[0:02]President Trump hosted a meeting with video game makers and their critics at the White House today. He was busy. They're looking for ways to reduce youth violence following the Florida school shooting.
[0:13]And the President recently expressed shock at what young people are exposed to today.
[0:19]The video games, the movies, the internet stuff is so violent. It's so incredible. I see it.
[0:26]I get to see things that you wouldn't be you'd be amazed at. I have a young, very young son who I I look at some of the things he's watching and I say, how is that possible? And this is what kids are watching.
[0:41]Now, let's discuss whether there is any link between violence on the screen and real violence, with Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, who's authored books on the psychology of violence.
[0:55]Army Ranger, black belt and everything. Okay, you win just on that score. Uh, it's great to have you both on. Um, let's start with you, David, because uh some of these games are really wild. I mean, they're they're pretty graphic, pretty gory.
[1:10]Uh, you know them, you know, Call of Duty Call of Duty. I don't do any of these, but like Grand Theft Auto. Yeah, they're simulated, simulated violence. It's a criminal simulator, a murder simulator. Evan Ramsey, um, others like uh, you know, other some of these other killers, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris of Columbine were steeped in these games. Adam Lanza.
[1:25]The Norway killer trained on those. He said he trained on them. 69 died on the island of Norway, and he spent a year training on video games to prepare himself as crime. The killer at uh in Florida, he he spent 15 hours a day on violent video games. So most all consuming, all pervasive thing in this guy's life are these violent video games.
[1:44]And it less than a year ago, the American Psychological Association made a definitive statement. There is a clear, unequivocal link between violent video games and violent behavior.
[1:55]Their blood pressure goes up, their heart rate goes up, violent actions go up. The data is persistent and clear across many different forms. You cannot deny it. It it is overwhelming.
[2:06]Ben Shapiro, uh I know you're skeptical about a link from video games. Millions and millions of people play these video games. I mean, girls aren't as into these video games. I'm sorry as boys are, but, but I, I think if my sons had access to them, I'm sure they'd play them all the time because some something about the boy's brain and these games. But why are you not worried about it?
[2:26]Well, I mean, I I'm not supremely worried about it just because the consumption of these violent video games has been going up continuously since the early 90s, and yet youth violence has been going down since the early 90s. The correlation actually doesn't fit. As far as individual instances, I mean, you can find patterns in in in very sporadic instances among virtually all data sets. But there's some pretty mixed data about this.
[2:47]It's true that the American Psychological Association recommends that parents not allow their kids to play these games. I wouldn't let my kids play these games because I think they're immoral, frankly. But that should really be up to parents. I'm not sure that government should be in the business of stepping in. In 2011, Justice Scalia in the majority decision 5-4, found that it was actually unconstitutional for the state of California to regulate the capacity of parents to be able to get these video games for their kids or even for kids to get them themselves without parental permission. He saw that as a content violation under the First Amendment.
[3:14]Uh let's talk more about this. The, the assassinations that take place in the games.
[3:20]You know, I I my book uh Laura, Assassination Generation. Uh we outlined the dissenting opinions in that case. There's much more to this situation that we need to understand. You know, uh uh Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breer, the most liberal, most conservative justice dissented. Stephen Breer said, they use these to train military. They said I'm not a I'm not a medical expert, but I know who is. And it's not the people, the video game industry put out. You need to know more about that case. The data is so overwhelming, and I'm when I was a kid, nobody buckled their seat belt and we're all just fine.
[3:55]Not everybody but their seatbelt unbuckled died, but all the ones that died had their seatbelts. So you're saying if kids who had predispositions to this, that that maybe maybe they have uh a trigger inside of them, and they've they steeped themselves in this violence.
[4:06]We need to know more about it. Great book, Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer, the the new factor in every single case, the new factor. The the fact that violent crime is down is not q in the last are they using these in army army ranger training? They do do video simulation now?
[4:21]We we do do it with law enforcement and military training, we use simulators. You don't see the Marine Drill School, but you see it it's an integral part of our training to make killing a condition response is part of modern training. We've got to do it. Healthy people have to be trained to kill and the video games do the same thing to the kids.
[4:37]And Ben, what I always think about this is, you know, science science or not, for young children to continually see images of heads exploding, chests opening up. You talked about the immorality of all this.
[4:51]Whether whether it's constitutional or not constitutional, maybe as a society, we have to talk about what numbing ourselves to this, this very graphic violence. It's not it's not like cartoon. This looks like a real person's head exploding. And it's over and over and over again and you're doing it 10 hours a day and you're playing with people in other countries. That's where you're that's where you're getting your stimulation. And that's boys need to be outside playing, they need to be doing physical stuff. Instead they're sitting there on these on these screens all day. I I just don't see how any of that's good.
[5:21]I I fully agree with with all of that. I just think this is a question of parental authority and I think it's a question of how we as a society choose to raise our kids, not a necessarily a question of governmental regulation. And the problem I have with the President getting involved is is whether this is going to be a cultural issue or is this a regulatory issue? Is this an issue where the president tries to promulgate some sort of legislative response or what we're supposed to think that the government is going to step in and fix all of this? Because again, I'm not sure that the statistics match up in terms of just public policy, but I think we're all in agreement that we'd all prefer that kids play less of this, and we have a pretty robust rating system on video games as well. I hope it gets more robust, and I hope more parents take responsibility for the crap their kids are putting in their system.
[5:58]You know, Adam Lanza who had such an empty empty look in his face. He obviously had severe mental problems as well.
[6:03]We we protect our kids from guns and tobacco and alcohol and pornography, sex, automobiles, firearms. And all those other areas, they wouldn't buckle their baby in their car seats if it wasn't the law. It's not going to get done until we take action. Uh, most major nations on the planet regulate children's access to these games. We're about the only major nation that doesn't do that.
[6:23]Well, I'm glad I don't like these games. So it's great to have both of you on.
