Trump Plans to Blame Video Games for Gun Violence

[workinclasszero]

Trump Plans to Blame Video Games for Gun Violence
Industry officials feel like they’re being ambushed—set up to take the blame for the latest national tragedy.
LACHLAN MARKAY ASAWIN SUEBSAENG 03.06.18 9:00 PM ET

President Donald Trump’s stated response to a mass shooting at a Florida high school last month was initially broad in scope. But in recent days, he and his aides have begun slimming down their ambitions, with a particular focus now on shifting more blame onto video games.

On Thursday, the White House is planning to meet with envoys of the video game industry to discuss how violent imagery on their platforms may desensitize young people to firearms—and even train them to be more effective killers. Industry sources tell The Daily Beast that they are worried the session will be an ambush—an effort to scapegoat them for shootings in schools.

“I think you only have to look at Canada,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “They see the same video games that Americans do. They get all the same cultural signals and they don’t have a problem with gun violence as we do. In the end it is not about video games.”

As Feinblatt noted, the link between video games and gun violence has little empirical basis, as studies have repeatedly shown. And the planned White House meeting, the gaming industry worries, appears to be a way to shift a national conversation on gun violence away from gun control measures anathema to Trump’s conservative base and onto an industry with far less political clout in the administration.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-plans-to-blame-video-games-for-gun-violence?ref=home

[Blue_Tires]

1. Yeah, every time I play NHL 17

I sign a $50 million contract and win the Hart Trophy

[workinclasszero]

4. Right

[qwlauren35]

2. I didn't know about Canada.

I have always thought that violent video games are a piece of the problem. But making the guns available is ALSO a piece of the problem. We're not going to stop making films about war. Like "American Sniper". We're not going to stop showing cops as good guys shooting bad guys on TV. We're not going to get rid of our gun culture overnight. If video games are a piece of the problem... then if you're going to go after them, go after the TV shows and movies too. But remove the guns from the hands of the violent. That's got to be numero uno.

[workinclasszero]

5. I get a little uncomfortable with some violent video games as well but

If you believe they are the problem and must be stopped it follows that the same must be true about violent movies, books, TV shows etc.

I've played video/PC games all my life and I didn't turn out to be an alt-right killer so

[qwlauren35]

11. That is what I believe.

I watch a lot of British TV and one of the reasons I like it is because the killers are caught by deduction, but do not resist, when confronted with numerous police officers, and surrounded. Without guns.

I find that I hate the guns, I hate the violence, I hate the culture that espouses it. I would love to see America move toward an anti-gun culture. Without guns in TV, movies, video games, books. Focus on being clever. For example, CSI and NCIS are far more about the science (even though it's wrong, and much faster than in reality) than they are about the guns. Focus on finding the killer and building a case that holds up in court, and not so much on getting him in custody. We used to love Perry Mason. Clever. Not violent.

If you think about the games from 40 years ago, the big game was Dungeons and Dragons. Admittedly Stratego, Battleship and Risk. And card games. But no guns. A bomb or two. The emphasis was on "clever", not firepower. Even driving video games did not require guns, and they offered thrill. Just like Fast and the Furious offers thrill, without an emphasis on guns.

I want to go back to that.

So yes, maybe sometimes I believe that the way we used to do things is better than how we do things now. I don't want to go back to lynching, to Jim Crow, to inequality. I don't need prayer in schools, although I believe in The Pledge of Allegiance. But there are some things we used to do that are better than how we do things now.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I want assault weapons off the streets. Maybe with a buy-back program. If the NRA HAS to be satisfied, allow people to trade an assault weapon for a hand-gun. With 6 rounds. Slow load. No easy change cartridges. Again, the emphasis away from shooting as a solution. Or at least a last resort solution. And policemen with tasers, and sticks, but fewer guns. Again, not assault weapons. No shooting someone who is running. Make the police officers run, dammit. Make them call for back-up. Witnesses. Maybe end some of the corruption unless they are all complicit. Make it harder for them to shoot people.

I want to go back to that.

[TexasProgresive]

3. Thus "Flight Controller" is responsible for 9/11

After all guns don't kill it video games- Who knew?

[workinclasszero]

6. NRA: Yeah video games, that's the ticket!

[atreides1]

7. Of course

Here we go...blame video games! My question is what video game was Jack the Ripper playing? How about Ed Gein, or the Zodiac Killer?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bird_Caf%C3%A9_fire

I'll bet the three arsonists played a rousing game of Atari Pong, before they felt the need to burn down the Blue Bird Cafe!!!

[workinclasszero]

8. There you go!

NRA: Another million or so AR-15 mass killing weapons on the street will take care of this Atari Pong killing spree!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I used to tinker with The Sims.

But it never made me go out and design and build houses or kidnap my neighbors to live in them.

[alarimer]

10. They clearly know nothing about video games.

I've never actually made money by breaking a vase. You cannot actually reload by walking over ammo someone dropped. And when you die, you can just start over.

Yeah, I get that some video games are violent. But so are movies. Video games at least lack the realism of movies. You can still tell they are animated and not real.

I mean, yeah, I avoid most first person shooters. But does anyone actually think Tomb Raider teaches you to raid tombs? Or ancient tombs have all kinds of levers and such that would still work thousands of years later??