School shootings have increasingly become one of the most tragic occurrences in America. From the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado over two decades ago to more recent incidents such as the mass murder at a high school in Uvalde, Texas, these massacres have left many families brokenhearted.
When these tragedies are not being politicized by folks seeking to disarm Americans, others are genuinely concerned with ascertaining the factors that might lead a person to carry out a mass shooting at a school or other public area. Unfortunately, it has led to the scapegoating of various factors by well-meaning people.
This tendency appears to be motivating the families of those who perished in the Uvalde shooting. They have filed a slew of lawsuits against various entities, blaming them for causing the atrocity, as covered by RedState’s Margaret Clark.
Close to the second anniversary of one of the most infamous and tragic school shootings in our nation’s history, families of the Uvalde victims are suing Meta Platforms, the owner of Instagram, and Activism Blizzard, the maker of the video game “Call of Duty.”
The lawsuit asserts that “the Uvalde shooter had played versions of ‘Call of Duty’ since he was 15, including one that allowed him to effectively practice with the version of the rifle he used at the school.”
Video games have long been a popular scapegoat for violent crime. However, as RedState’s Brandon Morse pointed out, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people and video games do not inspire real-world violence.”
Morse goes on to detail several studies that found no link between video games and mass shootings.
According to Oxford University, multiple studies have found that there is no causal link between violent video games and acts of real-world violence. The study concluded that the connection between aggressive behavior in adolescents and video games was not substantial. What the 2019 Oxford study did find is that video games increased competitiveness, which includes trash-talking and trolling in some cases, but not a desire for violence.
According to Psychological Science, a 2015 study by researcher Christopher Ferguson also found no evidence that video games led to aggression, and according to Psychology Today, research saw what the Oxford Study did in that gaming might lead to temporary moments of frustration and competitiveness, but not a desire for real-world violence. This same conclusion was reached by the City University of London, according to ScienceDaily.
The Secret Service did its own research on the subject but found that only 14 percent of school shooters enjoyed violent video games. This indicates no real link at all.
The question is: Why do so many Americans automatically point to factors such as video games when trying to understand why some of these evil people carry out such horrific acts? Despite the data, many have resorted to pointing fingers at violent video games, movies, and TV shows as the culprit. Other than blaming firearms and law-abiding gun owners, it appears this is the most common target.
Mental health is typically a far more significant contributor to this type of senseless violence. Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry indicated that serious mental health issues can lead to these incidents, but also found that psychosis “is not a key factor in most mass shootings or other types of mass murder” and that “approximately 5% of mass shootings are related to severe mental illness.”
The report also suggests that mass shootings are “generally committed by middle-aged men who are responding to a severe and acute stressor” which makes them “very difficult to prevent.”
However, it is also worth noting that these conclusions seem to typically come from people who believe gun control is the answer. “This is why it is important to consider ways to manage gun availability, for example,” the authors state.
Nevertheless, I believe that much of the scapegoating does not necessarily have a political motive, but a human motive. The reality is that many of these horrible acts are the result of one thing: The fact that evil people exist. For regular folks, this is something that is disturbing and nearly impossible to wrap our minds around.
The reality is that in many of these cases, there likely isn’t a clear reason why a perpetrator might choose to victimize others in this way. This is because some folks are just plain evil, and they do not care about harming others. For many, considering this deeply disturbs us because it suggests there are motivators that are beyond anything we can control.
In many ways, this is true. We cannot always prevent someone from being an evil person. However, this is yet another reason why the Second Amendment is important. Whether someone is motivated by mental illness, stress, or plain evil, equipping regular folks with the means by which they can defend themselves and others is paramount. The uncomfortable reality is that, in many cases, the only thing that can stop these people is a good person who is armed and trained.