Jack Thompson

[[File:JackThompsonAttorney.jpg|165px|thumb|Game controllers are guns in disguise!]]{{pseudolaw}}{{Video games}}
'''John Bruce "Jack" Thompson''' {{lived|1951}} is 
"humanity's answer to the sarcoptes parasite"
<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y-RkiPhpPY "The Hot Coffee Controversey,"] Zero Punctuation, YouTube</ref> (or rather, was) a [[lawyer]] infamous for his agenda against [[video game]]s, actively intending to create [[moral panic]].

==Thompson's legal career==
Thompson blames video games as the primary cause of violence and [[crime]] among young people, which is why the popularity of ''Tetris'' has led to more people killing others by dropping oddly shaped blocks on them.{{nofact}} Like others of his ilk, he doesn't care about the facts, and he shamelessly takes advantage of tragedy to further his agenda.  He became notorious for popping up as a news network "guest speaker" in the aftermath of [[school shooting]]s to claim that the shooter practiced killing with violent video games.<ref>Brian Crecente.  [http://kotaku.com/252914/feature-dissecting-jacks-lies Dissecting Jack's Lies].  ''Kotaku''.  2007 April 17.</ref>  He has even accused the U.S. [[Department of Defense]] of colluding with video game producers.<ref>[http://www.gamepolitics.com/2007/12/27/jack-thompson-has-defense-department-in-his-sights Jack Thompson Has Defense Department in His Sights].  GamePolitics.com.  2007 December 27.</ref>

He was disbarred by the [[Florida]] Supreme Court, effective October 2008, for "professional misconduct."  This ended a long-running feud between Jack Thompson and the Florida Bar Association going back to 1992 (at one point he accused them of having a [[snarl word|secular humanist]] agenda).  What ''actually'' got him disbarred, however, is filing frivolous lawsuits and defaming various people who opposed him, even accusing them of being involved with [[Child sexual abuse|child pornography]].  Having gotten his just desserts, he then [[persecution complex|claimed to be the victim]].<ref>Brian Crecente. [http://kotaku.com/5054801/thompson-responds-to-disbarment Thompson Responds to Disbarment].  ''Kotaku''.  2008 September 25.  </ref>

What, exactly, he is infamous for among various circles could fill an entire article by itself, but his exploits include mass-mailing thousands of game industry employees and threatening to press harassment charges against them when they responded, flooding the judge's bench with over a hundred pages of [[gay]] pornography as an illogical and crazy attempted bribe during a case, and other unintentionally hilarious shenanigans. Most of his opponents were deeply saddened to hear that this talented amateur comedian has been forbidden from performing. And if that wasn't enough, a GTAForums user named illspirit took credit for [[troll]]ing Thompson into believing that there existed cheat codes for ''{{wpl|The Sims 2}}'' which supposedly disabled the censorship from the game and allowed for genitalia to show up when the titular Sims are unrobed (which as we all know is all untrue; the characters lack any explicit genitals akin to a [[Barbie]] doll. There are indeed adult-oriented mods for ''The Sims'' series but these are generally walled off from mainstream mods sites akin to conventional [[pornography]]).<ref>[https://gtaforums.com/topic/215135-fun-with-jack-thompson Fun with Jack Thompson]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20051120071208/https://illspirit.com/index.php?page=art_of_war Art of War - illspirit dot com] (archived)</ref> Thompson soon took the bait and complained to EA about the matter, but was met with ridicule both from ''Sims'' fans and EA Games themselves, all while illspirit and GTAForums celebrated at the successful trolling operation with popcorn in hand.

==''Grand Theft Auto'' lawsuits==
During the early 2000s, Jack Thompson litigated in a series of failed lawsuits against Rockstar Games over games in the ''Grand Theft Auto'' series:
* On 20 October, 2003, the families of the victims killed by teens, William and Josh Buckner filed a US$246 million lawsuit against the producers.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20060625114709/http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/22/videogame.lawsuit.ap/index.html CNN.com - Lawsuit filed against Sony, Wal-Mart over game linked to shootings - Oct. 23, 2003 (Wayback Machine copy)]</ref> The lawsuit was later dismissed as a violation of the [[First Amendment]].<ref>[http://www.gamespot.com/articles/rockstar-seeks-to-dismiss-gtaiii-lawsuit/1100-6081737/ Rockstar seeks to dismiss GTAIII lawsuit - GameSpot]</ref>
*In February 2005, a lawsuit was brought upon the producers and distributors claiming the video game caused a teenager to shoot and kill three members of Alabama's police force.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20050307095559/http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=502424 ABC News: Suit: Video Game Sparked Police Shootings (Wayback Machine copy)]</ref> The lawsuit was later dismissed.
*In September 2006, a lawsuit was brought on behalf of the families of Cody Posey's victims, blaming his obsessive playing of ''Grand Theft Auto: Vice City''.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140612011934/http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/25/video-game-maker-blamed-04-killing/ Video-game maker blamed in '04 killing : Local : Albuquerque Tribune (Wayback Machine copy)]</ref>

==Penny Arcade antics==
Jack Thompson has had a couple interactions with the gaming webcomic Penny Arcade, to hilarious results. 

