Rockefeller: Violence in Media, Video Games 'Must Be Addressed'

Senator Jay Rockefeller, from the conservative state of West Virginia, is up for reelection in 2014. The Senator has decided to sidestep the gun control issue after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut by attacking Hollywood, video games, and the Internet.  Rockefeller’s fellow West Virginia senator, Joe Manchin, has already stepped in it with the gun owners of West Virginia with his statements about gun control after the tragedy:

I just came with my family from deer hunting. I’ve never had more than three shells in a clip. Sometimes you don’t get more than one shot anyway. It’s time to get beyond rhetoric, it’s time to sit down and move in a responsible way… it should move beyond dialogue, we need action… When Chuck Schumer says we don’t need more than 10 rounds in a clip, [critics] would be wrong to say that shouldn’t be on the table. Everything should be on the table.

Rockefeller knows the gun owners of his state will react to any brash statements about gun control, so instead he chose to skirt the issue and lambast the creators on television and video games, while at the same time acknowledging that he had no knowledge that any of his criticisms of these media were connected to the tragedy:

While we don’t know if such images impacted the killer in Newtown, the issue of violent content is serious and must be addressed. As parents, research confirms what we already know — these violent images have a negative impact on our children’s well-being.  It would be a travesty if we only looked at Friday’s attack — as well as the many other senseless tragedies we’ve seen — in silence and refuse to act. I’m pushing for that action now before we have to mourn more innocent lives lost.

Rockefeller wants to reauthorize the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, but his statement focused on anything but guns; he knows which side his bread is buttered on. He’s not going to challenge the Second Amendment, but he’s got no problem attacking the First.