Ashcroft Links Media, Violence

WASHINGTON — Attorney General John Ashcroft said violent video games can teach children to aim guns, and he urged manufacturers and parents to be responsible in making such games available to youngsters.

Returning to the theme of violent entertainment and children, Mr. Ashcroft told a group of newspaper editors that laws and government programs can’t stop the rash of school shootings across the country.

“What does it do to children, who see thousands of acts of violence on television, who are conditioned in video games to do things that are abhorrent to the human spirit?” he said in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.