In a strange case, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has asked for ban of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 franchise. He is blaming the game for the recent Sandy Hook tragedy. In a bid to understand who was to be blamed, people have been connecting BioWare’s Mass Effect franchise with the shootout.
Manchin is a gun user and says that he is proud of his association with the NRA. He was speaking at an interview with the MSNBC. Manchin said that he will not be selling his guns and that he was in discussion with the NRA (National Rifle Association) regarding the issue.
“These are my friends…They’re good people. They’re hurting. They’re in pain the same way as every American about what happened to these twenty little children. And I’m not going to let anybody be villainized”, he said. Thereafter, he focused on mental health issues and videogames. He added that one should consider what Grand Theft Auto promotes. “Shouldn’t that be looked into and maybe be banned?”, he says.
Sen. Joe Lieberman also went on Fox News Sunday and said, “The violence in the entertainment culture—particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et cetera —does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent…Doesn’t make everybody more violent, but it’s a causative factor in some cases.”
However, sociologists suggest that there has been no proof for us to assume that games can indeed lead to violent acts for people in real life. Placing the blame squarely on game seems more likely a means of deviating from serious policy considering there is little proof to connect real-life drama to the excitement of a video game.
Currently, the authority should be focusing on evolving the mental health system along with placing more stringent systems on gun control.
