Republicans are going back to an old claim to shift blame for mass shootings away from guns: it’s the video games! The internet! The culture! Definitely not the AR-15s. Donald Trump is now embracing this line, telling his press pool that:
"We have to look at the internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they're seeing and how they're seeing it. And also video games. I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts. And you go one further step and that's the movies. ... maybe they have to put a rating system for that."
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin was not talking about assault weapons when he said that “We need to have an honest conversation as to what should and should not be allowed in the United States as it relates to the things being put in the hands of our young people.” No, the thing that shouldn’t be allowed to be put in the hands of our young people, according to Bevin, is violent video games and movies.
Bevin and Trump are joined by Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who insisted that “The biggest pusher of violence is, hands down, Hollywood movies, hands down, the video game market.” And then there’s Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend, whose take is a little different: “We are in a culture of death where it's OK if you have an unwanted pregnancy to just go ahead and kill that child.” Because having a legal medical procedure on your own body is just like buying an assault weapon and killing 17 people. As for video games:
... school shooters are actually less likely to be interested in violent games than their peers. A few, such as Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, had no interest at all — a fact that surprised his roommate, who “thought it was weird he didn’t play video games,” Markey said.
In fact, only about 20% of school shooters play video games, compared with about 70% of high school students overall.
You know what 100 percent of school shooters have in common? Access to guns! You literally cannot be a school shooter without something to shoot with. But Republicans can’t admit guns are the problem because then they’d be admitting they refuse to try to fix the problem.