Limbaugh: "Games niet schuldig aan Virginia"

Na de schietpartij op de Amerikaanse universiteit Virgina Tech brachten zowel advocaat Jack Thompson als televisiedokter Phil McGraw naar buiten dat het incident veroorzaakt was door gewelddadige games; dat terwijl er nog helemaal geen details over het drama bekend waren. Nu was het wel te verwachten dat dit soort uitspraken vroeger of later zouden worden gedaan en de discussie rondom de invloed van games weer zou oplaaien. De games industrie heeft gisteren echter wel wat steun gekregen, en nog uit een onverwachte hoek ook.

Rush Limbaugh is een zeer bekende, conservatieve en invloedrijke talk show host en deed enkele interessante uitspraken tijdens telefoongesprekken met bellers die wilden praten over de schietpartij.

“What I really think is an issue is video violence, video gaming," begint de beller. "I will guarantee you, I'll bet my last dollar in my pocket, that this shooter will be found to have been a compulsive video gamer, and when people are living that kind of lifestyle -- and college students do this a lot.”

“Let's say you're right," zucht Rush. "Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There's more to this than that. We can find all kinds of societal problems and ills, but the fact of the matter is that whatever you would look at as a bad influence -- video games as you mentioned -- it may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers.”

Hier blijft het echter niet bij; Rush legt zijn uitspraak verder uit:

“I know it's natural that everybody wants to throw their theories into this, and perhaps come up with perhaps a unique explanation or to understand, and I think it's natural, because people have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?”

“If you start blaming the video games, you may as well demand video game control because it's the same thing when you start trying to blame guns for this. You have here a sick individual, an evil individual who committed a random act. But if you want to start blaming the video games, this guy was this or that, weeeeell, then you've gotta maybe talk about banning them because that's the same tack that's taken with guns. You got one guy who used a gun that's it. You're falling prey to the same way the Drive-Bys propagandize, and that's, ‘Well, we need gun control! We gotta get guns out of the hands of people.’”

Rush beëindigt zijn betoog door zijn bezorgdheid uit te spreken over de mensen die de tragedie aanwenden om er zelf beter van te worden.

”So you gotta be real careful here not to paint with broad brushes on these things. You gotta be very careful not to plug this into your own individual political prism, because then you become no different than what the Drive-Bys are doing. If you just wait, eventually we'll find out more than we want to know about this guy, and you're going to have to listen to what's reported about this guy with keen ears, and you're going to have to read with sharp eyes out there, because the Drive-Bys are going to report about this guy in ways that will advance their political agenda because that's what this story is to them.”