According to Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, the gun violence in the USA is, to a great extent, caused by violent video games and films. He says "There exists in this country, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people."

He forgets that we live in a global village. The video game industry is international, or rather, multinational. Grand Theft Auto, which he specifically mentions, is Scottish in origin and is on the same list of the Ten Great British Designs as the Mini car. More important still is the fact that these games and also the violent films he mentions are equally popular throughout the world, but only the USA has such a rate of gun violence outside the world of organized crime. So does Mr. LaPierre think that for some reason Americans are more susceptible to the influence of fictional violence than other nations?

I live in Spain,where the gun laws are very restrictive and crimes involving guns are rare, and yet I have been fed up during the Christmas and Three Kings gift period with seemingly constant TV adverts for Call of Duty Black Ops and Hitman Absolution. Very recently a disturbed young man who is now in custody was arrested for planning to kill students at the local university (Universitat de Illes Balears). He had never been in trouble with the police, but after trying to buy guns legally without success, he had resorted to buying materials online to make bombs, at which point the police arrested him. It is almost certain that in this case the restrictive gun laws prevented a massacre, while in the USA he would have obtained guns with no problems, he had no criminal record and no psychiatric history.

Mr. LaPierre has actually shot himself in his own foot (Sorry, I couldn't help that!) by highlighting this issue of fictional violence that can be used to show that it is not virtual and fictional violence but access to guns in the real world that results in death and injury to innocent people.