As the saying goes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, but some are deciding to take this mantra to a whole new level of dim-wittedness. As someone who has never played Fortnite or dominoes, perhaps I just don’t understand the stakes or raw emotion involved, or maybe heavy drug usage and hearing voices in your head just don’t mix well with firearms. Either way, an unrelated pair of clown shoes in Pennsylvania and Missouri, who I’d have gladly given Darwin awards to, decided their catharsis would come through the taking of other people’s lives instead. 

Our first stop is in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, where a man is facing murder charges for allegedly shooting and killing his friend during an argument while playing Fortnite. Let me save you some time if you’re like me and have to look that up. It’s a video game. 

The incident occurred on Nov. 8 at around 3:27 a.m., inside a home on Westhorpe Lane. Court documents explain that 21-year-old Holden Hoffsis called 911 to say he “accidentally shot his friend in the chest,” but what would follow is a scene and an explanation that simply don’t make sense. 

Hoffsis reportedly stated that he loaded the firearm, which he regularly kept near him for protection, but believed the chamber was empty. The suspect and his friend, Daniel Gray, had been drinking hard cider and using cocaine throughout the evening when, after losing a round of Fortnite, Gray “yelled at him and got in his face,” court documents allege. Authorities say that’s when Hoffsis stood up and fired the gun he previously said he thought was unchambered into his friend’s chest before calling 911. Sure, that sounds like an accident…

Investigators found jars of marijuana and packaging materials in the home, which led authorities to believe Hoffsis intended to distribute as well. 

“This case is another sad example of how the mix of drugs and guns leads to violence and death,” said Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe, Chester County District Attorney.

Hoffsis is charged with murder and related offenses and is being held at the Chester County Prison without bail.

The following evening, in another gaming-related tragedy, another man was murdered inside a Kansas City, Missouri, home while playing dominoes. 

Upon arriving at the home just after 6 p.m. on reports of a shooting, officers found 27-year-old Marcus Oldham unresponsive at a table suffering from gunshot wounds. 

According to witnesses, Malik Johnson, of North Carolina, had driven to Kansas City on the day of the killing. Johnson sat on a window sill near a table where Oldham played dominoes, without argument or hostility between the two men. At one point, Oldham yelled “domino,” indicating he had won, when moments later two gunshots rang out as witnesses saw Johnson holding a revolver pointed at Oldham, causing one witness to run and call the police. 

A second witness indicated to authorities that they had spoken with Johnson earlier and he asked if they thought he was crazy, explaining that his mother and grandmother had described him in that manner. When detectives later contacted an associate of Johnson’s from North Carolina, the woman told them Johnson had grown more paranoid, saying he had been hearing voices in recent months and claiming he was being watched and that people were trying to get him.

Johnson is charged in Jackson County Court with second-degree murder and armed criminal action.

While suspects and victims in these incidents are largely different from one another, both show a common thread, poor decision-making. Sure, one was influenced by alcohol and cocaine, and the other by what seems to be mental illness, but in either case firearms should not have been involved. I want to point out, however, that an enraged or sick individual bent on taking a life is going to do what they are going to do, gun or no gun. The only thing we can do as a society is to educate ourselves, find better ways to identify those suffering from any illness that may cause them to harm themselves or others, and act responsibly and with compassion while keeping a vigilant eye on our safety and those around us…especially, it seems, when playing games.

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36 COMMENTS

    • Just a couple more additions to the “gun violence” totals. Every time one of these idiots shoots someone, the anti-gun industry gets more ammunition for their cause. Of course they do this for all legitimate self-defense shootings as well, so whatever.

      • I live in CA. Back in the 80’s I worked at a state prison. Dominoes was the big thing amongst the inmate’s.

        Dominoes were also the running joke as the #1 pass time of able bodied males leeching off welfare.

            • It’s an odd talent, doesn’t really correlate tightly with IQ. I played a former Grand Master once. He was an endstage alky and so drunk on beer and schnapps he needed help getting to the restroom. Then he needed help getting back in his chair. Made me resign, turned the board around, made me resign, turned the board around, did it again.

