone else’s feelings. This would greatly reduce the number of offensive tweets and protect people who are prone to make them from hurting other’s and themselves. Only half kidding.

12. I’m sorry, but there is no epidemic of gun violence in this country outside of the daily murders being committed inside poor urban areas where drugs are involved. 99.999% of gun owners in this country will never raise a gun against another human being. It is tragic when one of these incidents outside of the usual demographic happens and innocent people are killed. It’s so tragic and shocking to some people that they shutdown the rational logical part of their brains and only think about the incident with the emotional flight or fight part of their brain. This leads to false conclusions and wrong-headed ideas about how to solve these false conclusions. Gun control for instance will only take guns away from law abiding citizens because criminals, murderers, gangs and drug dealers do not follow the law. Gun control will only cause the underground black market in guns to expand exponentially, and will not result in a single gun being removed from “the streets”. This is a fact. The real problem is we turned over our mental health system to the drug companies under the guise that sanatoriums and psych wards are inhumane. Hand in hand with this is psychiatry which has found it much more lucrative to treat people with drugs instead of with therapy and nutrition. Roll all of that under the fascist AMA which is in cahoots with the corporations to use our health care system to extract as much profit as possible from the people. 99.999% of gun violence in this country, despite the actual rare mass shooting, and despite the fact that many millions of law abiding people own guns, occurs where there is poverty, gangs and drugs. Where are these tons of drugs coming from, who is allowing them to come into our country, who is managing the distribution points into poor urban areas, and who is making the most money off of it? That’s the real issue. Not to mention that we already have every system in place to prevent the latest mass shooting from a gun standpoint, and someone failed to enter this insane criminal’s data into that system. There is not a single law you can write that will protect you from crazy people who decide to start murdering people. Unless of course you’d like to live a world like what was created in Minority Report.

13. Will, are you saying that you didn’t state, “The murdered victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they’d still be alive, you worthless sack of [expletive].”?

14. Here is my two cents, Will, Down with FOX NEWS! There maybe times when they get things right, but I never believe half of what I hear on tv anyway. If others do, let them be the poor sap. Personal thought there and yes I’m religious. The first thought in my head, was where are my family and are they okay.

    I pray for the souls that have died, for the loved ones that will mourn their death.(I know this feeling, Its not easy), and I pray for our officers to put together the clues to find out why this happened. To say prayers could have prevented it is horseshit. If I get blasted for this, so be it.

15. Beaming requests on your mind phone to Your Favorite Ghost are worthless, does not work. Never have and never will. Not once. Ever. It speaks to the dysfunction of our republic that we even waste breath or text debating this ridiculous fantasy. Most religions are built on misogyny, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, genocide, theft, and lies. Built on bigotry and destruction of the other, yet they always claim victimhood. They don’t deserve tax free protection nor serious consideration. The problems we face as a species can’t be solved on a felt board.

    Faith deserves scorn, condescension, condemnation. They’ve earned it many times over.

    1. Would you not agree that some kind of centering helps one focus and can help some overcome some reticence helping them in their move to action? Doesn’t have to be religious. The prayers in events like this are expressions of concern. They should be followed by action and are by many people locally, statewide, nationally, and globally.

       1. Prayer can soothe, console, allow one to center, focus. It can build community or enhance motivation. But that’s an internal monologue centered on meditation. The central and inescapable issue with “prayer” is its adherents don’t claim that its about introspection. They assert that it is literal communication between the individual and one or more spirits, or ghosts. And that is simply not supported by evidence.

          There are many things which can provide the exact same benefit as prayer. Tabletop gaming. Studying a foreign language. Shooting hoops. Riding a bike. Taking a walk. Listening to music. Looking at old photographs. Sitting in the sun. But participants in those activities usually don’t claim to commune with the dead. They don’t claim that riding a bike or playing Plants vs. Zombies on a rainy Sunday will bring them a mate, wealth, or protect them from gunfire. And anyone who offered to play Plants vs. Zombies on a rainy Sunday as a solution to mass murder is worthy of scorn.

          But proponents of prayer DO claim this. And they’re wrong. They’ve had ample opportunity to prove their assertions, but they haven’t. And it’s time we stop giving them any serious credence. They don’t belong in any position of responsibility. We require educated professionals who employ reason and not hope or faith. If I need surgery, I am not interested in hope or well wishes. I want the best professional. I want a qualified pilot flying my plane, not someone who has a sincere faith that a ghost will guide his hand.

          In the comments here, some have cited this Bible verse: “Faith without works is dead.” They’re right. “Works” is how things get done. Faith is a useless sidecar that adds nothing. Let’s get rid of it, and start the actual work of repairing our broken world. One may or may not notice that those who offer “thoughts and prayers” never offer “thoughts and prayers and works” or “thoughts and prayers and actions” or “thoughts and prayers and dollars.” You can offer Thoughts-and-Prayers from your sofa, and nothing happens. Nothing changes. It’s easily the cheapest, most cynical non-currency. Trading at about the same rate as HailFellows, Kudos, and Attaboys.

