Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:40 pm
Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News Sunday and absolutely destroyed the false premise that video games, not guns, are the main cause of gun violence.
Video:
WALLACE: Gun control will be a big part of the president’s agenda in the State of the Union address Tuesday night. But I want to ask you about another part of the effort to stop these horrible, repeated acts of mass violence. As part of your plan, you call for more scientific research on the connection between popular culture and violence.
We don’t need another study, respectfully. I mean, we know that these video games, where people have their heads splattered, these movies, these TV shows, why don’t you go to your friends in Hollywood and challenge them, shame them, and say, “Knock it off”?
PELOSI: Well, I do think, whatever we do, because when you talk about evidence-based, we have that throughout our proposal. In other words, we don’t want to just anecdotally writing bills. We want to have the evidence to say —
WALLACE: Well, I’m not sure you want to write bills anyway. But don’t you — I mean, what would — you have a lot of friends in Hollywood. Why don’t you go to them and publicly say I think challenge you to stop the video games?
PELOSI: I do think — see, I understand what you’re saying. I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother. But, they tell — not they, not Hollywood, but the evidence says that, in Japan, for example, they have the most violent games and the rest, and the lowest — death, mortality from guns. I don’t know what the explanation is for that except they may have good gun laws.
But I think you took one piece of it. We are talking about — we are talking about stop — no further sales of assault weapons. What is the justification for an assault weapon? You know, no further sales of those.
No further sales of the increased capacity, 30 rounds in a gun. We are talking about background checks which is very popular, even among gun owners, and, hunters. We avow the First Amendment, we stand with that, and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves in their homes and their jobs, whatever. And that they — and their workplace — and that they, for recreation and hunting and the rest.
But we are in the questioning their right to do that —
Doing an interview on Fox News must be a lot like talking to small child. Pelosi actually had to explain to Wallace why it is important to have evidence of a problem before a bill is written to address it. Wallace’s notion of “knowing” why a problem is occurring without research or study is a very Republican way of governing. It is just like how Republicans “know” that there is voter fraud, so they pass voter ID laws.
Pelosi ripped apart the NRA’s favorite excuse that guns don’t cause gun violence, but video games do. Pelosi asked a good question. If violent video games cause gun violence, then why isn’t the problem as severe around the world as it is in the United States? They play lots of violent video games in Canada, Europe, and Asia too, yet other parts of the developed world don’t have the same level of gun violence as the United States.
The difference, as Leader Pelosi pointed out, is the laws. The Japanese play lots of violent video games, but they have the lowest mortality rate from gun violence because of strict gun laws. The NRA has been trying to muddy the gun violence discussion by mixing it up with the discussion about the culture of violence in this country. They aren’t the same thing.
Conservatives and the NRA are trying to avoid the very common sense conclusion that the one thing every incident of gun violence has in common with the other is guns. If the goal is to reduce violence, video games belong in that discussion, but it is impossible to talk about gun violence without including the role of guns.
Nancy Pelosi showed Fox News and the NRA why the whole blame the violent video games excuse isn’t going to fly.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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