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NRA, video game makers to meet with Biden gun task force this week
People walk inside the Orlando Convention Center at the 132nd Annual National Rifle Association Meeting in in Orlando, Florida April 27, 2003.
Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is slated to meet with Vice President Joe Biden as he considers recommendations on how to respond to a mass shooting last month in Newtown, Connecticut, the White House said on Tuesday.
After the Newtown school shooting, which President Barack Obama called the worst day of his presidency, he asked Biden to come up with a broad range of ideas to curb gun violence - ideas he will unveil in his annual State of the Union address, traditionally given in late January.
Obama has said he wants new gun control measures passed during the first year of his second term, but gun control is a divisive issue in the United States where the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution.
Biden's task force is examining legislation that would ban assault rifles, but is also looking at the role of violent movies and videogames in mass shootings and whether there is adequate access to mental health services.
Biden and his task force are slated to hold meeting this week with victims of gun violence, gun safety groups, hunting groups, and gun owners, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
"His group will also meet with representatives of the entertainment and video-game industries," Carney said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will meet with mental health and disability advocates, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan is slated to meet with parent, teacher and education groups, Carney said.
The NRA has proposed armed guards in schools, an idea about which Obama has expressed skepticism.
The group's top lobbyist, James J. Baker, will attend the task force meeting on Thursday, an NRA spokesman said.
"We are sending a representative to hear what they have to say," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said in an e-mailed statement.
(Additional reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jackie Frank)
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Will your at it: censor every movie that has ever had blood, guns or death in a scene.
Younger gens may be driven to buy guns by video games so they can claim that they “Have one IRL” also so they can experience the “real thing” guns mind you, not killing… well, at least I hope not…
Of course, if the NRA feel like they are under enough pressure they may deem vidya games an adequate scapegoat to divert blame…
But yeah, yeah… keep looking for that scape goat. That’s totally been historically proven to solve all societal ills… Because finding the root of a problem and properly solving it? Aint nobody got time fer that!
Hasn’t anybody considered the possibility that violent videogames attract the mentally ill as opposed to creating them. I’m not claiming it’s one or the other but it seems media everywhere focus on evil vidya game turning kids in to killing machines… I have played some violent FPSs in my time and I don’t feel the urge to gun down my fellow man. Or have I just not let the subliminal messages sink in yet? Have I not activated yet?
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