Right On Time: Kentucky Governor Lays The Blame For Florida School Shooting At The Feet Of Video Games
from the simple-answers-to-complex-questions dept
In the wake of the school shooting tragedy in Florida that saw 17 people slain and more injured, the following days have played out in a depressingly familiar fashion. It's somewhat stunning to see such bloodshed result in the predictable retreat by most people to the defensive or offensive ground of their cause du jour. What should be immediately obvious to anyone seriously examining something like the mass murder of school children and teachers is that the reality that surrounds such an event is messy, complicated, and influenced by detail. Yet, as is our wont, entirely too many people decide that the solution to the mass shooting puzzle is made up of one or two pieces, rather than hundreds and thousands. It's guns. It's specific types of guns. It's mental health. It's rap music, or the waltz, or comic books. It's one of these things that deserve our ire, or maybe two if we're feeling generous.
Well, it was only a matter of time, but contributing to this non-conversation is Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, who has yet another cliched scapegoat upon which to place the sins of the shooter.
"There are video games that, yes, are listed for mature audiences, but kids play them and everybody knows it, and there's nothing to prevent the child from playing them," Bevin said in an interview on WHAS' Leland Conway show Thursday morning. "They celebrate the slaughtering of people. There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside of schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who's lying there begging for their life."
"These are quote-unquote video games, and they're forced down our throats under the guise of protected speech," Bevin continued, seemingly referring to a 2011 Supreme Court decision that prevents content-based restrictions on games. "It's garbage. It's the same as pornography. They have desensitized people to the value of human life, to the dignity of women, to the dignity of human decency. We're reaping what we've sown here."
We are indeed, except what we've reaped has been a vibrant culture in which art and expression are both liberated and celebrated. We owe that to the very First Amendment protections at which Bevin finds it so easy to sneer. Importantly, at no point did Bevin suggest that Nikolas Cruz himself had any affinity for any particular video game or games. For Bevin, such details matter not. A campaign against video games has been the Governor's aim since long before Cruz shot up his former school and the shooting simply provided an excuse to rant against a favorite whipping post.
If that sort of co-opting of real violence doesn't outrage you, it certainly should.
As should how divorced from the facts Bevin's claims are generally.
International comparisons of per capita spending on violent games and gun-related murders show a negative correlation between the two. And meta-analyses of video game violence studies have found no real link between imaginary on-screen violence and actual aggressive behavior.
With that in mind, understand that Bevin, the head of a state in our union, is suggesting an attack on the First Amendment protections of a form of art in response to a correlation to violence that is at best unproven, and for which much evidence to the contrary exists. Whatever that is, it isn't good political leadership.
Filed Under: blame, first amendment, florida, free speech, kentucky, matt bevin, nikolas cruz, school shootings, video games
