Video Games and Mass Shooting: The Non-Existent Link
By: Drew Kuethen
In the last 24 hours, America has suffered 3 mass shootings. Those shooting include 20 dead in a Walmart in El Paso, 9 killed in a bar in Dayton, and 1 killed in Chicago. As with every massacre, everyone starts looking for a reason behind the shooter motive, mind set and mental state, the environment he grow up in and the way his parents raised. Everything is analyzed. Then people start looking for things to blame. They blame thing like guns, the parents, social media, bullies, and yes, you guessed it, video games. It seems for politicians and the older generation, videos games seems to be their favorite thing to bitch about and blame the failings of society on
This is proven by Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, who blames the shooting on video games and the lack prayer in school not even 24 hours after the shooting. He based this fact the Call of Duty was mentioned in the shooters manifesto. Here’s the COD mention from the shooters manifesto “ Remember: it is not cowardly to pick the low hanging fruit. AKA Don’t attack heavily guarded areas to fulfill your super soldier COD fantasy”. Dan Patrick picked out this quote and used it to push his anti-video game views and ideals. Whats even worse, just like the anti-gun crowd, he used a fresh tragedy to voice his religious and political views on Fox News, saying that video games and lack of prayer in schools is to blame for this shooting.
Now lets get to the actual question. Do video games make people violent? Sometimes, but not on this level. Fights have broken out over games, a couple people but upset and killed their opponent, but that doesn’t happen very often. Do video games cause mass shootings? A study from Oxford University proved that there was no link between violence and violent video games. Whats even more proof is that Trump blames violent video games on school shootings, but since he said we can disregard anything he says as fact. Actually when he made those statement, top leaders from the gaming industry met with him to explain to him why he’s wrong. Countless studies have been done on this issue, and they all have come to the same conclusion; Violent games do not cause mass shootings
So in conclusion, When these shooting do happens, let blame the real problem: The shooter. Most of these recent shootings have been done by white men who have racist views, not some mentally unstable gamer who wants to shoot people because he saw it on GTA. Video games do not cause violence, that something we all can agree. So lets find the real issues here and stop blaming TV and video games for these tragedies before the body even have time to cool down