          Trying buying a gumball with one.

          Lest some claim that I am an enemy of free expression, quite the contrary. I think all viewpoints should be freely expressed, no matter how crazy. But freedom of expression does not mean freedom from scrutiny. You can tell me that buttered popcorn comes exclusively from a magical tree in Bolivia, and I will defend your right to say that and believe it. If you want to wear a Magical Popcorn Tree Hat, I have no problem with that either. But when you try to convince me of your point of view, you’d better have evidence. If not, your assertion is empty and should be dismissed. And if you want to change the laws of my nation so I must obey the Magical Popcorn Tree Spirit, then just no.

          A shill, conman, witch doctor like Paul Ryan has no place being in public office in the first place, but we elect these hucksters. That’s on us. We need to dry up the swamp that nurtures these parasites. And that starts with each of us. We should be intolerant of certain things. Intolerant of ignorance. Intolerant of liars. Intolerant of hypocrites. Intolerant of poisoned air, water, and food. Prayer shaming? Sign me up. If you offer prayer instead of legislation to keep weapons out of the hands of maniacs, you should be deeply shamed. You are vile. And for those who are vile, “sack of poo poo” is more kindness than they deserve (and to be clear, Wil was not calling people of faith or the people in that church sacks of excrement. He was speaking to Paul Ryan and I think that’s 100% fair). If you cheat and lie and enable the P*ssy Grabber-in-Chief, you deserve a prison cell.

          And yeah, harsh language on Tweeter.

          I understand my opinion is fringe in the United States and most people are deeply infected with the virus of superstition. I certainly am. I am skeptical that we can repair our own minds in time to save ourselves. Unfortunately, many other innocent individuals and species will perish because of our monkey dumb belief in fantasy and fiction.

          I’m Spudnuts, and I approve of pie. All kinds, mostly.

16. To further clarify the subjects of outraged, they call themselves Christians. There are other faiths in the world besides the Big Three, the abrahamics, but they are the ones who get the press with their personal fragility when one of their own commits a heinous act. I’m a religious polytheistic pagan witch, and I agree with you 100%. Paul Ryan and his ilk do their best to maintain a false sense of outrage and attack, but don’t bother to follow the teachings of their own prophet.

    I kind of get a kick out of being trolled by those who profess that faith with a small f, but are surprised when I know their mythology better than they do. I have christian friends who really do attempt to follow a christ-like path, and they are equally outraged that their faith is being used as a weapon, and a tool to control the masses.

    Faith itself is not the problem. Using any particular faith to control it’s subjects, or to outrage it’s non-subjects is itself a moral outrage.

17. Fuck faith.

    Come and take ’em, Wil. What you are advocating would involve the government using force (i.e. firearms) to take away my rights.

    The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

18. Oh Will………oh Will….good God.

    I am one of your biggest fans man, and hitherto fore you have used this longstanding blog wisely as a venue for your creative writing exercises and other good-natured reflections…..now SUDDENLY you launch a reactionary attack on gun ownership rights in America, lending your voice in support of that cacophony which is the liberal “noise machine”, a noise machine incidentally which outweighs Fox News by a factor of a 100 to 1 in our progressive-saturated American media sphere. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, you must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque Will because your logic is all over the map. Especially when you backpedal and try to placate “people of faith”, who are collectively the biggest champion of unbridled weapons ownership in America, while you simultaneously take a pointless potshot at Atheists who overwhelmingly agree with your under-thought position on this issue…..WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT? Are you interested in achieving your own ends or not? Furthermore “sick and angry” is not a state of mind that leads to rational policy-making, if one is “sick and angry”, and “angry”, and “ANGRY”– as you allude to over and over in your two posts, one should then take a timeout to re-assess his position and the corresponding facts of the matter. I still love you Wheaton and I always will, but please try to harken back to your classic scene in “Stand By Me” where a young boy uses a large gun to back-off a bigger man holding a knife. Your portrayal of that fictional situation belied your true understanding of the need for superior firepower to defend oneself and one’s friends. When right confronts wrong, it deserves the highest quality weapons available to overcome!

    1. sorry to misspell your name Wil, it was not intentional

19. I am sorry, this is yet another case of what both sides have completely fscked up here in America, mental health. The insurance companies do not want to pay for mental health and neither do the state or federal governments. We have plenty of gun laws, let’s enforce them. Our real issue is people with mental health issues not getting the treatment the need, and people around them (including our government) allowing them access to guns. This person had a long history of mental health issues.

    We have the Aussies giving their perspective, but I am sorry your country is becoming a police state where everything is banned. Fsck that. This is America and I do not want it to end up like a Stallone movie where everything the elite decide is unhealthy or immoral is illegal. If you look at the Israeli version of this where everyone has the right to concealed carry you will come to similar results. The terrorists do not come out and start shooting people with AK-47’s anymore there because so many Israeli’s carry concealed and they would be killed before killing more than one or two people.

