New research may prove that playing Grand Theft Auto V for hours will not turn players into car-jacking drug dealers.

Not only does the relationship between gun violence and violent media not exist, but violent video games could actually have a positive effect on behavior, the study suggests.

Stetson University associate professor of psychology and chair of the Psychology Department Christopher J. Ferguson and a group of 228 scholars, psychologists and criminologists recently sent an open letter to the American Psychological Association urging them to reevaluate their stance on media violence’s effect on gun violence.

In 2005, the APA issued a statement called the Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media that stated that violent media was linked with feelings of aggression and feelings of hostility.

“A lot of us in the scholarly community felt that the statements were very misleading.

Perhaps even politicized in various ways because the evidence that we have at the moment is not really conclusive,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson’s and the other scholars’ research found that there wasn’t evidence of violent video games having an effect on gun violence.

Ferguson was part of a correlation study that tested kids’ behavior.

The kids played violent video games and their behavior was monitored for a period of time. The study found that the video games caused no increase in aggressive behavior and in children with ADHD, the video games actually had a decrease in aggressive behavior.

The most recent mass shooting occurred at the Washington Navy Yard, resulting in 13 fatalities, including the gunman. Reports came soon after describing the gunman, Aaron Alexis, as one who was addicted to violent video games and played them for endless hours. Fast conclusions were made to blame video games as a main factor in the reasoning behind Alexis’ shooting.

“Particularly after these mass shootings, you get people to come out and say that some mass shooter plays Call of Duty or that Call of Duty made them do it," Ferguson said. “They usually forget to mention that at this point almost all young men play games like Call of Duty so to find out that these mass shooters play Call of Duty is not remotely fascinating or interesting.”

Ferguson believes that this idea, that video games are to blame for mass shootings, is coming from older adults who haven’t been exposed to the video games of today. Older generations are quick to blame video games for such horrific acts because they didn’t grow up with them and have no invested interest in them.

“I think it’s an easy distraction from other issues. So I think, for instance, people who are concerned about their Second Amendment rights being taken away or gun owners who don’t want their guns taken away, which I understand,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson also mentioned that people like to point to a “bad guy.” The bad guy in this situation is of course violent video games. He said that people use video games as the bad guy so they don’t have to blame themselves or society for the real issues at stake.

“It promises this idea of an easy fix," Ferguson said. "This idea that, ‘Well, if we just get rid of video games then these mass shootings won’t happen.’ As opposed to mental health, which of course is a very difficult problem to solve; there’s no real bad guy with mental health.”

The common theme with all of these mass shootings is that the shooters are seemly suffering from some degree of a mental health issue, Ferguson said.

They are not all video gamers, but they all do suffer from mental illnesses.

“We really need to have a more serious discussion about mental illness in our society and maybe what we can do to have a bit more of a compassionate mental health system in place for some who might need it, because right now we don’t really have anything.

“We’re seeing a lot of these people either untreated or not getting the treatment they need or are unidentified of needing services until after the fact,” Ferguson said.

Mental health issues are not addressed the way they should be. Ferguson explained that there are two sides to the issue. One is the money and people not wanting to pay taxes that go to health care, and the other aspect is that mental health has never been addressed properly. Ferguson said that back in the ’20s and ’30s, the severely mentally ill were put in asylums. These facilities did not operate under good conditions and patients were treated terribly. Since then, questions about how to properly treat the severely mentally ill remain unanswered. Ferguson feels that both of these issues paralyze any possible reform.

UCF associate professor of psychology Charles Negy signed the open letter that Ferguson sent to the APA.

Negy feels that there is no causal relationship between violent media and gun violence.

“It is true that those who commit gun violence sometimes have a history of engaging with violent media or enjoying violent media, whether it’s games or movies, but it’s not the games or movies that’s causing them to commit the gun violence,” Negy said.

Negy also said that millions of people of all age groups play video games on a daily basis.

There may be a link that mass shooters play these games but there has not been a link to prove that violent video games actually cause these people to commit such crimes.

“Those individuals who do such horrific, heinous acts are so disturbed from multiple issues in their lives," Negy said. “That’s probably what explains why they would do such horrific things.”

UCF students agree with the new study. Junior and computer science major Erik Nowlin thinks playing violent video games has an opposite effect.

“I think that it gives people an escape to do stuff that they wouldn’t normally do,” Nowlin said. T"he more common violent video games are the less people will think it causes gun violence.”