Last week's issue of The Falcon featured an article about the pretend assassination games of "Mafia," "Assassin," and "Stratego Live." On the very next page was an editorial about the recent Northern Illinois University shootings in which a student killed six classmates.

The picture that was included with the feature on assassination games featured a silhouette of two men walking around campus with Nerf guns. The men stalking around campus looked like an eerie rendition of the NIU shootings. It's inappropriate and disrespectful in wake of real school shootings to be playing fake assassination games on campus.

I'm not arguing whether these assassination games are right or wrong, or even that they should never be played; I'm simply questioning if they are appropriate on campus. Is it respectful to pretend to kill other students when lately there has been a trend of actual killings on campuses?

I realize these games are not directly reenacting a school shooting. They are acting out strategy games that involve the pretend killing of another person.

If you think that's a good enough reason to play them on campus, though, think about this: suppose there was a real trend of mass rapes happening on American college campuses. Then imagine if students were pretending to rape each other, but justifying it by saying, "Our actions are unconnected from the actual rapes. We're just acting out a strategy game." Do you think that would make pretend rape appropriate or excusable?

What sort of logical counter argument could respond to this example?

"We're not pretending to rape anyone, just kill them. Why does it matter that there have been school shootings? Our killing is merely pretend."

No matter what it is based off of, the action of pretending to kill students on campus resembles the same action of school shootings.

This isn't just a rousing game of "capture the flag." This game involves sneaking and scheming around campus with pretend guns. According to last week's article, when a kill is made in the game Assassin, "Eliminations were made by drawing a line with the marker across the other player's throat." The hands-on nature of these pretend acts of violence mimics too closely what actual school killings might look like.

Some of these games do have rules that try to respect students who might not like to see pretend murders happen outside of Gwinn Commons.

Nathan Kato, who co-wrote the feature on on-campus games, explained, "Non-game playing bystanders are technically not supposed to see the attacks."

Ideally, when the pretend kill is made, students that aren't playing the game won't be around to see it. Paul Comrie the other author of the original article explained, "I got the impression that many attacks were made when the vicinity was empty of witnesses or at night when most people were in doors."

Such rules are not enough. How could you ever ensure that no one would see the pretend assassinations? Personally, I have seen them happen more than once near Tiffany Loop.

So, why are these games still allowed on campus? Advocates say it is great for student bonding.

Freshman Nate Corley said, "It's the only floor activity our entire floor has participated in." These games are bringing floors together to achieve the sacred thing SPU loves to call community. However, there must be a line between encouraging bonding and what is appropriate in light of campus shootings.

Junior Shelly DeLaney pointed out that not all community bonding is on behalf of a worthy cause. "Wow. They justify this game because it brings together community? Hitler Youth brought together community, too. Maybe they could become communists and call each other brothers or comrades. That's community. Not everything that brings people together should be permissible. They shouldn't be pretending to kill each other on campus just because it helps them bond."

It's not that these games should necessarily be completely outlawed. The problem is that an objective eye would see a strange likeness to the violence involved in recent campus shootings. The players of these games should take their bonding somewhere else.