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In the wake of the that left 22 dead and dozens injured, a familiar trope has reemerged: Often, when a young man is the shooter, people try to and other forms of media.

This time around, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick placed some of the blame on a video game industry that “.” Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California went on to that “dehumanize individuals” as a “problem for future generations.” And President Trump pointed to society’s “glorification of violence,” including “.”

These are the same connections a Florida lawmaker made after the Parkland shooting in February 2018, suggesting that the gunman in that case “was prepared to .”

But, as a researcher who has studied violent video games for almost 15 years, I can state that there is no evidence to support these claims that violent media and real-world violence are connected.

As far back as 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that between violent video games and aggressive behavior. Criminologists who study mass shootings specifically refer to those sorts of connections as a “.” And in 2017, the Media Psychology and Technology division of the American Psychological Association released a I helped craft, suggesting reporters and policymakers cease linking mass shootings to violent media, given the lack of evidence for a link.

A History Of A Moral Panic

So why are so many policymakers inclined to blame violent video games for violence? There are two main reasons.

The first is the psychological research community’s efforts to as strictly scientific. This led to a instead, with researchers often of their studies. Now, psychology researchers are reassessing their analyses of a wide range of issues – not just violent video games, but , and more.

The other part of the answer lies in the of violent video game research specifically.

Beginning in the early 2000s, some scholars, anti-media advocates and professional groups like the APA began working to connect a and often contradictory set of results to public health concerns about violence. This echoed historical patterns of moral panic, such as and in the 1980s for violence, sex and Satanism.

Particularly in the early 2000s, dubious evidence regarding violent video games was . But over the years, confidence among scholars that violent video games influence aggression or violence .

Reviewing All The Scholarly Literature

My own research has examined the degree to which violent video games can – or can’t – predict youth aggression and violence. In a 2015 , I examined 101 studies on the subject and found that violent video games had little impact on kids’ aggression, mood, helping behavior or grades.

Two years later, I found had distorted the scientific record on violent video games. Experimental studies that found effects were more likely to be published than studies that had found none. This was . As the Supreme Court noted, any impacts due to video games are from the effects of other media, like cartoons and movies.

Spikes in violent video games’ popularity are well known to correlate with substantial declines in youth violence – not increases.

Any claims that there is consistent evidence that violent video games encourage aggression are simply false.

are well known to correlate with substantial declines in youth violence – not increases. These correlations are very strong, stronger than most seen in behavioral research. More recent research suggests that the violent video games are associated with in violent crime, hinting that the releases may cause the drop-off.

The Role Of Professional Groups

With so little evidence, why are violent video games for mass shootings by young men? Can groups like the National Rifle Association seriously blame for gun violence?

A key element of that problem is the willingness of professional guild organizations such as the to promote false beliefs about violent video games. (I’m a fellow of the APA.) These groups mainly exist to promote a profession among news media, the public and policymakers, . They also make it easier to get grants and newspaper headlines. Psychologists and psychology researchers like myself pay them yearly dues to increase the public profile of psychology. But there is a risk the general public may mistake promotional positions for objective science.

In 2005 the APA released its first linking violent video games to aggression. However, my with found that the APA ignored inconsistencies and methodological problems in the research data.

The APA its statement in 2015, but that sparked controversy immediately: More than wrote to the group asking it to stop releasing policy statements altogether. I and others objected to tainting the process.

It’s bad enough that these statements misrepresent the actual scholarly research and misinform the public. But it’s worse when those falsehoods give advocacy groups like the NRA cover to shift blame for violence onto non-issues like video games. The resulting misunderstanding hinders efforts to address mental illness and other issues, such as the need for gun control, that are actually related to gun violence.

This is an updated version of on Feb. 16, 2018.

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