Trump’s Video Games And Violence Summit Prompted An Endless Stream Of Jokes

Like most reboots, the Trump administration-fueled culture wars are uninspired and aimed at the lowest common denominator. Shortly after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, President Trump hooked onto the idea that it was actually video game violence that was to blame for gun violence (something that mysteriously was not brought up after even deadlier shootings in Las Vegas and Texas in 2017). It was a callback to something he said following the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

It came as no surprise that President Trump quickly announced he was going to hold a summit with representatives of the video game industry to get to the bottom of all this. The meeting, which sounds, charitably, very ad hoc, isn’t expected to accomplish all that much, especially since the Supreme Court has made regulating the industry all but impossible, and the guest list appears to be stacking the deck against the video game industry in an easy-to-see manner.

However, like so many other things this presidency gets involved with, the meeting (which is, of course, closed off from the press) has made great fodder for jokes. Here’s a sampling.

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/971831107791532032

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/971832462350471168

As has been pointed out elsewhere, video games, including violent ones, are played all around the world in countries that do not have the same issue with gun violence.

Meanwhile, Activision, the publisher of the “Call of Duty” franchise, announced the latest edition of its simulated warfare game today, and a number of video game companies have had a good day on the stock market.