For nylig lagde USA endnu engang hus til et tragisk skoleskyderi, hvor en studerende på 17 år marcherede ind på Stoneman Douglas High School i Parkland, Florida, og skød og dræbte 17 mennesker med en AR-15-riffel.
Skyderier som dette afføder naturligvis en debat, og traditionen tro har politikere i landet skulle finde en syndebuk. Én guvernør mener dog, naturligvis, at det er spilmediet der er at takke for tragedien.
For nylig dukkede guvernøren fra Kentucky, Matt Bevin, op i Leland Conways NewsRadio 840-radioprogram, og her var hans konklusion klar:
"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. 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 "video games", and they're forced down our throats under the guise of protected speech. 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 are reaping what we've sown here.
I think we need to start by having an honest question about what value any of these things add. Why do we need a video game, for example, that encourages people to kill people? Whether it's lyrics, whether it's TV shows, whether it's movies, I'm asking the producers of these products, these video games and these movies, ask yourselves what redemptive value, other than shock value, other than the hope you'll make a couple of bucks off it. At what price? At what price?"
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