I attended the Governor's Honors program in Georgia the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. It was like a 6-week college experience. It was even held on a college campus. We had dorm rooms, intramural sports, mixers, and cafeteria food. We had to do our own laundry and had to keep the dorms tidy. We each had a major and a minor subject. The best part was being put together with kids of similar drive and talent but with very diverse backgrounds and interests. It helped me to break out of my sheltered mindset and understand that not everyone has the same worldview as I do. 23 years later, I am still in touch with several of my fellow students, one of which ended up being a groomsman in my wedding. That summer "nerd camp" was undoubtedly the peak of my high school experience.

Let's look at the actual requirements at scouting.org. It says, "Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour." That means one hour, once. Furthermore, that requirement is one of nine, only six of which must be fulfilled in order to earn the Video Games pin. As a scout leader, I can tell you that the Boy Scouts of America does not promote spending a lot of time playing video games. We do, however, recognize that video games are a normal part of a kid's life experience. So why not teach our kids how to evaluate systems and games from every aspect? Why not teach them how to think critically about selecting and playing video games? There is no specific mention in the BSA guidelines about first-person shooters or any other kind of game. The requirement is to understand the ESRB rating system, to be able to explain it, and to be able to make good choices about selecting games. The guidelines don't even prescribe what it means to make good choices; rather, they assume that the boys and their parents are intelligent enough to make their own decisions. I am a software developer, lifelong gamer, and dad of a scout.

"the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting" Shouldn't they be preventing crimes?