Fox News Host Wants to Monitor Your Gaming Habits

Fox & Friends host Elizabeth Hasselbeck has suggested that the government monitor game purchases in the wake of the DC Navy Yard shooting.

In case you’ve been too busy playing mind corrupting videogames to check up on the news, the Washingtion D.C. Navy Yard found itself the scene of a mass shooting a few days ago that, sadly, claimed the lives of thirteen people and injured another eight. The shooting, naturally, has led many to ask why these sorts of things happen, a question that, of course, has led some to look at videogames.

The culprit this time would be Fox News which, at several points during a discussion on the shooting, turned its attention shooter Aaron Alexis’ background as a gamer. “He’s got a friend, who said, ‘Yeah, he had an obsession with video games,'” said co-host Brian Kilmeade. “He would come over and he would be playing so long – these video games, these shooting games – we’d have to give him dinner, we’d have to feed him while he continued to stay on them.'”

Host Elizabeth Hasselbeck meanwhile suggested that perhaps the government should begin monitoring game purchases to help single out “people susceptible to playing videogames.” While she affirmed that she’s not one that wants the government to “monitor everything” she rolled around the idea that perhaps we should start “looking at frequency of [game] purchases” and “how often they’re playing.”

There are, of course, a few things to note about this Fox & Friends conversation. The first few minutes of the segment, for instance, don’t talk about videogames but rather about supporters of gun control using this latest shooting as a jumping point to reignite the gun debate. We’re not going to weigh in on that argument, but it is pretty clear that Hasselbeck and company would prefer that guns remain unrestricted. That in mind, the somewhat sudden switch to “hey, what about those videogames?” comes across almost like a parent jiggling their keys to distract a scared child. It’s not really a bad strategy either, especially considering how many Americans still think videogames contribute to real world violence even though studies would suggest otherwise.

Source: Kotaku