Fox News blames Video Games once again!

As we all know on Monday there was another mass shooting, this time it was  at a Naval Yard  in Washington D.C. and the shooter was Aaron Alexis, he was 34 years old and according to reports he some psychological issue because he claimed that he heard voices in his head and he two incidents with guns in the past. What amazes me is how easy it was for Aaron Alexis to get the shotgun in order for him to do the shooting. To me this is another example of why we need some comprehensive gun reform in the United States. However of course here comes Fox News to the rescue of gun manufacturers and their profits. Yesterday on Fox News, the newest host of Fox and Friends Elisabeth Hasselbeck claimed that “the left” was trying to make Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about “gun control,” when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases." Hasselbeck is a perfect fit at Fox News she is a right winger. Either she is really an idiot or she is propaganda pusher that wants to push Republicans talking points. Now she also said that “You know, certainly, this topic has already taken a turn again, the left’s already making this about gun control,” Yes it's about gun control, we need gun control in this country not let every person in the country buy and own guns what's the matter with these Fox News fools? Brian Kilmeade the moron also said that “But you talk about this guy's background, as we look into it, “He's got a friend, who said, yeah, he had an obsession with video games, shooting video games. In fact, he would come over and he would be playing so long — these video games, these shooting games — we'd have to give him dinner, we'd have to feed him while he continued to stay on them." Alexis was obviously obsessed with video games and he played a lot, however that does not mean that video games lead him to buy a shotgun go to the Navy Yard and shoot 13 people to death. That does not make any sense and I don't know how the Fox News audience can believe that. Even with our research, common sense would tell you that this does not make any sense.



Now Hasselbeck claims that “Are more people susceptible to playing video games? Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions?” I saw the segment that Fox & Friends did on this and they did not present any facts to back up their claims that video games cause men in the age group of 20 -34 to go out and commit mass shootings. (I'll be posting the video of this segment at the end of this blog post.) Unlike Fox & Friends morons I do have research that shows that video games are not tied to violence in high-risk youth. The article is called "In New Study, Video Games Not Tied to Violence in High-Risk Youth" This piece was published on August 27, 2013 just a few weeks ago. The first part of the piece says that "In a debate that has been raging for nearly two decades, the latest research suggests the impact of violent video games has been overstated." The piece also said that "In the new study, Drs. Christopher Ferguson and Cheryl Olson discovered violent video games such as ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Halo’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ did not cause high-risk teens (those with symptoms of depression or attention deficit disorder) to become aggressive bullies or delinquents. In fact, in the study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, researchers found that the playing the video games actually had a very slight calming effect on youths with attention deficit symptoms — and helped to reduce aggressive and bullying behavior." So according to research just published a few weeks ago video games have the opposite effect that Fox News claimed video games had. I know that this is just one study, but Fox News did not provide any research to back up their claims, they just had a bunch of questions and they did not provide any answers.

In this last paragraph of this post I would like to talk about myself and my own experiences with video games. I'm in the age group that Hasselbeck claimed that there was a link between video games and violent actions, (I'm 27 years old) and I've been playing video games since I was five years old and I've been play violent video games since I was eight years old, I've played all of those violent video games like "Mortal Kombat," "Halo" and "Grand Theft Auto" and I've never had to urge to go out and buy a gun and go to a public place and shoot a bunch of people. The argument that Fox News makes is ludicrous because video games do not make you do anything that you don't want to do. If a person goes out and shoot other people in a public place, just because they play video games like Alexis did that does not mean that video games made him shoot those poor people at the Navy Yard. Video games at worst can be a factor if the person is mentally ill like Alexis was, however that does not mean that video games is the only reason why Alexis shot those people. There are other factors like how easy it was for Alexis to buy guns, and his mental illness. There are too many factors here to blame just video games like Fox likes to do every time there is a mass shooting in this country. Hasselbeck also said that we need a video game registry in order to track how money video games each person buys. How come we can't have a gun registry? That way we know who owns what guns and how they are using them. I think that's fair, let's fight for that.  

Link to research piece: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/08/27/in-new-study-video-games-not-tied-to-violence-in-high-risk-youth/58934.html