The NRA has lashed out at violent entertainment as the cause of the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. In a press conference held earlier today and a statement posted on the NRA’s official site , NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said violent crime is increasing and that “there exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.”

“ And then they have the nerve to call it entertainment.

LaPierre specifically called out “vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm LaPierre said “a child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18” and called upon parents to protect their children, adding “they're our kids. They're our responsibility. And it's not just our duty to protect them — it's our right to protect them.” Rallying against gun control, LaPierre called upon Congress “to put armed police officers in every school” in order to “make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.”In response to LaPierre’s statements, Jennifer Mercurio, vice president & general counsel at the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), issued the following statement:

“We agree with the Supreme Court's decisions, and the volumes of scientific research, which all clearly state that there is no causal link between media violence and real life violence. As we are all learning increasingly through the news, this is a situation of the perpetrator's mental disorders, and his family's inability to adequately deal with them in time. Our hearts remain with all those suffering in the aftermath of this horrendous crime.”

LaPierre’s statements come just days after West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller proposed a bill to study “the impact of violent content, including video games and video programming, on children.”

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.