Video Games Blamed for Mass Shooting, Again

There were two mass shootings over the weekend.

I’m not going to go over them in any considerable detail, given that this is a gaming website and we’re not really in the business of handling real news, but for the purposes of this story it’s important to note that one of the shooters, the one in El Paso, released a manifesto online that detailed his… let’s say “anxieties” about Mexican immigrants, the fate of the white race, and the United States border. He also targeted Mexicans in his rampage.

Which is why, when addressing the tragedy yesterday, our president Donald Trump made the obvious connection of blaming video games.

"We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly videogames that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately. Cultural change is hard, but each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life. That's what we have to do."

Okay. Fine. We’re not really going to have this argument again because there’s not much of one to be had: we all know this isn’t the problem. And to his… ‘credit’, Mr. Trump did acknowledge the shooter’s racist manifesto when making his statements. He just also failed to mention that the shooter’s use of the term “invasion”, among other things, were air-lifted from his own tweets and political ads on Facebook.

Mr. Trump wasn’t the only lawmaker to point to video games as the root of the problem, instead of the guns and the failure to acknowledge white supremacists as terrorist groups. But most were just saying “now’s not the time to make the issue political.”

Even though it’s always been political.

Always.