To the surprise of his fellow Democrats, Joe Biden shares President Donald Trump’s concern about violent video games.
The top Democratic presidential candidate told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “it’s not healthy” that video games are teaching young people that “you can shoot somebody and just, you know, sort of blow their brains out.” His comments come after Trump, in a speech at the White House on Monday, put part of the blame on “gruesome and grisly video games” that allow “troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”
Liberals blasted Trump’s claim as unscientific and an attempt to distract from what they say is the real solution: gun control. But Democrats have to decide if they agree with their frontrunner. They can’t have it both ways: either Trump is right, or he’s wrong.
Biden agrees with Trump on video games-violence link
At the White House, Trump urged an end to a culture that glorifies violence, including video games, and condemned white nationalism and suggested other solutions to curb violence, like “red flag” laws. In an interview with Cooper on Monday, Biden cautiously suggested that he agreed with Trump that violent video games are unhealthy, but “it’s not in and of itself the reason” for mass shootings like the ones in Texas and Ohio that killed more than 30 people over the weekend.
Cooper said to Biden that “when I mentioned that the president talked about video games today as being part of the problem, I saw you kind of rolled your eyes” but “it’s something people have talked about it’s for a long time.”
“I’ve talked about it, too,” Biden said. “But it is not healthy to have these games teaching kids that, you know, this dispassionate notion that you can shoot somebody and just, you know, sort of blow their brains out.”
When Cooper pointed out that video games are popular in countries like Japan, which has comparatively low gun violence rates, Biden replied, “That’s my point.”
“They are. That’s my point,” Biden said. “But it’s not in and of itself the reason why we have this carnage on our streets.”
Biden shows conservative streak
Liberals tend to push back against blaming gun violence on cultural factors like a decline in morals, since they want to keep the focus on restricting guns — which makes Biden’s suggestion oddly conservative. But it’s also not terribly surprising that the 76-year-old actually agrees with his rival. As far as Democrats go, Biden is pretty old-fashioned.
Biden has been in politics for decades — for as long as gun violence has been a political issue. A link has been alleged between video games and mass shootings ever since the Columbine shooting, which was perpetrated by fans of the shooting game “Doom.”
Like Biden himself said, he has pointed to violent video games as a cause of gun violence in the past. During the Obama years, Biden supported research on the impact of violent video games on aggression, the Washington Examiner reported.
This isn’t shocking coming from a former pro-life Democrat with (formerly) moderate views on the Hyde amendment, immigration, and other issues. Leftists have dragged Biden over his insufficiently radical policy record when he was a senator and even after that, when he served in the Obama administration. In response, the Democrat has apologized and renounced some of his more old-school views.
But it looks like Biden hasn’t changed his mind much on this topic. Will Democrats continue to denounce Trump for blaming gun violence on video games, now that their frontrunner agrees with him?
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