MYTH: Within hours of the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, pundits were on the airwaves and the Internet blaming video games for Seung-Hui Cho’s violent behavior. For example, media darling and pop psychologist Phil McGraw, appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, stated, “Common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society.... The mass murders [sic] of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.” Former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in an address to new graduates of Regent University, said, “Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this cesspool.”

