Video games did not cause the Arizona Massacre. Though some politicians are trying to tie them to the alleged shooting of US congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Loughner. Republican representative Tim Murphy had this to say on the subject on CNN's State of the Union.

"This is something we have to pay attention to. Look, as we're trying to piece together what happened in Arizona, unfortunately, people are going at the low-hanging fruit and they're blaming political discourse, which may have some role in the underlying aspects here, but we also need to look at there will be other things that come out - the music, the video games, the social ways that people handle anger."

I don't usually post political comments on MMNTech, but this issue bothers me. Study after study shows there is no link between video games and violence. Loughner plays violent video games. So do a lot of other people. It's such a common activity, it's hard to find someone in that age group that hasn't.


Blaming video games or the media for violent attacks shows ignorance. People on both the left and right display a poor understanding of mental illness. That's what likely caused the shooting. It's shameful and detracts from the real issue. Nobody got this man the help he needed, despite the obvious signs. We desperately need to reassess the way we diagnose and treat mental illness in North America. Stop scapegoating society and culture for the government's failures.

Source: Kotaku