Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo is joining calls for a nation debate about gun issues in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shootings, and also said that violent video games are a cause of such violence.Stumbo says he’s a lifelong National Rifle Association member and an avid outdoorsman — and he has helped many NRA-friendly bills pass in Kentucky. But he’s joining other rural Democrats in their call for a discussion on gun control.“But I join Sen. Joe Manchin in saying that it’s time for America to have an adult discussion about what happened and what needs to happen to keep those events from happening in the future,” Stumbo said.Gov. Steve Beshear expressed similar sentimentsafter the Newtown shooting, which left 27 people dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School, including the shooter.Stumbo did not go into details about what proposals he would favor.The Kentucky speaker suggested a potential tax on guns. He also blamed violent video games for such violent tragedies.“I believe it’s the video games, if you want to know the truth about it. And that’s not a cop out,” he says.Violent video games, Stumbo said, provide repetitive gun training and blur the lines between reality and fiction. Those views echo NRA President Wayne LaPierre, who blamed the shootings in part on a culture of violence fostered by violent media.