*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2005/10/12/jack-thompson Gabe taunts Jack Thompson with Penny Arcade's charity numbers.]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2005/10/14 Gabe explains that Jack Thompson would have to sue himself.] [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/10/14 (Don't forget the comic!)]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2005/10/17/you-lose Penny Arcade donates $10,000 to charity because Jack Thompson wouldn't after promising to.]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2005/10/19 Penny Arcade talk about a fax that Jack incompetently sent to the local police to get them arrested.] [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/10/19 (Don't forget the comic!)]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2007/03/23 Penny Arcade makes fun of Jack's <strike>rocketeering</strike> <strike>raconteuring</strike> <strike>racketeering</strike>] *[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/23  just goddamned stupid legal arguments.]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2008/06/06 Penny Arcade has a <strike>bad</strike> funny hypothesis about Jack's] [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/06/06 true nature.]
*[http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2008/10/03/two-things10 Did we mention that Jack Thompson got himself disbarred on Gabe's birthday as a birthday present to Gabe?]{{lie}}

== Post-disbarment ==
Since his disbarment from legal practice, Thompson made a living teaching civics classes to inmates in the Florida prison system, including an American history and constitutional law class at the Everglades Correctional Institution, according to a 2016 interview with ''Inverse''. Thompson remains undeterred despite the challenges he faced, though, further opining that if a lawyer like him failed to rein in on what he perceived as an industry peddling violence to children, perhaps someone better can finish what he started and somehow win a landmark case against the games industry, drawing parallels to how the [[tobacco]] industry survived decades of research and litigation linking their death sticks to lung cancer and other diseases (never mind the fact that tobacco companies are ''indeed'' complicit with smoking-related deaths while links between violent behaviour and video games are tenuous at best).<ref name="inverse">{{Cite web |date=2016-04-07 |title=Attorney Jack Thompson And His Personal Vendetta Against Video Games |url=https://www.inverse.com/article/12633-attorney-jack-thompson-and-his-personal-vendetta-against-video-games |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Inverse |language=en}}</ref>

His itch to get violent games off the shelves remained in him still as recently as 2018, when the magazine ''Rolling Stone'' reported on how Thompson offered ''pro bono'' legal advice in relation to Marshall school shooting, again playing on the very same anti-video game canards he had always parroted.<ref name="marshall">{{Cite web |date=2018-02-08 |title=Jack Thompson Returns, Argues That Video Games Are Connected To School Shooting |url=https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/jack-thompson-returns-video-games-marshall-school-shooting/ |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=ComicBook.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

Thompson, along with his shameless legal career and subsequent downfall, was dramatised in the 2015 [[BBC]] docudrama ''{{wpl|The Gamechangers}}'' where he was portrayed by the late ''[[Titanic]]'' actor {{wpl|Bill Paxton}}. Rockstar took umbrage at the film's production and threatened legal action,<ref name="LawsuitBBC">{{cite news |url=http://ign.com/articles/2015/05/21/rockstar-games-files-lawsuit-against-the-bbc |title=Rockstar Games Files Lawsuit Against the BBC  |last=Krupa |first=Daniel |publisher=[[IGN]]. [[Ziff Davis]] |date=21 May 2015 |access-date=23 May 2015 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150524012908/http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/21/rockstar-games-files-lawsuit-against-the-bbc |url-status=live |archivedate=24 May 2015 }}</ref> but Jack Thomson himself was surprisingly silent on the matter.


== External links ==
*[http://kotaku.com/5055193/jack-thompson-is-so-disbarred-how-disbarred-is-he Jack Thompson Is So Disbarred...]:  Mocking the now-disbarred Thompson.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sGYo7sCc8w Remembering the Real Jack Thompson (The Big Picture)]: A post-mortem of Jack by Moviebob.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
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[[Category:Christians]]
[[Category:Crank magnetism]]
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[[Category:Video games]]
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Categories: Christians, Crank magnetism, Florida, Homophobes, Lawyers, Right-wing activists, Video games, Living people