Democratic Presidential candidate Berney Sanders was critical of the Trump administration for blaming last weekend’s mass shootings on video games while also calling for increased gun safety legislation.
Last weekend, 31 people died in two mass shootings: one in El Paso, Texas, the other in Dayton, Ohio. The El Passo shooter was a young man with a history of anti-immigrant sentiment. The Dayton shooter was a politically left-leaning male with no history of mental illness. Both had high-powered assault rifles that they used to murder innocent people indiscriminately.
In a national address on Monday, President Donald Trump blamed video games for the mass shootings, saying that "we must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence."
Various studies have found no evidence to support the assertion that video games can cause mass shootings or violence of any kind.
Democratic Presidential candidates took to Twitter soon after the speech to denounce Trump and call for tighter gun regulations. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said that words were no longer enough for him and that it was time to act.
"Stop your hatred, divisiveness and anti-immigrant rhetoric,” the Senator wrote. “If you truly want to be bipartisan, ask McConnell to call the Senate back into session and pass gun safety legislation that Americans are demanding."
And he’s not wrong: Gallup polls currently say over 60% of Americans would prefer stricter gun safety regulations. Gun restriction laws are widely seen as the best way to prevent mass shootings, as most modern countries have similar per-capita game usage but have nowhere near the same number of violent gun fatalities as the United States.
Although investigations into mass shootings often show a history of violent video games played by the shooter, studies have yet to find a link between games and gun violence.