Gaming news site Kotaku has posted yet another incident to be filed under “S,” for “Scapegoating.” On Friday, Fox News host and contributor Jeanine Pirro delivered a furious diatribe against gun control to the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association, once again blaming video games for violence:
Pirro said… “How dare you compare me to a nutjob on the lunatic fringe in desperate need of medication doing nothing but watching Hollywood’s blood-soaked movies and playing the liberal Hollywood’s violent video games for days at a time…”
As Kotaku writer, Evan Narcisse, points out, the attack on video games feels less like an informed argument than it does a play straight from a book of standard political talking points:
Pirro misses the mark by assuming that video games are made by the Hollywood studio system and assuming a political bent on behalf of the companies that make them. It seems like her call-out is just another bullet point to be ticked off a list without ever really understanding the thing she attacks.
Pirro’s anger at the notion of a law-abiding gun owner such as herself drawing comparisons to mass murderers, terrorists, and child-killers is understandable. One would imagine that the feeling is not totally dissimilar to that of a few million law-abiding video gamers when they are once again compared to mass murderers, terrorists, and child-killers.
Check out video of Pirro’s rant below. Her comments about video games happen around the 4:20 mark.
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Joe Izenman is a freelance writer and musician in Spokane, Washington. He owns a lot of comics and he’s pretty sure someone, somewhere would be offended by more than a few of them.