<
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/06/the-pile-on-blaming-video-games-for-texas-shooting-begins/>
"Now that we’re encountering mass shootings in America on what appears to
basically be a weekly or so clip, all the tired, made-up, bullshit talking
points that get trotted out to shift blame are coming off as even more tired
and made-up than they did previously. We’ve now had three mass shootings that
have been all over the media in the past 3 weeks — while, by definition, there
have already been over 200 mass shootings that have occurred just this year in
America — all of which used a common AR-15 long-rifle weapon. Beyond that,
there aren’t a ton of similarities in the shootings. One appears to have been a
racist attack on an African American neighborhood, another the random desire of
a sick individual to specifically shoot up an elementary school, while the most
recent in Tusla thus far looks to be a more targeted killing event for reasons
unknown at the time of this writing.
But, again, all three incidents have two things in common. First, multiple
firearms were used, but all included an “assault-style” weapon (yes, I realize
this term is problematic). Second, the pro-gun crowd has retreated to those
tired talking points I mentioned in the opening. It was social media. It was
rap music. And, because of course, it was video games.
And while a certain segment of the popluation will flail about to blame
literally anything other than access to firearms for these gun deaths, the pile
on to blame video games has begun. It began with Texas’ Dept. of Public Safety
Chief Steven McGraw, who first acknowledged that police officers in the
building did a whole lot of nothing while children were murdered until Border
Patrol showed up, but then pivoted to the evil of “cyber gaming.”
This has to stop. The link between video gaming and mass shootings not only
hasn’t been proven, but there are plenty of studies showing the potential for
gaming, even violent gaming, to defuse the desire of otherwise potential
shooters. To be clear, that isn’t proven either, but that isn’t really the
point. The point is that there is zero reason to mention video games in this
context at all, even as a throwaway comment such as McGraw’s. Other countries
have violent video games and, ostensibly, whatever “cyber gaming” is. And yet
they don’t have our mass shooting or gun violence problems."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
