‘We Have to Look at the Internet’ Trump Says
President Donald Trump is suggesting a national ratings system for movies, saying the level of violence in some is extreme and contributes, he thinks, to gun violence. The president made his comments while speaking with pro-gun conservatives assembled in the White House one day after he held a listening session with those affected by last week’s Parkland, Florida massacre.
Trump also pointed to violence online and in video games as causes for gun violence, and worried that young people who see violence in film, online, and in video games are being shaped by it.
“We have to look at the internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it. And also video games,” the president said, The Hill reports.
“I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts. And you go one further step and that’s the movies. … maybe they have to put a rating system for that,” Trump suggested.
The Motion Picture Association of America has had a film rating system since the 1930s. In the 1960’s it was overhauled to look much like today’s rating system.
Similarity, the Entertainment Software Rating Board rates video games, for violence, age, sex, and profanity, among other criteria.
The president specifically said “more and more people” are saying violence in these entertainment products are responsible for gun violence. Other countries have often the same movies and video games but not the same, or anywhere near the same level of gun violence as America does. They also do not have anywhere near the amount of guns per capita that America does.