Trump’s shootings theory gunned down

PRESIDENT: VIDEO GAMES, MENTAL ILLNESS TO BLAME

Experts say although there are sometimes links, this is a generalisation.

President Donald Trump on Monday tied mass shootings that left 31 dead in two US cities over the weekend to hate, violent video games and mental illness.

But with 255 mass shooting events counted so far this year in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, analysts say those factors don’t explain all the violence.

But one factor is omnipresent: the ease of acquiring guns.

“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly

video games that are now commonplace,” Trump said.

It’s true that some recent mass shooters played violent video games obsessively.

Adam Lanza, who killed 26 schoolchildren and school employees at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, spent hours a day playing some of the most violent video games, including one called “School Shooting”.

Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in 2018, reportedly played violent video games up to 15 hours a day.

But Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University who has studied the issue, says there is no causal link with real attacks.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world play first-person shooter games such as “Fortnite” and “Call of Duty”, and do not turn into mass murderers.

“Violent video games do not contribute to mass shootings, not in whole, not in part,” said Ferguson. “It’s probably actively causing harm to the extent it distracts people from real causes of violence,” he said on Twitter.

Trump also tied shootings to “mentally disturbed individuals” who should not have access to firearms.

“Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger – not the gun,” he said. There is a link in some cases. Marine Corps veteran Ian David Long, 28, who killed 12 at a country music bar in California in November last year, was believed to have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Connor Betts, 24, who killed nine on Sunday at a bar in Ohio, reportedly showed dangerous tendencies while in high school.

And Cruz, the Florida high school attacker, had a history of mental health problems.

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