Incoming NRA president Oliver North acknowledged he is “certainly not a doctor,” but that didn’t stop him from baselessly blaming the epidemic of school shootings on Ritalin and violence in entertainment. Maybe he thought his ridiculous claim would make us all forget his own role in promoting a violent video game.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday yesterday, North offered no evidence for his pronouncement of cause and effect:
NORTH: And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence. They have been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male and they are young teenagers in most cases.
And they have come through a culture where violence is commonplace. All you need to do is turn on the TV, go to a movie. If you look at what has happened to the young people, many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.
Now, I am certainly not a doctor, I’m a Marine, but I can see those kinds of things happening endangering those two gals --.
As The Daily Beast noted, there is no evidence connecting Ritalin to school shootings. And, as Moms Demand Action Shannon Watts tweeted, plenty of teens in other countries play the same video games and watch the same movies as American teens. “What’s different? They have easy access to arsenals and ammo,” she wrote.
But if North really believes that violent video games are so bad, maybe he’d like to give back the money he received for promoting and consulting on the violent video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Watch North pull a diagnosis out of thin air below, from the May 20, 2018 Fox News Sunday.
(Transcript excerpt via FoxNews.com)
This totally discredited marine cannot understand that the “violent culture” he so glibly bemoans cannot but be fostered by the idolatry he, himself, professes for firearms, especially those that were developed primarily to kill humans. Any reference to hunting is quite simply silly. Firearms are the gods of the NRA and Mr. North will do his best to spread the unholy word.
If the NRA is stupid enough to select this felon as their spokesman, then there’s really nothing to say to them.