Everyone knows that violent video games are the root of all modern violence, right? Our children are completely desensitized and will then likely pick up any available weapon to reenact the horrors they perpetrated through the screen.

Except...not so much. From Mediaite:

Clinical psychologist Dr. Stanton Samenow appeared on MSNBC’s The Cycle on Tuesday to address the pervasive opinion – expressed frequently in the media and by lawmakers – that violent video games and films are partially responsible for the manifestation of violence in mass murders like Adam Lanza. Samenow flatly dismissed the notion that video games or films are in any way linked to the violent action of disturbed individuals. 

Touré asked Samenow about violence in video games and its link to violent episodes by unstable individuals, to which Samenow replied that the mind of a killer is more important to understand than their video game playing habits.

“This casting about for circumstances outside the individual that allegedly propel him to become something that he wasn’t just doesn’t even make common sense,” Samenow replied.

Samenow said that his experience interviewing violent offenders taught him that killers are obsessed with violence, but to say that watching violence made them that ways is a “complete and total stretch.”

S.E. Cupp said that when she thinks of a “culture of violence” she thinks of regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa that impress children into military service, rather than Western artists and entertainment producers.

Samenow agreed. “In our society, nobody is forced to become violent,” Samenow replied. He said that, while disturbed individuals may be inspired by art, millions of people consume the same art and experience it only as entertainment.  

Some of the greatest monsters in the history of the world didn't need entertainment to shape their worldview, they did what they did for a variety of reasons. 

The point is that the triggers for an evil person to commit an act of evil are myriad and complex. Merely banning guns or video games isn't going to stop someone with evil in their heart.