After two deadly mass shootings took place in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, less than 24 hours apart, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said video games could be the problem.
Making an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, McCarthy explained that video games may be linked with the mass shootings.
“This may be a place that we could find this ahead of time,” said McCarthy, who discussed ways to detect future shooters.
“The idea that these video games that dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting individuals and others — I’ve always felt that it’s a problem for future generations and others,” he said. “We’ve watched from studies, shown before, what it does to individuals, and you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others.”
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Despite being deemed a possible influence, McCarthy added that he wanted to “get all the facts” first.
“But what I’d like to do is get all the facts — are there indications? There are times before that we have found this, and have proven we can come together just in the last Congress,” he said.
Meanwhile, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also blamed video games for the recent mass shootings while appearing on Fox & Friends on Sunday. He urged that the federal government take action against the video game industry, noting that the El Paso shooter’s anti-immigrant manifesto made a brief mention of popular war-based game Call of Duty.
“How long are we going to ignore at the federal level particularly where they can do something about the video game industry,” Patrick said. “In this manifesto that we believe is from the shooter, this manifesto where he talks about living out his super-soldier fantasy on Call of Duty. We know the video game industry is bigger than the movie and music industry combined.”
He added: “Why are we allowing young people or anyone to go to a website to learn and be killed and be praised to put this manifesto out? Why are we allowing — 90 percent of our children is the estimate, between the ages of 12 and 17, watching video games? Again, larger than the music industry and the movie industry combined.”
McCarthy and Patrick’s comments came after a mass shooting in Texas left 20 people dead and 26 injured. Less than 24 hours later, a shooting spree took place in Ohio that left nine dead and 16 injured (the shooter’s 22-year-old sister was identified as one of the victims).
clip here — it’s very much jumping off Tx. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick’s comments to F&F earlier pic.twitter.com/J8PqvNtvz0
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 4, 2019
