In the wake of a shooting that left at least 17 dead on Wednesday in a high school outside Boca Raton, Florida, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) focused on violent video games as part of a “culture of death that is being celebrated” and leading to these kinds of incidents.
“There are video games that, yes, are listed for mature audiences, but kids play them and everybody knows it, and there’s nothing to prevent the child from playing them,” Bevin said in an interview on WHAS’ Leland Conway show Thursday morning. “They celebrate the slaughtering of people. There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside of schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who’s lying there begging for their life.”
“These are quote-unquote video games, and they’re forced down our throats under the guise of protected speech,” Bevin continued, seemingly referring to a 2011 Supreme Court decision that prevents content-based restrictions on games. “It’s garbage. It’s the same as pornography. They have desensitized people to the value of human life, to the dignity of women, to the dignity of human decency. We’re reaping what we’ve sown here.”
When Conway asked if Bevin was interested in a ban on these types of games or merely more parental oversight of children’s access, Bevin asked for media producers to take some responsibility for their works. “I think we need to start by having an honest question about what value any of these things add,” he said. “Why do we need a video game, for example, that encourages people to kill people. Whether it’s lyrics, whether it’s TV shows, whether it’s movies, I’m asking the producers of these products, these video games and these movies, ask yourselves what redemptive value, other than shock value, other than the hope you’ll make a couple of bucks off it. At what price? At what price?”
Video games and other cultural products were part of a long list of causes Bevin suggested for the increase in school shootings and the nation’s loss of its “moral compass.” Parents, churches, and schools have all abdicated their responsibility to “hold children to task,” he said, leading kids to “make their own rules without fear of consequences.” He also made brief reference to the prevalence of medications and their harmful side effects as a potential cause.