Issue Position: Video Game & Media Violence

Issue Position

I have long been concerned about the impact of video game and media violence on aggressive and violent behavior.

As Congress continues to seek ways to curb mass violence in response to the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook elementary, as well as similar events over the last few years at Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colorado, I believe that in addition to gun safety, we must address the impacts of mental illness and -- of equal importance -- violent video games, movies and TV.

A recent report by the Hartford Courant said police found thousands of dollars' worth violent video games in the home of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, and are exploring whether he might have been emulating a scene from a video game during his rampage "as he moved from room to room at Sandy Hook, spewing bullets."

One only needs to read the Hartford Courant article to see that media violence is a problem.

In addition to Lanza, there has been evidence that violent video games played a role in the lives of other mass shooters, including Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who shot 69 people at a youth camp in 2011, and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters at Columbine High School in 1999.

According to a Forbes magazine report, Breivik used the game Modern Warfare 2 "as part of his training."

"I just bought Modern Warfare 2, the game," Breivik said. "It is probably the best military simulator out there and it's one of the hottest games this year … I see Modern Warfare 2 more as a part of my training-simulation than anything else...You can more or less completely simulate actual operations."

In the case of Columbine shooters Klebold and Harris, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks Internet hate groups, found in its archives a copy of Harris' Web site with a version of the first-person shooter video game "Doom" that he had customized.

The Center found that in Harris' version, there are two shooters, each with extra weapons and unlimited ammunition, and the other people in the game can't fight back. For a class project, Harris and Klebold made a videotape that was similar to their customized version of "Doom.' In the video, Harris and Klebold dress in trench coats, carry guns, and kill school athletes. They acted out their videotaped performance in real life less than a year later.

An investigator at the Wiesenthal Center said Harris and Klebold were "Playing out their game in God mode." In another videotape, Harris referred to his sawed-off shotgun as "Arlene," a favorite character in the "Doom' video game. Harris said, "It's gonna be like [expletive] Doom."

Recently, I met with a few elementary school principals from my district. One of the principals told me that when children misbehave in school and he asks them why, they will frequently say that they saw the behavior in a video game. Another principal said the problem with video games is that when young children are playing violent ones where they shoot or kill other characters, there are no repercussions or punishments, and usually the characters will even come back to life. He also said that video games desensitize kids to violence.

Soon after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, I asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) to assemble an expert panel that produced a report, which details three contributors to mass violence: access to guns, mental illness and media violence. According to the report, violent video games increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behavior, and decrease helping behavior and feelings of empathy for others. It also showed that the rating systems have not kept up with the increasingly violent content of popular media, and there is no standard rating system in the U.S. In March, I plan to hold a hearing to discuss the findings of the NSF report before the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee.

Common sense tells us that the level of violence on TV, in the movies and in many video games is a problem. While media violence is not the only factor of mass violence, it is one of the easiest factors to change and it needs to be addressed.

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