Violent Video Games: Fox News Reporter John Stossel Confronts Franklin Graham
Fox News reporter John Stossel confronted Franklin Graham about his stance on violent video games.
The connection between violent video games and real life violence has been waged ever since it was discovered that Harris and Klebold had played first-person shooters before they went on a rampage, shooting fellow students and then themselves. The Columbine massacre may not have been the first school shooting of the sort, but it was the one that first brought violent video games under the political cross-hairs as a possible cause of real life violence.
Politicians blamed Mortal Kombat for its copious portrayal of human blood in a video game readily available to children at public arcades. The game was a pixellated mess of blood and gore, but that was all the Washington figureheads needed to lay the blame. In fact, Doom was also brought up as a possible “murder simulator” in spite of its even more pixellated depiction of the denizens of Hell in a first-person shooter.
Fox News reporter John Stossel has confronted Franklin Graham, the son of televangelist Billy Graham, on what he proposes we do about the issue.
John Stossel said, “Whenever there’s a mass shooting, people say, ‘Violent video games probably inspired it.’”
Fox News reporter John Stossel proceeds to play clips of examples before introducing Franklin Graham. He asks Franklin Graham about the statement made by Senator Grassley from Iowa, “So, why do you think he’s right?”
Franklin Graham replies with how God understands violence, and proceeds to go into religious pretext on how Jesus was nailed to a cross and brought back to life. “We see violence all around us, but in our country, John, in the last 30-40 years, violence has come into our homes in the form of entertainment. … when I was growing up it was Gunsmoke or Marshall Dillon. He only pulled out his gun to protect and to save life and the good guys always won. But it’s a far cry from the video games that we have today, and what we see on television from Hollywood. Every night the gun is glorified.”
John Stossel asks, “What do you want to do, do you want to ban them?”
Franklin Graham smiles and says that because of the Constitution we won’t be able to do that, “But we certainly can tax them, John.”
The second part of this story has John Stossel stumping Franklin Graham on the issue, right here on The Inquisitr!
What do you think of Franklin Graham’s response to Fox News reporter John Stossel’s confrontation about violent video games? Do you think taxing violent media is the answer?
