I get really tired of watching people who don’t participate in certain activities all of a sudden blame those activities for problems that they don’t know how else to fix.
Illinois State Rep. Marcus Evans (D) blamed the admittedly violent video game “Grand Theft Auto” for the recent surge in carjackings across the Chicagoland area over the past few months.
“'Grand Theft Auto' and other violent video games are getting in the minds of our young people and perpetuating the normalcy of carjacking," Evans said, according to ABC 7 - Chicago. "Carjacking is not normal and carjacking must stop.”
Evans told the outlet that “he plans to introduce a bill to ban sales of the game in Illinois.
Yeah, because that’ll stop crime in Chicago.
Violent crimes, carjacking among them, have been rampant in the city of Chicago for decades. But sure, a video game is the crux of the problem. So glad we’re getting to the bottom of that.
Instead of enacting policies and prosecuting criminals that would keep actual violent criminals in jail, let’s focus on a video that has nothing to do with the problem. Or maybe, people can actually parent their children into knowing the difference between real life and pretend. Just a thought.
If video games like “Grand Theft Auto” were the actual problem in contributing to violent crime, then where’s the science on the topic to back up those claims? We’re all supposed to “follow the science” in the “new normal” that we’re all forced to live under, right?
“Community activist” Early Walker agrees with Evans and says that his own science backs up the claims and therefore should be enough to ban the video game.
“Representative Evans and I have researched and concluded that these very young offenders of carjacking are greatly influenced by the Grand Theft Auto video game," Walker said. "I truly believe that there is bipartisan support in Springfield to ban this game from being sold in Illinois.”
The “Grand Theft Auto” video game franchise has been around since the original was released in 1997.
The claim above by Evans and Walker is just a more modern way to burn books — it just happens that the burning involves a video game in this instance.
Keep trying to take away things from people. When is the last time we the people took things away from politicians?
For local coverage of the story, watch below:
H/T: Chicago Sun-Times