Watch: Trevor Noah has some ideas about what’s causing the mass shooting epidemic in the US
‘The one thing that’s common with all mass shootings in the US is that whatever motivated them has to be combined with a gun’: Trevor Noah
On August 33, a gunman in El Paso, Texas, shot 22 people dead. A few hours later, nine more people were killed in another mass shooting, this time in Dayton, Ohio. Multiple injuries were reported from both tragedies.
The shootings left the US and the world shocked. In a recent episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, the host discussed the possible reasons behind the mass shooting epidemic in the US.
Many have blamed the internet as one of the reasons for the rise in the number of mass shootings. “We must recognise that the internet has provided a dangerous avenue to radicalise disturbed minds and perform demented acts,” US President Donald Trump said after the mass shootings.
Video games are also being blamed for desensitising young white American men.
However, Trevor Noah noted that by claiming that both mass shootings and violent video games had became popular in the last 20 years, “anything that was invented in this period could have contributed to mass shootings”. He also asked why countries like Japan and South Korea, where video games are wildly popular, do not have a “mass shooting epidemic”.
Noah’s analysis draws attention to the similarities between El Paso shooter and Trump’s ideology regarding immigrants. On May 20, a Trump supporter at a rally had yelled “shoot them” when the US President raised questions about stopping immigrants. Trump had, at that moment, laughed off the comment.
The only thing common to all mass shootings in the United States, Noah noted, was “a gun”.