West Virginia Senator Introduces a Bill to Study Video Game Violence

Jay Rockefeller, the democratic senator of West Virginia, has introduced a bill on Tuesday to congress that would task the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study how violence in video games and other programs would effect children. This will direct the NAS to conduct a study and investigate the link between video games and any other violent video programming to see if it effect the behavior of children and determine between which forms of media are the cause. 

This is in response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 6 adults and 20 children dead. It was also discovered that Adam Lanza, the person responsible for the shooting, was apparently obsessed with military equipment and Call of Duty, exhausting long hours playing the popular shooter in a secluded basement. 

 

 

Senator Rockefeller stated that he will also call on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to build on their work on video game violence stating that “The FTC has reviewed the effectiveness of the video game ratings system. The FCC has looked at the impact of violent programming on children. Changes in technology now allow kids to access violent content online with less parental involvement”. It was also pointed out by Rockefeller that “Major corporations, including the video game industry, make billions on marketing and selling violent content to children. They have a responsibility to protect out children. If they do not, you can count on the Congress to take a more aggressive role”. If the bill does pass the NAS, FTC and FCC will have to submit a report on the study within 18 months to Congress. 

I pervious wrote an article about Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attack, and how he used World of Warcraft to relax and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to train for his atrocity. It’s difficult to see the game industry under fire again for the actions of an unstable person. But with such a horrible act it’s reasonable to see that people are attempting to understand why it happened and trying to prevent it from happening again. 

 

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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