    We need to make taking care of people with mental health issues more of an imperative without all of the stigmas. While they are getting the stuff together their guns should be held in escrow by a relative or gun dealer or some other mechanism that allows then to have them back upon successful completion of their treatment (if possible) with Dr’s sign off (this will certainly make the shrinks more responsible hopefully).

    This will also open up the whole can of worms around mental health that it has many issues, mostly centered around it being almost entirely circumstantial. There are few if any tests that are not circumstantial in this field. Changes are underway, but are overdue.

    Just my two cents.

20. Wow, this blog post started a cacophony of crazy. How did Russian bloggers find your blog? Seriously, though, back to gaming! Appreciate your thoughts, but political discussions always bring out the stoopids, and you can find 1,000 more conversations just like this one by scrolling through foxnews or CNN comments page.

21. I’m a Catholic and I just want to say: Respect. Well done. And you are totally right about our insane Gun Culture and the Gun Cult that enables it. I regard the use of prayer as a shield against acting as a form of blasphemy. And I’m in good company: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do what I say?” says Jesus. The use of prayer as a shield for making sure there are 35,000 human sacrifices to the arms industry each year is a gross violation of the Fifth Commandment and spittle in the eye of Christ. The NRA betrays Christ with a kiss.

    1. Luke 22.36

       1. Would you contextualize this verse for me? I’m having trouble following you.

22. Tell us how you plan to get the guns from criminals? There are 1000 laws that are not obeyed by lawless people. These laws do not stop criminals from getting guns and killing people. Your rant appeals to the ignorant utopian view that violent, murderous, scuba bags will cease being so, if there are more guns laws. Hate evil and violence reside in human hearts, This is the problem. Dr King said it best:

    So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed by the power of this love.

23. I’ve read you blog for years and I’m a big fan of table top. I’m also a gun owner. There are a lot of misconceptions of us and you seem to believe a lot of them: That we’re social conservatives, that we watch Fox News, that we’re members of the NRA. I’m none of these things. I’m okay with LGBT people sharing bathrooms with me and my kids. I’m okay with net neutrality. I’m not okay with Gun Control.

    The idea that restrictions on firearms access will solve or improve gun violence in the country is an oversimplification. Gun violence is multifactorial: ideology, mental health, social attitudes, media, and even the physical environment all play roles in Gun violence – and violence in general. If you take guns out of gun violence, violence is still there. We’ve all heard the argument that guns make it easier to kill people; however, SLA Marshall did a study in 1947 that concluded that <25% of soldiers would shoot at the enemy in combat. So having a gun doesn’t make killing easier, it’s psychologically difficult even under “socially acceptable” conditions. (Here’a video that discusses this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zViyZGmBhvs).

    I oppose gun control in the same way that I oppose censorship and the two fights are linked. Once it’s okay to ban assault rifles (which aren’t deadlier than other rifles), it will be okay to ban editorials that support ISIL, or black lives matter. To restrict the rights of the many to punish the few is not only unfair, it sets a dangerous legal precedent.

    I want to close by paraphrasing your 2007 PAX keynote: “The vast majority of sports fans, fundamentalists, executives, or lawyers, and gamers AND gun enthusiasts are decent people trying to live good lives and have a little fun along the way”

24. Hi Wil,

    Long time listener, first time caller.

    I just wanted to say that you don’t need to worry to much about Christians who were thinking you attacked Ryan because of his faith. Christians who break it down to black and white and think everything is an attack on their faith need to look inside themselves and understand exactly what Jesus message was and what he promised. His life abundant wasn’t about big houses and professional success. It was the joy of knowing those things don’t matter. Life abundant is about knowing you are going to be ok no matter what happens. What could be more freeing than that?

    Clearly you hate Paul Ryan for the same reason most of us do, he’s a wanker! He helped Trump get in and he continues to bend over like most republicans for the trump train to pergatory. For those of us in teh rest of the world, I’m in Oz (to clarify that is Australia, not the place with emerald towers, a skipping girl and urine stained footpaths), to see America falling so far hurts us and peace on the planet. Not sure what the solution is yet, but I’m working on it.

    So as a man of faith, but one who supports marriage equality, living in the grey areas and actually looking at Jesus’ example, you have every right to challenge others on why their world is black and white. As long as you do it respectfully and with hope, which you do. What more can anyone ask?

    My day job is Mayor of Lismore in NSW, so I know the politics stuff a little and it does suck. Sucks to be doing it here, now, at this time, due to the casual cruelty ‘us and themness’ that is out there.

    … BTW… just read the depression stuff. dude that blows! Praying for your mojo to re-emerge in 2018.

    Sending peace and love from the other side of the world. If your ever in the neighbourhood my board games are your board games.

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