President Trump: “We have to do something” about violent video games, movies
In a White House meeting held with lawmakers on the theme of school safety, President Donald Trump offered both a direct and vague call to action against violence in media by calling out video games and movies.
“We have to do something about what [kids are] seeing and how they’re seeing it,” Trump said during the meeting. “And also video games. I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is shaping more and more people’s thoughts.”
Trump followed this statement by referencing “movies [that] come out that are so violent with the killing and everything else.” He made a suggestion for keeping children from watching violent films: “Maybe they have to put a rating system for that.” The MPAA’s ratings board began adding specific disclaimers about sexual, drug, and violent content in all rated films in the year 2000, which can be found in small text in every MPAA rating box.
The White House meeting also placed blame for last week’s tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida, on factors such as a lack of “mental institutions” in the United States and marked gun-free zones. “When they see ‘this is a gun-free zone,’ that means that nobody has a gun except them,” Trump said. “Nobody is going to be shooting in the other direction. And they see that as such a beautiful target. They live for gun-free zones.”
Trump did not acknowledge recommendations for bans on assault-style weapons during the meeting. He instead used Twitter to recommend raising a minimum gun-buying age to 21 years and ending the sale of assault-rifle bump stocks.
“That’s just a really pathetic excuse”
CNN reached out to an unnamed 17-year-old Parkland High School student following Trump’s remarks. When asked about the president’s statement, the student replied, “That’s just a really pathetic excuse on behalf of the president. I grew up playing video games, Call of Duty, all those first-person shooting games. I would never dream of taking the lives of any of my peers.”
The news follows similar statements offered by Kentucky governor Matt Bevin (R) last week in the wake of the Parkland High School shooting. “There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside of schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who’s lying there begging for their life,” Bevin said in the interview.
Kyle Orland’s Ars report on the Bevin statement sums up a recent history of inconsistent and inconclusive studies about violent gaming’s impact on young minds. Orland also digs into the modern history of politicians blaming or questioning violent video games’ role and influence in shooting tragedies. Among those asking questions was President Barack Obama, who asked Congress in 2013 to “fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds.” His 2013 call was part of a wider request to end the federal government’s freeze on gun-violence research. Trump has yet to issue a statement about that ongoing bureaucratic freeze, which has essentially stymied gun-violence research since the passage of the Dickey amendment in 1996.
Trump previously used Twitter to place blame for a school shooting on violent media, saying days after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, “Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!” Trump himself was the star of a financial sim game, Donald Trump’s Real Estate Tycoon, in 2002, but the only violent reactions it provoked came from critics.
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1264381