Fox & Friends blames video games, mental illness, Satan worship, and gun-free zones after mass shootings


The hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday morning placed blame on everything from video games to gun-free zones after two deadly mass shootings left almost 30 people dead over the weekend.
On the morning show frequently watched by President Trump, the hosts ran through "warning signs" that the shooter in Dayton, Ohio exhibited, with Ainsley Earhardt citing his suspected Twitter page and saying that the shooter "praised Satan." From there, Pete Hegseth suggested that violent video games played a role.
"You add those impulses with video games ... first [person] shooter games would desensitize folks to the violence," Hegseth said, citing the lieutenant governor of Texas' similar comments on Sunday. "...When you see it through a screen and you don't relate to it in person, it makes it seem like it's more accessible."
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Earhardt agreed that video games could be one of "so many factors" at play, hypothesizing that another could be not growing up going to church on Sundays, as that "teaches you to have fear of God and to have good morals."
Hegseth also blamed gun-free zones for preventing people from "immediately shooting back," reports Media Matters for America's Bobby Lewis, "So it’s not as simple as saying, 'ban weapons of war,'" Hegseth said. "Some people would say, hey, I as an individual should have the right to defend myself, myself included."
Earhardt, meanwhile, suggested that gun control measures may be useless anyway, as "if you're bad enough to be able to walk into a Walmart and just blast people and take people's lives, you're bad enough to go and steal a gun."
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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