A Look at Giffords’ Double Standard on Guns and Video Games

I’m not a huge RFK, Jr. Fan. I know a lot of people are right now and while I think he might do some good things with regard to the food industry, I have issues with some of the other things he’s done in the past.

Yet I’m pretty confident that he’ll be running the Department of Health and Human Services very soon, which is bugging a lot of people. Most of them deserve to be bugged, though. Especially the folks at Giffords.

Now, one of my issues with RFK, Jr. stems from him saying that he didn’t think gun control would reduce so-called gun violence, but was willing to support gun control legislation anyway.

Thankfully, he won’t be in a position to do anything about that.

He’s also famously blamed video games, in part, for mass shootings. And that bothered Giffords.

RFK Jr is one step closer to leading the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is the same guy who falsely blames America’s gun violence crisis on video games and antidepressants. He is the wrong choice for HHS.

— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) February 4, 2025

Now, I disagree with RFK on video games entirely, but there might be something in the antidepressant thing, as I noted at the link just above the X post.

But do you want to know who agrees with him that video games are a problem?

Giffords.

I’m not sure how anti-gun groups can still (correctly) claim that video games don’t cause real-world violence when they’ve been arguing for years that putting models of real guns in Call of Duty can cause people to commit mass shootings https://t.co/ZirryI53KR pic.twitter.com/uPvPKGXSfg

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 4, 2025

If Giffords truly thinks that video games don’t cause violence, why do they care if a gun company’s products are put in a video game? What do they think it will “influence” players to do? https://t.co/lPVPM8Ofmw pic.twitter.com/SE0P69piXL

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 4, 2025

Now, as Romano puts it, if video games aren’t an issue and don’t cause violence, then why does a product placement deal represent an issue? Especially since they note that 60 percent of those who play the game are 21 and older. Plus, at least some of that 30 percent are aged 18-20, meaning they can lawfully buy firearms.

Those under the age of 18 are prohibited from buying guns under federal law, so it doesn’t really matter.

See, product placement simply tries to get people to buy that particular product when they go to make a purchase. It’s not brainwashing that makes them feel like they need to buy a gun.

Now, I think there are plenty of places where Kennedy can be legitimately hit by just about anyone, but Giffords isn’t doing that. 

Instead, they’re engaging in some kind of doublespeak where they blame the gun industry for video games making people kill and then taking issue with Kennedy simply not blaming the firearm industry first. It’s absolute bonkers that they can’t see the double standard here.

Either video games are an issue or they’re not.

The only real difference is who they’re trying to blame for the video games.

Call of Duty, just one of many first-person shooter video games, has sold 500 million copies. How many mass shooters–and I mean real mass shooters, not Gun Violence Archive mass shooters–have there been during the time the game existed? A few dozen, at most? 

How many of those mass murderers definitively played the game and actually bought a firearm because it was in the game when they’d have never touched a firearm otherwise?

Zero. The answer is zero, for the record.

This attack on gun industry marketing is nothing more than the only tactic left open to them to go after the firearm industry because the PLCAA shut down all other avenues of attack.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. may not be my favorite member of the Trump administration, but I’m not going to sit here and just let Giffords get away with this BS.