Following the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump decided to cast blame on video games for inspiring violent acts, ignoring the fact that most research shows that there is no proven link between the two. But while Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the gun control as a possible response to more than 30 people being killed in a single weekend is infuriating, his absurd comments did earn him a few choice words from Stephen Colbert and other late-night hosts, who managed to highlight Trump’s ignorance with their signature wit and pointedness.
Stephen Colbert has perhaps the most creative approach with his “Super Trump World”, a Super Mario video game parody. In the clip, a cartoon Trump dodges questions from Mario and Princess Peach about how he plans to prevent shootings in the future. “I am going to Toledo!” he responds, referring to Trump mistakenly saying Toledo instead of Dayton in a speech following the massacre.
Jimmy Kimmel also called out the ridiculousness of Trump’s claim, pointing out that there is no proven correlation between video games and real-life violence. In his opening monologue, he said: “Video games have not been linked to gun violence, but you know what is linked to gun violence? Guns.”
Leave it to Seth Meyers to make us laugh while simultaneously making a spot-on observation. “You know that other countries have video games too, right?” he said. “Japan has a huge gaming culture and very few gun deaths. If video games are so influential they should make one called “F**king Do Something”.
Congress, you need some ice for that burn?
