Rather than focus on the terrifyingly relaxed gun laws, the alarming frequency of gun violence, and rampant online radicalism, Inside Edition chooses to pin the blame on video games.
Last week, 15-year old Ethan Crumbley opened fire at his high school, fatally shooting four students and injuring eight others. Now, a US news report implies the shooter was influenced by Fallout 4.
An Inside Edition reporter pointed out how Crumbley's Instagram stated, "Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds. See You Tomorrow Oxford."
She then says the quote can be found in "in a gory video game," while showing an out-of-context clip of Fallout 4 where a character says, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
Gamers are calling out Inside Edition for excluding the fact that the game character was merely referencing an ancient Hindu scripture made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer after he helped create and witness the atomic bomb.
While it’s also possible that Crumbley too was unaware of the infamous quote, the shooting still cannot be blamed for his decision to take up his father’s gun and kill multiple people at his school.
The same news channel also reported the teenager, now charged with first-degree murder, terrorism, and other charges owned other violent games such as Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty.
Despite media and politicians repeatedly playing the blame game after mass shootings, multiple studies have shown that there is no major link between video game violence and real-world violence.
A report by the New York Times finds that The Gun Violence Archive counted more than 600 shootings in the US in 2020. Despite the pandemic, the number lept from 417 in 2019.
Despite the circumstances that gave Crumbley easy access to a gun, it’s saddening to hear that the media still chooses to blame games rather than the country’s relaxed gun laws and rampant radicalism.
In fact, a US congressman posted a Christmas picture of himself and his family each brandishing a gun, just days after the high school mass shooting.
Tags: #oxfordshooting, #videogame, #gunviolence, #guncontrol, #massshooting