Since the National Rifle Association (NRA) tried to blame video games for school shootings in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, the video games industry has found itself unfairly wound up in the issue; that much is obvious from the fact that US Vice President Joe Biden decided it would be a good idea to invite representatives from the video game industry to join the NRA, gun control advocates, and victims of shootings in a discussion about gun violence.
But Jon Stewart, i.e. host of The Daily Show, feels that those who would place the blame with video games and other entertainment are missing the point, as he expressed on Tuesday's show. He mocks the mention of films like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers, both of which are more than a decade old, the latter almost two decades. And he wastes no time in comically suggesting that the NRA and its supporters are looking for a scapegoat, sarcastically referencing the “non-gun causes of gun violence”, and displaying an image of a (fake, obviously) video game titled “Scapegoat Hunter”.
It's all very funny, but the conclusion does offer something for us to think about, as he gets down to the issue of people living in fear that an evil dictator will rise to take away their guns and thus their rights, and how this fear of what might happen in the future is stopping us from improving on life today:
“Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopian future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present.”
The video appears to have been removed from YouTube, but if you can find it anywhere make sure to give it a watch.
