Well, it’s that time of year again when a conservative Fox News anchor shifts the blame of mass shootings on anything but America's largely unregulated gun laws.
Fox News anchor Jon Scott sat down with former special agent for the firearms division of the Department of Justice Bernard Zapor when he attributed the latest mass shootings to violent video games.
“It seems like things have gotten so much worse since video games became so realistic and so violent,” said Scott.
He added: “Have you done research or learned that video games tend to just desensitise people to the actual result of pulling a trigger?”
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To which Zapour responded: “As we become more disenfranchised as individuals and groups, people leave a faith, for example, the family units become smaller, or more disconnected and we leave at further distances, we’re communicating through a medium which was never really intended as a human being, which is online.”
Zapor went on to add that large venues like shopping centres can put safety measures into place to prepare for shootings, which he calls ‘rare events’.
According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been 202 mass shootings in the US this year, with three occurring in the past week.
It’s amazing how gun control reform isn’t raised once, nor the 180-page racist manifesto the perpetrator of Buffalo's mass shooting wrote.
Professor of information systems and decision sciences at Cal State Fullerton, Ofir Turel, has found no link between graphic video games and gun violence.
In 2020, research conducted by Turel found that American adolescents between 13-17, who play low to moderate levels of video games a day, are less likely to bring guns into school than those who don’t play.
It was concluded that children playing low to moderate levels were ultimately occupied by game playing, preventing them from obtaining a gun.
Turel said of his research: “I sought to take a different look at the issue, by taking a balanced view, and pointing to the preventative role of games, in addition to their (small) potential to be associated with aggressive behaviours.”
Video game writer and designer Zak Garriss also pointed out that despite video games being accessible worldwide, only America continues to see a rise in mass shootings.
He told Vox: “Video games are a global industry, dwarfing other entertainment industries in revenue in markets comprised of gamers from the UK, Germany, France, Japan, the US, and basically anywhere there’s electricity.
“Yet the spree shooting phenomenon seems to be seriously and uniquely a US issue right now.
“It’s also worth noting that the ratings systems across these countries vary, and in the case of Europe, are often more liberal in many regards than the US system.”
Charisa Bossinakis