Following two mass shootings within hours of each other in the US on the weekend, the most predictable proverbial punching bag copped another pummelling: video games, said US politicians, were leading to carnage that left 22 people lying dead on a Walmart floor.
“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” President Trump said on Monday, “This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace.”
House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy backed Trump up, saying that “video games that dehumanize individuals” are core to America’s mass shooting problem.
The argument that violent video games create mass murderers out of otherwise innocent young people isn’t just old and tired – it’s been wheeled out consistently since Columbine – but there’s also no evidence to suggest it’s true.
One study last year did find a link between violent video games and increased physical aggression, but the results were consistent from players all around the world, which wouldn’t explain why the United States so often grapples with gun violence.
On Twitter, a chart from Vox that debunked the video-games-cause-mass-shooting argument went viral today. If video games, rather than access to firearms, are linked to mass shootings, why are the biggest gaming nations like China and South Korea also the ones with the fewest violent gun deaths?
Since then, gamers around the world have skewered the argument on Twitter with more than 100,000 posts saying ‘video games are not to blame’.
President Donald Trump has called the weekend’s mass shootings as crimes “against all humanity”. Apart from video games, Trump has also cited mental health and ‘fake news’ as a reason for the violence, but hasn’t yet mentioned a plan to limit the sale of firearms.
President Trump has also called for the death penalty to be applied for those who commit “hate crimes” and mass murders.
