Turn in violent video games, get ice cream in California county
The District Attorney of Marin county, California, is hosting a buyback day for residents' toy guns and violent video games, in an effort to highlight issues of domestic violence during October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. District Attorney Ed Berberian is working with the Center for Domestic Peace and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream for the event, to be held on October 4 at Novato police headquarters. Participants will receive ice cream, Marin IJ says.
"As we know, domestic violence incidents almost always have children present and these children develop over time imprinted images of the family violence," Berberian said in a written message. "These children then carry those experiences into their adult lives and often repeat the pattern of violence in their own family units."
Berberian said that ridding homes of toy guns and violent video games offers "a chance to change today's modeling patterns." Berberian previously hosted a buyback program for real guns that accepted 857 weapons and paid out more than $100,000. That program ran out of cash on-site and improvised with a voucher system for roughly $70,000 of the payments.
A 2013 poll found that 58 percent of adult Americans believed that playing violent video games could contribute to violent behavior. That same year, President Barack Obama directed the CDC to research the causes of gun violence, including any impact video games could have on young minds. That study has yet to be published and it's run into a few funding issues, partially because of a 1996 law supported by the NRA that prohibits the CDC from using federal funds for studies that "advocate or promote gun control."
