Two Top Republicans Blame Video Games, School Prayer Bans, Social Media for Mass Shootings in Texas, Ohio

At least two high-level Republican lawmakers blamed video game violence for "dehumanizing" people and encouraging the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, mass shootings over the past 24 hours.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and Texas GOP Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick appeared on Fox News on Sunday pointing to social media disputes, violent video games and even a lack of prayer in public schools for potential reasons behind the shooting deaths of dozens of people. McCarthy joined Patrick in appealing to the "millions of Americans who will go out to their place of worship" Sunday and who he asked to "all mourn together."

"[It's] Sunday morning when most of your viewers, half of the country, are getting ready to go to church and yet tomorrow we won't even let our kids pray in our schools," Patrick said on Fox & Friends Sunday morning. "We have to look at ourselves as a nation, there are many factors that go into these shootings, many factors. And it's not time to politicize it."

"I look at this evil act and condemn it for what it is: evil," Patrick continued. "How long are we going to ignore, particularly at the federal level, doing something about the video game industry. In this manifesto that we believe is from the shooter, in this manifesto he talks about living out his 'super soldier fantasy on Call of Duty.'"

"We know that the video game industry is bigger than the movie industry and the music industry combined," Patrick said. "And there have been studies that say it impacts people and studies that say it does not, but I look at the common denominator as a 60-some-year-old father and grandfather myself, 'What's changed in this country?'"

"We've always had guns and we've always had evil, but what's changed when we see this rash of shootings? And I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill."

"I look at social media: the violence of just bullying people on social media every day and we turn our head and we allow it," Patrick added.

McCarthy echoed the Texas Lt. governor's comments, telling Fox News' Maria Bartiromo: "The idea of these video games that dehumanize individuals, to have a game of shooting individuals and others, I have always felt that is a problem for future generations, and others. We've watched some studies that have shown before what it does to individuals. When you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others."

The two mass shooting attacks within 24 hours have left dozens dead in Texas and Ohio and are only the most recent U.S. shootings this summer allegedly perpetrated in at least two cases by 20-something white male shooters with far right-wing, white nationalist ties.

Neither lawmaker referenced gun control laws as a potential remedy for the ongoing mass shootings across the United States.