In citing violent video games as a potential root cause of mass shootings like the ones in Ohio and Texas over the weekend, President Trump may have an unexpected ally — Joe Biden.
“This includes the gruesome and grisly computer games that are now commonplace,” Trump said Monday morning, in remarks after mass shootings in El Paso Texas on Saturday claimed 20 lives, and killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio. “It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”
Biden raised similar issues as vice president, amid a series of mass shootings during President Barack Obama’s administration. In the wake of the 2013 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead, Biden convened a group video game industry representatives to discuss possible preventative measures. The meeting came after reports surfaced that gunman Adam Lanza had grown obsessive over hyper-violent games like Call of Duty.
During that meeting, Biden called for federal research into whether video games can encourage individuals to commit acts of violence. While he acknowledged that there was no consensus on the issue by the medical community, he said “we shouldn’t be afraid of the facts,” if evidence of “a pathology related to gun violence,” is found. Biden also cited a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics that concluded children who spent multiple hours a day playing video games exhibited more aggressive behavior than others.
In a press conference with the gaming executives, Biden insinuated that the proliferation of violent video games was similar to the phenomena of violent imagery in other forms of media as noted by late Sen. Daniel Moynihan of New York, in his 1993 essay “Defining Deviancy Down,” which discussed how newspapers like the New York Times would feature gruesome imagery on its front pages.
“There’s no measure, that I’m aware of, to determine whether there’s a coarsening of our culture that is not healthy, I don’t know the answer to the question, but I’m not sure the impact it would or wouldn’t have on the impact on what happened [in Newtown],” Biden said.
During a separate closed door meeting with members of the religious community that same year, Biden reportedly “floated the idea that media and entertainment that portray violence should be subject to a special tax, with the proceeds going to help victims and their families,” arguing that “there’s no legal reason why they couldn’t” industries who produce violent entertainment, according to a source in the room.
The Obama administration continuously pushed for Congress to lift a ban by the Center for Disease Control that prohibits the organization from researching the causes of gun violence.
