Michael Ramirez for April 11, 2021

Another classic BS diversionary excuse trotted out by Ramirez.

Mental health professionals would probably tell you that most mass shootings are carried out with way too much planning to have been perpetrated by crazy people.

(And no, I’m not even going to dignify the ‘violent video game’ BS)

Back in 2012, LaPierre made this same argument. In 2018, he found safety after the Parkland shooting by hiding on a yacht…….

In his first public comments since last Friday’s shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre sought to place the blame for gun violence where it truly belonged: the makers of video games. “There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse,” LaPierre said.

But LaPierre’s speech left out a key detail: His own organization has a video game, too. It’s called NRA Gun Club, it was released in 2006 for PlayStation 2, and according to the top-ranked review on Amazon, it “could very well be the single worst game in the history of games.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/national-rifle-association-has-video-game-too/

If that’s the case, then let’s not leave out the movie industry and the massive body counts its laid out in the name of entertainment.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” Are they suggesting a law against people?

I agree, if you need a dozen guns and hundreds of rounds of ammo, you must be mentally ill. Good call Mr. R!

you can’t legislate mental illness.

You can’t legislate common sense. The fact that we have more guns in this country than we have people shows that Americans have zero common sense.

From a much better cartoonist:

https://images.app.goo.gl/XyEHdxhgfdYoTXTV6

fusilier

James 2:24

Mike, “thoughts and prayers” will fix it.

They have video games and mental illness in other countries that don’t have nearly the amount of gun deaths because they have universal health care with mental health care and gun laws.

Ramirez says “culture” is to blame? It’s the essence of American culture for Americans to kill Americans?

Can’t argue with that….

Little Wayne is a slimeball! He took Millions of bribe money from RUSSIA, used it for his personal life, house, etc, then hid in a yacht after the mass murder of children! What kind of a person does this? He a treasonist, sick son of a bitch, who needs to be shut down! Him and trump belong in a pod….they’re both peas-es of $hit! Now they’re relocating the NRA, in the perfect state…TEXAS! The state of some yahoo’s who don’t have a brain.

I’m glad you’re not advocating that governments budget sufficient dollars to effectively assist those with psychological and mental disorders, Mr. Ramirez. Oh wait, you’re not going to do that?

If mental illness is the issue here, then given the numbers of mass shootings, America must have the highest population of mentally ill people on the planet.

There is your right wing mind set right there.

The violence of our society is a result of our not living up to what we should be. When you show the wind, you real the whirlwind.

What would they do with all that ammo if there were no gun to put it in?

When I was just a baby, My Mama told me, "Son, Always be a good boy, Don’t ever play with guns, " But I shot a man in Reno, Just to watch him die,

Crusading attorney Jack Thompson tried to claim that all mass shooters were inspired by video games, leading to people asking what video games inspired those mass shooters who happened before video games were popular.

The simple truth of the matter is that study after study has shown the links between video games and aggression, let alone violence, to be so tenuous that it’s entirely plausible people who are aggressive tend to seek video games as an outlet rather than the games making people aggressive in the first place.

I myself have gamed almost as long as I’ve been alive, even playing the original “Doom” games back in the 1990s. I knew them so well that by the time Columbine happened I could point out major flaws and mistakes in the coverage (such as one major outlet claiming that the game had pipe bombs in it; that was “Duke Nukem”, another first-person shooter game released around the time).

In other words, that dog don’t hunt.

what mikie doesn’t tell us is the fact that after every mass shooting gun sales go UP….way up….stoked by the fear from his cronies that real gun control will limit the purchase of these weapons of mass murder….

hey mikie…do you like being a stooge of those who love to make money on murder ?…

how many children have to be shot for you to find the courage to protect those who cannot protect themselves?….maybe you should go hide on the yacht with wayne the weapon supplier….you’re both cowards……

Is Ramirez ready to change the conversation around gaming and violence?

I do notice a change in language on newscasts. In a time of little chance of legislation changing gun laws, the talking heads reported episodes of ‘shootings’ – carrying the connotation that a shooter was responsible. Now that the chances for legislative change have increased, all such news is reported as episodes of ‘gun violence’ – carrying the connotation that guns are responsible.

Apparently you’re not aware of this, but video games exist in other countries other than the US. It’s true they do. Shocking isn’t it? Yet those other countries don’t have the gun violence that the US has. What do you think could be the differentiating factor?

So Ramirez is saying that the gun enthusiast culture is a mental illness…

Study after study has shown that video games aren’t the problem.

But people like Ramirez say “lets ban guns in video games”… yet when people say “how about we ban guns in the REAL world”… they say you are crazy.

NO… My sons played video games, TYVM. They now both have graduate degrees in biology and engineering, respectively, and careers saving the planet, not shooting up their fellow human beings.

