Legislature Investigates Possible Link Between Video Games, Mass Shootings

AUSTIN, TX —State lawmakers are looking into the possibility that there's some sort of link between violent video games and mass shootings.

After 22 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso last August, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick claimed violent video games teach "young people how to kill."

A gaming industry representative spoke last week to a Senate committee Patrick formed to study mass violence.

Tom Foulkes of the Entertainment Software Association said there's no evidence linking video games and mass shootings.

“Numerous well-respected authorities have found no scientific evidence to suggest any causal link between video games and real-world violence,” said Tom Foulkes with the Entertainment Software Association, which represents makers of video and computer games,” Foulkes said.

He said that the games are distributed and played world-wide, meanwhile “the United States is the only industrialized nation that experiences gun violence at this level and frequency,” Foulkes told the Senate Select Committee on Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety during a hearing at the Capitol.