Video games so far unplugged from Congress’ response to Kirk assassination

WASHINGTON (CN) — In the days following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, some in search of blame settled on a familiar antagonist: video games.

“It can desensitize to the point where that person involved in these games looks at other people, or at least the characters in the game, and they’re not even human beings, they’re simply avatars,” former FBI agent Mary Ellen O’Toole said of gamers on Fox News following Kirk’s fatal shooting at a college campus in Utah.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox told MSNBC on Sunday that suspected shooter Tyler Robinson was radicalized by “deep dark internet Reddit culture,” blaming his actions on the “meme-ification” of American society.

Robinson, 22, is suspected of firing the bullet that killed Kirk, 31, during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University last week. Authorities who recovered the rifle and ammunition believed to be used in the shooting have said that Robinson etched messages into several bullet casings — including apparent references to the popular video game Helldivers 2. Robinson also reportedly confessed to the crime using gaming-focused chat platform Discord.

The suspected shooter and his apparent connections to gaming and internet culture raised questions about whether the White House or Congress might respond with greater scrutiny of those communities. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy recently suggested that the government should investigate connections between first-person shooters and mass shootings.

But while lawmakers aren’t slamming the door on the idea of a congressional probe into video games, it’s clear the issue hasn’t yet taken root on Capitol Hill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Courthouse News on Tuesday morning that he hadn’t heard any proposals from Republican lawmakers to investigate video games, but that Congress would be “looking at all angles” in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination.

“I think we need to look at everything,” said Kentucky Representative Brett Guthrie, the Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We’re looking at kids’ online safety.”

Asked whether his panel might investigate the role of video games in Kirk’s assassination, he said that the issue had only just been brought to his attention — but signaled that he was open to the possibility.

“I haven’t specifically discussed that with anyone, but I think that we should look at how video [games] affect young people,” said Guthrie. “I think that’s a fair thing. We’ve spent a lot of time on kids’ online safety, and that could be a part of that.”

California Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat who recently made headlines for calling on the developers of Roblox to protect children who play their game, also suggested that he would be open to a congressional probe into video games.

“We’ve got to have much more regulation on social media, and I think we need to look at video games and the harm they cause in terms of getting young men addicted, and being intellectually draining,” he told Courthouse News.

But some lawmakers weren’t on board. Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat and one of the youngest members of Congress, argued that any analysis of Robinson’s radicalization should not solely be focused on the impact of video games.

“I would never discourage people from looking into something they think has a lead,” he told Courthouse News. “But I will say, if that’s the only thing you’re looking at, you’re missing the mark.”

A spokesperson for California Representative Jay Olbernolte, a Republican and a video game developer by trade, declined to comment.

Though studies have long poured cold water on the idea that video games make people violent, it wouldn’t be the first time that games and developers have found themselves under a potential congressional microscope.

Lawmakers on several occasions in recent history have hauled academics and industry experts to Capitol Hill to testify about violence in video games and its effects on users, particularly children. The House in 2006 probed Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive over their seminal title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, after revelations that the game contained hidden code for a sex minigame that had been scrapped during development.

The feature was only accessible using a third-party modification commonly known as the “Hot Coffee” mod. Regardless, news of the hidden code earned San Andreas a rare “adults only” rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which announced that it would fine developers as much as $1 million for failing to disclose graphic content.

The Federal Trade Commission later settled with Rockstar and Take Two over charges that the video game companies failed to disclose information about the Grand Theft Auto title to consumers.

During a 2006 hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, lawmakers not only dialed in on San Andreas’ hidden content but also its depictions of violence against civilians and police.

“Building a video game around a premise based on very realistic cold-blooded assassination of innocent bystanders and police, the same law enforcement community that stands guard outside the doors of this hearing for our own protection, is not entertainment,” former Florida Representative Cliff Stearns said at the time. “This sort of twisted homicidal imagery is more akin to hate speech, not free speech.”

Former Pennsylvania Representative Joe Pitts claimed that some American children would “almost certainly” be nudged into a life of crime by the Grand Theft Auto title.

Members of Congress had also scrutinized video games decades prior. Eugene Provenzo, a professor at the University of Miami, testified before the Senate in 1993 that video games would represent a “new type of television” that he characterized as “overwhelmingly violent.”

Speaking to Courthouse News on Monday, Provenzo argued that his concerns about video games persisted into present day.

“I outlined most of the basic problems with this Charlie Kirk incident 30 years ago,” he said. “It’s not changed. The horse is out of the barn, and I think there’s very little that people can do other than posture.”

Though lawmakers have long placed video games under a microscope, experts have repeatedly contested arguments that they contribute in any meaningful way to violent behavior. A group of Stanford University researchers in 2023 reported that they had not found “any causal link” between playing video games and real-life gun violence after a review of dozens of medical research papers.

“[T]his expectation of a causal relationship has been carefully crafted as part of a larger scapegoat narrative by vested interests for decades,” the researchers wrote. They pointed to studies which they said suggests that video games may be an “outlet” for violent tendencies rather than a “catalyst.”

The researchers pointed out that video games are “intrinsically social” and that studies on multiplayer games reveal that players’ experience improved self-esteem and social skills. Games also provide players with “novel challenges and immediate feedback on player technique,” they argued, a dynamic that can give users a healthier approach to real-world problems.

The U.S. Supreme Court also weighed in on the matter in its 2011 ruling striking down a California law banning the sale of certain video games to children without parental approval. The justices argued that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment and expressed reservations about studies “purporting to show a connection” between exposure to violent games and violent behavior.

Aubrey Quinn, senior vice president of the Entertainment Software Association, told Courthouse News that any attempts to link video games with real-world violence “distract from efforts to identify and address the real factors that influence and lead to violence in American society.”

“The scientific record confirms that video games do not cause real-world violence,” Quinn said. “The U.S. Supreme Court reached this conclusion more than a decade ago, and recent studies continue to find no causal link between video games and violence.”

Roughly 205 million Americans play video games, she added, and people all over the world play the same titles available in the U.S.

“[Y]et the U.S. stands alone in its rate of gun violence,” Quinn added.

The ESRB, the country’s video game ratings board, declined to comment.

In new text messages between Robinson and his reported romantic partner, published Tuesday by the New York Times, the suspected Kirk assassin wrote that the messages he etched into bullet casings found near the scene of the crime were “mostly a big meme.” He quipped that he would “have a stroke” if he saw some of them read out on the news.

Among those etchings were memes popularized by the title Helldivers 2 — a facsimile of Robert Heinlein’s novel “Starship Troopers” and the 1997 film of the same name. One message, a series of arrows, was a reference to an input code used by Helldivers 2 players to call an airstrike on in-game enemies. The code has become an oft-used internet meme.

A spokesperson for Stockholm-based Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers of Helldivers 2, declined to comment.

Discord messages published by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein also reveal that Robinson played other games such as Deep Rock Galactic, a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi shooter featuring cartoon dwarf miners, and Sea of Thieves, a similarly irreverent title in which players are part of a pirate crew.

A Steam gaming account reportedly associated with Robinson shows more than 2,000 hours logged playing Sea of Thieves.

Frost said Tuesday that while there may be scrutiny on the Kirk shooting suspect’s gaming history and the “radicalization of young people” through what he called “deep web, 4Chan references,” the focus for lawmakers should really be on broader underlying issues such as gun violence.

“Ultimately, we have to look at access to weapons that give them the ability to do something like what we saw,” he told Courthouse News. “The fact of the matter is, every other country has the same video games, the same internet that we do — but for some reason we have a bigger issue with this and rising political violence.”

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