Charles Kheng

In wake of the Connecticut school shooting, the NRA is coming out and blaming video games as the cause of the shooting, or at least, partially to blame. It seems like every time something like this happens, the media is always able to find some sort of a connection that ties the shooter to ‘violent’ video games. In the case of Adam Lanza, the game in question is Call of Duty.

Let’s face it, video games are a relatively new media which can engage a wide variety of audiences through its gameplay. However, the effects of video games are still relatively unknown. There are studies which try to understand the effects of video games on its target audience but the results have so far been unsuccessful. There are millions of people all over the world who play video games and if there really is a connection between such killings and video games, the world would be less populated.

NRA executive vice president slammed games like Mortal Kombat, GTA, Bulletstorm and Kindergarten Killers as games which and I quote “a callous, corrupt, and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people”. And this is coming from the person who is EQUIPPING the people to carry out said violence. The same can be said about NRA being callous and corrupt in furthering their own profits and not accepting responsibility. If people are not allowed to purchase and own firearms, tragedies like this would not happen. If people are just flat out not able to own firearms, we would not even be having this ‘conversation’.

What the NRA is trying to do is to push some of the blame to video games as we still do not know the effects on players. They are forcing the idea that the killings aren’t totally their fault and that violent media shares the blame as well. And all of this is to protect their profit margin. Because why? They are afraid that a law will be passed which will make owning firearms harder which ultimately affects their bottom line. So who is being callous now?