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Toy guns, violent movies, church dogma, grandparent stories....

There is no scientific basis for this claim whatsoever. It's a scapegoat tactic by politicians and the media. You have more guns than people in your country. That's probably the first problem. Getting a gun in the US is way too easy. The 2nd amendment is bullshit. We are not in the wild west anymore. People don't need the right to bear arms. Looking at the stats, they clearly shouldn't have that right. Fun fact: Every day 8 children and teens are shot by an improperly stored or misused gun found in the home resulting in injury or death in the US. How can anybody think having so many guns is a good idea...

Maybe the US should look a bit more what other countries do. See which effect it had in Australia when they banned semi-automatic guns:

https://fortune.com/2018/02/20/australia-gun-control-success/

People who blame video games or movies, right along side those who blame accessibility to firearms, are sidestepping the much bigger issue and looking for an "easy out" or scapegoat, something they believe that can easily fix.

The bigger issue is the lack of easily accessible mental health care and diagnosis, along with the stigma that goes practically hand in hand with mental illness. We're encouraged to see a doctor and get a physical check-up every year (or every few years), but there seems to be a lack of interest overall in the mental health of individuals. And rather than encouraging people to get check-ups for their mental health, we simply label them as abnormal, goofy, strange, odd, etc, and those issues rarely get addressed.

I wish games were responsible for more sword fights. We start a new fashion trend of walking around with swords on our backs and get rid of guns. It's a win-win.

Just saying, over here in the Uk we have the same access and exposure to video games that the US does. And yet our mass shootings tend to be non-existant/infrequent and involve only a couple of casualties/are literally only done in full fledged terrorist attacks which are political/religious and not to do with video games.

Methinks it "might" have more to do with gun regulations and general attitude not linked in any way to games.
Here it takes years and a trillion different forms and liscenses and regulations to have a shooty Mcbang of any kind. Yes even low power ones or ones branded as hunting suitable only. More trouble getting and keeping than it is worth. We are also taught that guns are actually dangerouse things that have consequences.

Whearas america, getting a gun tends to be a right of passage. With nearly everyone 12 years old and up seemingly being allowed to have a military grade fully automatic assault rifle. And many americans are bought up to believe that owning a gun is "Mah right as an aymareican seetazen as told by the constee2shun to own a gun to use at mah own discreetion and especially against the peeple in mah town coz I feel like it." Despite ignoring the fact that it was literally drafted for country defence to make a more effective militia in times of an invasion. Also it was made quite a while ago in the times where you need mass rank and file to have a chance of hitting a single person and took considerable time skill and patience to use the guns, and not for nowadays when guns are significantly easier to use and way more destructive.

Mass shootings do happen in other countries. And yes, other countries do have access to video games. The key factor is in ease of access to guns. Easier to get a gun = greater chance someone goes off the rails and uses one. And no where does it seem to be easier to gun a gun than america. And they have the most instances of shootings. And all it takes for someone to want to use one is if they have been wronged significantly enough, they are mentally unwell, want revenge against something for whatever reason, ect.

Gun violence has been around for many MANY more years than video games. Now here's the thing, games most likely don't help with it. Playing a game where you are encouraged to shoot people and you are given satisfaction and rewards kind of does give people the incentive to think guns are cool and a great solution to their problems. However most countries teach their citizans that guns are dangerouse. That they have serious consequences. And that is a major thing. If you are not brought up to respect the power and deadliness of a weapon, you are more likely to misuse it and treat it as a solution to a problem.

Tighter restrictions and laws on gun ownership and use. And better education and general knowledge on the consequences of guns. Then maybe the US wont be reporting another mass shooting every other bloody day. Just a thought you know?

This site is very enlightening, not to mention eye opening. It breaks down gun related incidences is the US by type and by year since its inception.

Middle ages: You have sinned and you're sick - it's God's retribution.
Witch is loved by Satan, and cursed my child. Let's go for BBQ.
Present day: Video games make young people want to do violence.

Sure, let's take a thing that general population is not familiar with, and use that lack of knowledge to convince them that our ideology is proven to be the right one, by us making a tragedy a political mean to an end. Even better, we know it won't change a thing even if it is implemented, but it's too crazy to tell people that nobody can play any video game ever again, so it won't be implemented and, so we can use the same argument over and over for years to come.
Oh, you thought we want to repair the country or society? But that would make people uncomfortable with us, and such people are not good voters (for us).
Also, we don't know what's actually wrong, so we have to make something up to be relevant.

If nostalgia, a love for things familiar and old can be used to manipulate you to spend your money on stuff, why wouldn't fear of change, of things unfamiliar and new be able to do so as well? I'm talking here about people who aren't gamers, and can be politically used because of that.
It's not that video games are responsible, but something tangible and targetable has to be, so viedo games were picked to be a scapegoat.

