Gaming Needs To Get Over Its Love Of Guns
Gun violence is not caused by video games. If that were true, then America would not be the only country frequently ravaged by mass shootings. It’s not even caused (solely) by access to firearms, as other countries avoid frequent mass shootings despite having readily available guns for sale. America’s violent history, a point the NRA and one of its chief spokesmen Charlton Heston have argued before, also seems false when you consider the violence present throughout British, German, French, and Spanish history that doesn’t translate to the same level of modern bloodshed.
Gun violence in America is caused not only by easy access to guns, but by a fetishisation of firearms and the parallels frequently drawn between loving your country and owning a gun. Then there’s America’s innate hero/vigilante complex and might = right policing system that spurred on the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse. Even shootings in other countries have a texture of American export. The Christchurch shooter in New Zealand streamed his atrocity and his last words were ‘watch PewDiePie’, a decidedly American meme despite Pewds’ Finnish origin. Britain has had ‘blackpilled’ shooters after the US incel movement gained traction worldwide.
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But what does this have to do with games, aren’t you guys called The Gamer? First off, it’s TheGamer, no spaces, and secondly, like everyone else with a brain I do not consider playing video games to be the root cause of society’s ills. But for all the talk of video games advancing and becoming narrative masters equal to cinema, we are still obsessed with guns. As firearms become even more divisive in the US and a huge political talking point,
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