OBTW… Either one of them could have become fifth generation Naval Officer, with a legitimate reason to use huge weapons… They chose the “save the planet” path instead of USNA. (Actually, I was the link in the chain os 4th generation “Navy Wives”.)

Come to think of it, If I had had a daughter, I would have encouraged her to attend the Naval Academy instead of merely marrying another Naval Academy Graduate!

Maybe it’s the movies, maybe it’s the books, Maybe it’s the bullets, maybe it’s the real crooks, Maybe it’s the drugs, maybe it’s the parents, Maybe it’s the colors everybody’s wearin’, Maybe it’s the President, maybe it’s the last one, Maybe it’s the one before that, what he done, Maybe it’s the high schools, maybe it’s the teachers, Maybe it’s the tattooed children in the bleachers, Maybe it’s the Bible, maybe it’s the lack, Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the crack, Maybe it’s the hairdos, maybe it’s the TV, Maybe it’s the cigarettes, maybe it’s the family, Maybe it’s the fast food, maybe it’s the news, Maybe it’s divorce, maybe it’s abuse. Maybe it’s the lawyers, maybe it’s the prisons, Maybe it’s the Senators, maybe it’s the system, Maybe it’s the fathers, maybe it’s the sons, Maybe it’s the sisters, maybe it’s the moms, Maybe it’s the radio, maybe it’s road rage, Maybe El Nino, or UV rays, Maybe it’s the army, maybe it’s the liquor, Maybe it’s the papers, maybe the militia, Maybe it’s the athletes, maybe it’s the ads, Maybe it’s the sports fans, maybe it’s a fad, Maybe it’s the magazines, maybe it’s the internet, Maybe it’s the lottery, maybe it’s the immigrants, Maybe it’s taxes, big business, Maybe it’s the KKK and the skinheads, Maybe it’s the communists, maybe it’s the Catholics, Maybe it’s the hippies, maybe it’s the addicts, Maybe it’s the art, maybe it’s the sex, Maybe it’s the homeless, maybe it’s the banks, Maybe it’s the clearcut, maybe it’s the ozone, Maybe it’s the chemicals, maybe it’s the car phones, Maybe it’s the fertilizer, maybe it’s the nose rings, Maybe it’s the end, but I know one thing…

If it were up to me, I’d take away the guns.

Cheryl Wheeler

Doesn’t appear that Ramirez is very serious about reducing the role of guns in American violence!

Talk about cancel culture. GQPers demand their guns no matter how many lives are canceled.

Will the NRA will be saying, “Guns Don’t Kill People, Bullets Do” ? . . . /S

More guns = More violence. It really is that simple. The other problem is the attitude far too many men have about their guns. They treat them like toys and not the weapons they are.

Every other first world nation — EVERY ONE — has fewer gun deaths per capita than the USA. And most of the other nations, too. They all have social ills. They all have folks with paranoia. They all have financial inequality. They all have various kinds of rivalries, and so far as I know, they all have racists and other forms of hatefulness.

What’s different? Two things:

1: They have gun control laws of one sort or another.

2: They have universal health care. (Note that not all the “most other nations too” have this, but all  first world countries do… except the US)

Even in the USA, where localities have instituted effective waiting periods and red flag laws (always over the vehement opposition of right wingnuts), the percentage of deaths has fallen.

What Mr. Ramirez chooses to ignore is that our culture, mental illness, nor violent video games make a mass killing possible. None of those things are capable of killing anyone. Assuming for the sake of argument his BS reasons for mass killings, it still takes a gun to make it happen. As several other commenters have pointed out, other countries have many of the same problems as the US but don’t have the mass killings (generally) because of tight gun regulation.

Crazy people don’t kill people, crazy people able to buy guns without a background check can kill people!

And of course, it never occurs to the proponents of more guns, that the more guns a nation has, the better the chance the unhinged have access to guns. So let’s buy more gun=s as a self defense against all the other guns in the country. Makes sense to me…..not.

We have two cultures here. (1) Cancel Culture And (2) Culture Shock. Take your PICK!

WRONG ARGUMENT!! Video games are everywhere, not only in America, mass shooting are American trademark due to:

- Drug abuse and narcotics.- Violent culture (Agree with Ramirez)- Easy to get a weapon.- Army style weapons are available to public.

The problem is too deep, no magic solution, and if there is a will; this can take decades to solve…. Sad.

Can we please stop with this nonsense? It’s okay as speculation, but now we KNOW that there is no correlation between video games, mental health, and gun violence. Can’t comment on culture, though, that’s too broad.

Spot on Michael….The left claims that violent movies, games, TV and music lyric don’t affect people, yet will ban Looney Toons cartoons for falling anvils and exploding bombs. I watch a lot of old TV to some of today’s crap and you can clearly see a parallel between the uptick in violence with the uptick in more graphic violent content over the decades…

Everyone said once Trump was gone, we’d start getting back to normal, and we wouldn’t be having all the problems we’ve had in our divisive nation when he was in charge. What happened people?