While video games, like all media, do have an influence on people, they won't make a murderer out of someone who isn't already on their path to become one.

No.

I'm not american and I don't like Trump but I would be pleased to see more non violent games. Killing people is a lazy way for a developper to give a goal to players. And I'm not judging anyone, I also play violent games but it would be nice to hug people online sometimes.

The real question, are mass shootings responsible for video games?

Video games are worldwide, and yet it's just the US that's suffering the worst mass shooting epidemic. So it's something specific to the US.

Now if only we could figure out what it is that sets the US apart from every other country in the world...

Videogames this, videogames that, blah blah.... Such a ton of bullshit.
How the hell those murderers can shoot so freely on a massive scale, if THE LAW DON'T GIVE THEM THE RIGHTS TO OWN AND BUY A GUN - A TOOL THAT IS MADE TO KILL PEOPLE - LIKE NOTHING at very first place ? See, this is the most appropriate time for me to say: "THIS IS AMERICA.", duh

Lack of gun control is responsible, not video games. Video games played in whole wide world but you don't see people killing each other at such maddening rate like in USA where you can get AR15 freely.

Video games are not responsible. Now, there have been isolated cases like a young man who decided to play Grand Theft Auto in real life to see how many people he could knock down. He wasn't tied to terrorism, he was just a sick individual.

Hate is responsible for the shootings in the USA. Like ISIS or any other terrorist group, they are motivated by hatred of racial, religious, or ethnic groups. Then you have nutcases who become indoctrinated into a way of thinking by these hate groups... there you have mass killings.

When will gun manufacturers find something else to blame shootings on, I'm so tired of hearing this exact same discussion about video games and violence repeated over and over...

Oh are they using video games as a scapegoat yet again while continuing to ignore the real issues? It's complete and utter nonsense. No, the real underlying causes here are a combination of mental health (which is an elephant in the room and not nearly enough attention and focus is paid to it) and inadequate and antiquated gun control laws that are far too lax and are operate as though we are still in the 1700's or the Wild West and hasn't changed with the times even though American society and civilization is very different than it was back then. We keep seeing these mass shootings over and over and over again and they are not doing a god damn thing about it. Just how many people have to lose their lives like this before they truly take it seriously? Frankly I'm sick to my stomach seeing it & am thoroughly disgusted with American government and how broken it is as a whole (in particular the deeply flawed entrenched two-party political system, corruption, etc). And I know this much: no one can sit there and say that they should have a 'right to bear arms' that is more important than innocent people losing their lives and being tragically murdered. I guarantee you they would be singing a very different tune if it was their friend, their son, their mother, their wife, or their loved one that were slaughtered like this.

This is a matter of research, not debate.

The American Psychological Association released a report back in 2016 of a 2015 study that concluded that..

• The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive affect and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and sensitivity to aggression.

• The research converges across multiple methods and multiple samples, with multiple types of measurements demonstrating these relations.

• The recent research demonstrated that these effects hold over at least some time spans. This body of research includes laboratory experiments
  examining effects over short time spans immediately following experimental manipulations and observational longitudinal studies.

It's reports like these that these politicians point to as a potential cause of these shootings. The problem is that most of these emotions that some of those playing games feel while playing a game are short term. Long term aggression, the type that leads to shootings, have other factors like family violence, having an anger-prone personality, poverty, harsh parental discipline, peer rejection, and school problems, are established risk factors for aggression. There's a follow up report to this written by Eileen Kennedy-Moore, who is a phenomenal child psychologist, you can read here..

TL;DR Video games do not cause children, or anyone for that matter, to shoot people. It's a very very very hard thing to prove that the short term aggression that video games sometimes causes translates to meaningful real-life outcomes.

easy access to guns is

If anyone HAVE to asks that question then I think they should first evaluate if they have better things to do, like playing games.
I mean, the Gamers don't have time to shoot people because there is another event coming up to farm the resources!

This is the same bullshit as the Gaming addiction. You can get addicted to anything but they had to create a separate definition for gaming. Do these researchers not know about TVs?

The thing is, politicians, news reporters and especially general people want scapegoats in these kind of situations. Someone to blame so they can feel good about themselves and divert the attention from the real issues.

They'll have to pry my murder simulators out of my cold, dead hands! Then I'll just respawn and take 'em back anyway!

Every single time I hear about a gun shooting in the US, I rewatch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0

if we took all video games from people would mass gun killings stop?
if we took all guns away from people would mass gun killings stop?
makes you think...

Yea yea thats totally because of gta 4

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/16/americans-age-to-buy-ar15-assault-rifle-mass-shootings