RFK Jr. links video games, antidepressants to US mass shootings

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reaffirmed his claims that violent video games and psychiatric medications may be contributing to mass shootings in the U.S. at an event of his Make America Healthy Again commission on Tuesday. Kennedy announced that the National Institutes of Health would begin studies to determine whether overmedication and digital culture contribute to gun violence.

Kennedy told the commission that children exposed to violent video games and social media could be more vulnerable when also taking psychiatric drugs. “The National Institutes of Health is initiating studies to look at the correlation and connection between overmedicating our kids and this violence, and these other possible co-founders,” he said. He singled out antidepressants, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, saying, “Some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs might be contributing to violence.”

The remarks echoed statements he made on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” less than two weeks earlier, where he suggested psychiatric drugs could contribute to violence. On Tuesday, he expanded his claim to include video games and social media. Kennedy compared the U.S. with Switzerland, saying, “Switzerland has a comparable number of guns as we do, and the last mass shooting they had was 23 years ago. We have a mass shooting every 23 hours.”

Researchers say no scientific evidence connects video games or psychiatric medications to mass shootings. A Washington Post review of public records found that about 4% of U.S. mass shooters had used antidepressants, compared with 11.4% of the general population in 2023. Experts argue that attributing the crisis to video games or psychiatric medications diverts attention from more consistent psychological factors such as crises, grievances and social isolation.

Studies consistently identify access to firearms as the most decisive factor. Per data compiled by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency of the Department of Justice, 77% of mass shooters since 1966 obtained their guns legally. Research from Johns Hopkins shows that states with stricter gun laws, including licensing requirements and waiting periods, experience significantly fewer mass shootings and firearm deaths than states with looser regulations.

So far in 2025, more than 300 mass shootings have been recorded in the U.S., including the August attack at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis that left students and staff dead. The scale of violence has intensified calls for solutions, but experts say Kennedy’s arguments misdirect attention. By claiming that psychiatric drugs or video games cause mass shootings simply because their use has risen at the same time, he commits a false cause fallacy. Researchers stress that stronger evidence points to firearm access, social instability and community-level risk factors as the real drivers.