Home Affairs Minister and potato representative Peter Dutton proclaimed that the “extreme left‘ are basically as much to blame as the “extreme right” when it comes to the recent Christchurch shootings the other day.
But just when you think ol’ mate couldn’t say anything more stupid than that, he somehow managed to top himself on ABC Radio National on March 18 by using Christchurch to revisit the well and truly debunked video game violence debate.
“I think there is a further debate, I might say, in relation to the use of computer games and graphic videos, and the way in which that is accessed online.”
Good grief, Dutto, you’ve done some truly stupid things in your time as a politician and yet you continue to surprise us.
Rehashing the video game violence debate is a standard play from the politician handbook: ignore the real issues at hand and/or deny that you had anything to do with the incident at hand and blame it on video games.
It’s a fearmongering tactic pollies like to use that also has no basis in fact. There have been several scientific studies conducted over the past decade or so that conclusively proves that there is simply no link between violent games and real-life violence.
Just last month, the University of Oxford and the Oxford Internet Institute conducted one of the most comprehensive study into the link between violent games and real-life violence. After collecting data on over 2,000 teens, parents, and carers, the study concluded (again) that there simply is no link between the two.
Having been a gamer for nearly my whole life, defending video games from fact-denying politicians is just exhausting and pointless because it feels like I’m screaming into a void.
So politicians, here’s my response to your constant rehashing of a debunked subject:
It’s an honest question that I don’t think I’ll get an honest answer to.
If politicians really want to deep dive into what caused angry people who happened to play games to go shoot up two mosques, then perhaps they should start looking into the anti-migrant and Muslim rhetoric that’s been peddled by certain parties over the last decade or so.
But that’s a story for another day. For now, let’s just cut the crap on this rehashed video game violence thing before it goes anywhere.