State Rep. Mark Finchem’s claim that video gaming inspires acts of violence is an irresponsible fabrication. Finchem, who represents LD 11, voted to suppress a debate on whether to ban “bump stocks,” then told the Capitol Times there was a greater danger. “What I am absolutely stunned by is the proliferation of video games that teach our children to kill,” he said, adding his belief that video games “teach our children to kill effectively” and “without retribution.” He claims that video games have “cheapened life.”
Finchem is not alone in peddling the false narrative linking violent video games with acts of violence.
President Trump recently said, “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.”
The media jumps to find a link between a mass killer and video games. For example, CBS falsely reported that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook mass murderer, “was motivated by violent games.” An investigation debunked that theory.
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Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech assassin, was also linked to violent video games. As Professor Christopher J. Ferguson noted in 2008 in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, “it was something of a shock when investigators concluded that Cho had little to no exposure to violent video games,” according to a Virginia Tech Review Panel. Yet the myth perpetuates itself, fueled by Trump, Finchem and others who, at best, haven’t done their homework or, at worst, are deliberately pushing a false narrative to further their political ambitions.
In Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2015, Professor Ferguson published a meta-analysis of 101 studies examining whether there is a link between exposure to violent video games and increased aggression, reduced prosocial behavior, reduced academic performance, depressive symptoms, and attention deficit symptoms among children and adolescents. His conclusion: “Video games, whether violent or nonviolent, have minimal deleterious influence on children’s well-being.”
A study published in 2014 in the Psychology of Popular Media Culture went even further. That study used four different methodologies to compare exposure to violent video games to rates of acts of violence.
“Contrary to the claims that violent video games are linked to aggressive assaults and homicides,” the study concluded, “no evidence was found to suggest that this medium was a major (or minor) contributing cause of violence in the United States.” That research yielded a surprise, though: “Unexpectedly,” the authors stated, “many of the results were suggestive of a decrease in violent crime in response to violent video games.”
One possible explanation is that violent video games provide a “catharsis” that allows players “to release their aggression in the virtual world instead of in the real world.” That’s a supposition, which is why the authors added, “we need to be careful that we do not blur the line between our scientific results and our scientific conjecture.”
The News Media, Public Education and Public Policy Committee of the American Psychological Association wrote in 2017: “Journalists and policy makers do their constituencies a disservice in cases where they link acts of real-world violence with the perpetrators’ exposure to violent video games or other violent media. There’s little scientific evidence to support the connection, and it may distract us from addressing those issues that we know contribute to real-world violence.”
Rep. Finchem should take that to heart, unless his goal is to distract voters from a radical and extremist interpretation of the Second Amendment that erases the line between battlefield and neighborhood.
If so, he’s more dangerous than any gamer.
Mike Tully
Tucson attorney
Mike Tully is a native Tucsonan, licensed attorney and former Justice of the Peace. He specialized in K-12 bullying and cyberbullying prevention at the U of A College of Education, 2005-2008.