              Then there is the 8 yo that does just OK in school but can beat damn near anybody that walks.

              But yeah, I definitely get the envy thing. King of the board games…

              • As a medieval strategy game to reach warfare chess was a bit limiting and evolved into the game “kriegspiel”, which in turn divided into tactical and strategic versions. Compared to the 8×8 board used in chess, kriegspiel needed large rooms. But these are the ancestors of modern board and computer based strategy games.

  2. Worked a homicide once that started as an argument over a card game. Weapon of choice was a cast iron frying pan.

    • People fail to realize that improvised and purpose-built bludgeons are all around us–and quite deadly.

      All you need for an effective bludgeon is some weight and hardness. Rocks and bricks abound. Iron/steel objects abound. Dense wood objects abound. Even a sturdy glass bottle (such as a wine or bubbly/Champagne bottle) can be an effective bludgeon–especially if that glass bottle has the liquid contents inside for added weight.

      A person who is intent on harming another has ample opportunity to do so.

    • That’s a hard way to go, particularly if there’s been cooking just prior.

      My wife prefers aluminium. Quicker on the draw, and requires less winding up…

      (fingering my scalp)

    • Yep, he even made an advertisment for her. Most actors are mentally damaged leftists and only a few are able to reason and think logically.

  5. Fortnite? Who the heck is still playing Fortnite? That game is so 2017.

    Try War Thunder instead. It’s a game that teaches strategy, tactics, research, and history (often very obscure military history).

  6. We still kill each other over playing a game. It was card games before. Now in the 21st century will kill over a computer game.
    The only thing to have advanced has been the weapons we used.

    • Thanks.
      My grandmother told me her father my great grandfather, witnessed a card player getting shot in the back. It was inside a Missouri saloon. He was not facing the door. And the other players refused to change seats when he had asked earlier.

      That was way back in the 1890s. The times have not changed. Only now the murder weapon is a semi-automatic. And not a revolver from 1890.

  8. Yhere was a case in Mobile county Al.a few years ago where a couple fools got into a fatal altercation over what flavor of Kool-Aid to make. If memory serves the weapon of choice was a knife, but dead is dead and the implement used is irrelevant.
    Point being, unstable or impaired people will do violence no matter what the law reads or what implement is available.

    • “I once saw him kill three men in a bar with a pencil. With a f***ing pencil!”

      Unstable, impaired, or focused. Very, very focused.

  9. Our brain dead one term president, is playing a dangerous game with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

    He is setting up the president elect and the rest of us, as really big losers, in this “game of chicken.”

    • h ttps://www.dailyfetched.com/lindsey-graham-says-quiet-part-out-loud-on-real-reason-behind-ukraine-war/ always more to the story and never trust neocons or RINOs.

      • The America First crowd are the only real anti-war movement. The others are comfortable with war.

        When “their guy” or “their gal” is in charge.

        • Given their origins and behavior that would be any politician that isn’t America first as their behavior during the Obama era demonstrated.

  10. One thing keeping up with the gun industry, you learn that America is notably ABSENT casual killings – compared to the rest of the world. The more a nation restricts firearms possession, the higher the death rate by use of them. Their government constantly creates a division and exploits harrassment of groups, who then respond with likeminded violence, and it churns thru generations and centuries.

    We have actually avoided a lot of that up thru the 1960’s, then it has been our turn to be engaged in warfare, albeit it isn’t conducted with guns – we are far more numerous than our enemies. Nope, we are fighting a war where most of the public doesn’t even recognize who is trying to defeat them, and who actually believe their enemies arguments, all whlle complaining their own members do nothing to stop it. They fail to see they are ELECTING some of their own enemies into office repeatedly. All they need do is pay attention to local politics and primary them out, but they throw up their hands and say “politics is too dirty for me.”

    Disarmed before they even arrive at the fight.

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