Explainer: Is playing violent gaming 'badly causing' Americans' minds? 60% of children want to 'handle' a gun

Texas Shooting incident: On Tuesday, an 18-year-old man opened fire at Rob Elementary School in Texas, USA. 19 students and 2 teachers died in this attack.

Texas-Fire Texas-Open-Shooting Texas-Shooting-death
Texas Shooting Incident: On Tuesday, an 18-year-old man opened fire at Rob Elementary School in Texas, USA. 19 students and 2 teachers died in this attack. After this shooting, once again violent video games are in discussion in America. Experts also blame violent video games behind such indiscriminate shootings. This has also been proved in many types of research. One research claimed that 60% of children who watched or played a video game with gun violence immediately wanted to shoot a gun.

Donald Trump, who was the US President in 2019, also linked the shooting incident to hate and violent video games.

Are violent video games behind shooting incidents in the US?

Research has claimed that children who watch or play video games with gun violence are more inclined to hold the gun and press its trigger. This has been claimed in a report by JAMA Network Open. In this, the researchers gave 50% of more than 200 children to play non-violent video games and some to play video games with gun violence. 

Shortly thereafter, it was observed that 60% of children playing the violent game caught the gun immediately, while only 44% of the children playing the non-violent game caught the gun.

The co-author of the research and professor of communication at The Ohio State University says that we should all learn from the new finding. Especially gun owners should keep their guns more securely. Also, parents should protect their children from violent video games.


The American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children and adolescents should not play violent video games.

Firing in America's school: 18-year-old student shot grandmother first, then reached school and killed 21 including 19 children

2012: Shooter at Connecticut school used to play school shooting game

In 2012, 26 schoolchildren were killed in a shooting at a Connecticut school. Adam Lanza attacked a Connecticut school in 2012, killing 26 schoolchildren and school workers. He used to play some of the most violent video games in the world for several hours every day. These included a game called School Shooting.

2018: The attacker in Florida played violent video games for 15 hours

In 2018, Nicolas Cruz killed 17 children in a shooting at a Florida high school. Similarly, Nicolas Cruz, who killed 17 people in a Florida high school attack in 2018, is also said to have played violent video games for 15 hours every day.

2009: The shooter in Germany was also fond of video games

In 2009, when a boy shot and killed 16 people in Germany and shot himself after killing them all. According to media reports, the boy was fond of shooting video games and did the same in real life as he fired shots at people in front of TV screens for several hours.

Mental stress is also a big reason

1. David Long, who killed 12 people at a bar in California in November 2018, is believed to have suffered from mental stress.
2. Conor Bates, who killed 9 people in an Ohio bar in 2018, also showed some dangerous tendencies while studying in high school.

The biggest reason why large magazine guns are readily available

Stephen Paddock killed 58 people at a Las Vegas concert in 2017.
One thing common to all attacks is the availability of large magazine guns. Stephen Paddock killed 58 people at a Las Vegas concert in 2017. He was neither mentally ill nor influenced by any ideology nor did he play video games. He attacked using two dozen weapons. This also included assault rifles such as the AR-15.

Parents in shock after Texas firing: Weeping for each other's well being; Mother said - now I will never send the child to school
Similarly, Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in Pennsylvania in 2018, used four guns for the attack. He was legally the owner of 21 guns. The assault rifle with which Bates attacked was also purchased online. This gun can be fitted with a drum magazine of 100 bullets.

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