President Trump denounced “gruesome and grisly” video games as he called on a grieving nation to “condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy” in the wake of two mass shootings that killed 29 people.
In a somber address he promised to act with “urgent resolve” to tackle mass killings, but he received immediate criticism for focusing on social media, the internet, and computer games rather than guns.
Speaking in the Diplomatic Reception Room, he said tackling atrocities meant tackling the glorification of violence.
“This includes the gruesome and grisly computer games that are now commonplace,” he said. “It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”
He was speaking after a bloody weekend of violence. Federal authorities in El Paso are treating the Saturday killings of at least 20 people as a case of domestic terrorism. The suspect has been charged with capital murder.
Hours later 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed his sister and eight other people in Dayton, Ohio.
The killings have intensified scrutiny of Trump’s record on gun control and allegations that he is in part to blame for stoking tensions.
Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College, said Trump was under pressure to take concrete action by recalling Congress from its August recess and pushing to get gun control legislation on the books. But instead, she said, he had delivered “platitudes.”
“I read it as an attempt to shift the blame without any follow-up, or explaining any connection between video games, the internet, these crimes and what we can do about it,” she said.
Gun control campaigners also expressed their disappointment.
“If ‘video games’ turned people into mass shooters, Japan would be riddled in bullet holes,” said Igor Volsky, founder of Guns Down America.
In a four-point plan, Trump also said he had ordered agencies to work on identifying early warning signals — including on social media — reform mental health laws, and ensure that high-risk individuals be denied access to firearms.
“These barbaric slaughters are an assault upon our communities, an attack on our nation and a crime against all humanity,” he said.
“We are outraged and sickened by this monstrous evil, the cruelty, the hatred, the malice, the bloodshed, the terror.”
He also denounced “racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.”
“These sinister ideologies must be defeated,” he said. “Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.”
Trump has sent mixed messages during previous shooting outrages, signaling his intention to toughen gun control before backing down.
The White House has threatened a presidential veto if legislation expanding federal background checks for gun transfers passed Congress.
Two hours before his address, Trump appeared to reject allegations that his own rhetoric was in part to blame for the El Paso shooting. The suspect’s supposed manifesto included language that critics of the president compared with Trump’s use of terms such as an immigrant “invasion.”
In a series of tweets he urged action to stem the availability of guns but linked it with immigration reform and said the media must take some of the blame.
“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years.
