A roundtable discussion held at the White House today with game industry representatives discussing gun violence, violent video games, and school safety following the Parkland school shooting seems to have accomplished little.
As reported by Glixel, those in attendance deemed the hour long meeting as a “listening session with no concrete action planned out of it.”
Rep. Hartzler told The Washington Post that Trump opened the meeting by showing “a montage of clips of various violent video games,” and then followed by asking ‘This is violent, isn’t it?'”
“Today’s meeting was an opportunity to learn and hear from different sides about concerns and possible solutions to violence in schools,” Hartzler said in a prepared statement.
“I believe the solution to curtailing violence lies in an all-encompassing approach, focused on several different factors that may contribute to school shootings,” Hartzler continues. “Discussions should not be limited to just video games and guns.”
The Entertainment Software Association issued the following statement this afternoon regarding today’s meeting with President Trump, stressing that lawmakers seeking to do something about school shootings should have a dialogue about gun control, not violent video games.
“We discussed the numerous scientific studies establishing that there is no connection between video games and violence, First Amendment protection of video games, and how our industry’s rating system effectively helps parents make informed entertainment choices,” writes vice president of media relations Dan Hewitt.
The consensus so far seems to be that the meeting is indicative of needing a much larger conversation about the topic of gun violence in America.
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2018