Boy this burns my A$$......In defense of Lazer Tag.....
I feel bad for anyone who enjoys Lazer Tag in Germany because I know what its like to enjoy the game only to have it taken away. In my case it was taken away by market forces rather than government and even then it was lousy.
I used to play Lazer Tag frequently and I was even a member at a Lazer Tag Arena for a good year before the arena went out of business. Since there is no other place that I know of in the area, I have to get my fix by playing some Halo with my brother when the urge gets me. Occasionally, when I go up to Orlando, I patronize a place called Wonderworks which has a low end Lazer tag arena. Still, even that experience is but a shadow of what I used to enjoy.
With my credentials established, I can unequivocally say, from my personal experience, that Lazer Tag is not an "affront to human dignity" in any way shape or form. Combat and competition have always been and will probobly always be an intregal part of the human condition.
Playing at war in a highly sanitized way with a game whose name evokes images of school yard "freeze tag" more readily than mortal combat is not offensive to any save the faintest of hearts.
A simulated war game that say...subjected female participants to simulated rapes would be offensive to human dignity. Such a war game might be inclusive of a very real and ubiquitous aspect of war just as lazer tag incorporates shooting, also a real part of war.
But unlike Lazer Tag my hypothetical game would be objectionable for a variety of reasons. Any reasonable person must acknowledge that each of us may have to kill someone someday, either in self-defense or in the service of our country or community. Killing an armed assailant is not damaging to that person's dignity, rather it merely ends his life. No reasonable person can say raping someone, for any reason, is anything less than an affront to human dignity. Killing then is only wrong in a given context. Simulating a battle is one thing. Simulating a gangland shooting is another.
Lazer Tag, by several of your comments is lumped together with violent video games. I agree that both are on the target for out of work gun banners. But actually, lazer Tag is actually a far healthier though considerably more expensive pursuit than violent video games. I will prove this with two points.
1. Parents who are upset that their kids never excercise should jump to let their kids play Lazer Tag. Sure the game won't keep their kids from having a unhealthy pale complexion but it does require considerable physical exertion. Sci-fi geeks who regularly play it will be in better health than those who don't. Gamers and geeks will get face to face physical interaction with others so it builds them socially as well. Needless to say, the benefits to their eye-hand coordination far outstrip those of a video game or even shooting real guns unless one is shooting skeet or trap.
2. Lazer Tag has no gore and no sexually explicit content and yet it beats the hell out of any and I mean any, first person shooter on the market today.
3. If God forbid, your kid has to go to war, playing Lazer Tag on a regular basis will have taught him the value of situational awareness. Then again, it might of taught him so many bad tactical habits....Well, if your kid needs to know about warfare for history class, there is no better way to appreciate why being outflanked or overrun is a bad thing then by having it happen to you. Isn't it a lot better to get a tiny taste of that experience without having to pay the usual price in blood?
In fact, Lazer Tag is a family game and often parents shepherd excessively young children through the arena and cheat for them by covering their vest or even shooting for them.
Note that I am not condemning violent video games. I love violent video games and I will defend to the death our right to play them. I am simply saying that from a moral standpoint, if anything, Lazer Tag is better. For those who would argue that Lazer Tag is problematic because one is engaing (and on occasion hunting) other people, I would remind the reader that with X-box live and deathmatches on-line gamers will never again lack for the feel of engaging a real human opponent.
But I'm sorry for my rant. I've only said a fraction of what I could have said about Lazer Tag and I never even told any fun stories. If Role-playing (especially Dungeons and Dragons) ever somehow comes up I'll be just as bad. I guess I have a knack for playing misunderstood games.
My larger point (neccessary to make this relevant to this forum) would be that the same culture that produces gun control also produces bans on anything related to violence. These do gooders feel that we have no business and should have no desire to defend ourselves or even simulate defending ourselves. Any violence, to them, simulated or real, is automatically agrressive and evilly intended. If you give into that culture on the point of gun control you will soon lose your right to everything and essentially to your manhood. For those women who are discovering guns, lazer tag and roleplaying they will cruelly be cut off from a portion of their human dignity they have just now really started to discover and recover.
Being self reliant and capable of using violence to defend oneself is an essential part of human dignity. Charlton Heston discussed, at one point, the privately owned firearm as a physical object embodying the pinacle of human liberty.
