On December 19, 2012 Democratic West Verginia Senator, Jay Rockefeller, introduced a bill that would require the National Academy of Sciences to perform a study on the effects of violent video games on young children. This action is done in response to the recent shootings in Newton, Connecticut that left 20 children and 6 adults dead.
The senator is quoted on his website to have said “Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do not get it. They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians, and psychologists know better.” He does not state which pediatricians and psychologists he is talking about.
The bill would direct the National Academy of Sciences to submit their report within 18 months from the bill passing to Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission.
It is unknown if the Senator is aware of the already existing abundance of studies on this subject, or how he proposes that the long lasting effects of violent video games are to be independently studied in the short time of 18 months and how this study will be different than the many others that have been done in the past.
Here is an already existing analysis of the effects of video game violence, citing many studies that have already been done; Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review.
