America Vice President Joe Biden has told video gaming representatives that their industry is not being singled out.

In a 13-minute statement to the press before his two-hour appointment with gaming ambassadors, Biden spoke in an unfocussed fashion, listing other meetings he had attended but scarcely mentioning video games at all.

Finally, eight minutes in, he stated: “I come to this meeting with no judgement”.

“Quite frankly, we don’t know if some of the things that people think impact on this actually impact on this or not.”

Biden also wondered aloud whether there had been an unhealthy coarsening of American culture.

“I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm not sure what impact it would have or wouldn't have on the kind of events," he said.

He added that his recommendations to the president would include a variety of solutions for gun violence, “from having a Federal weapon tracking statute, to universal background checks, to making more widely available mental health assistance”.

Following the meeting with the Vice President, the Entertainment Software Association said it had told Biden that "independent, scientific research conducted to date has found no causal connection between video games and real-life violence".

"We also recognised that gun violence is a serious problem in our country,” it added.

In related news, the state of Massachusetts has removed nine arcade games from public places around the state after a man complained that one reminded him of the Sandy Hook shooting.

“Bottom line is I think there isn’t a person who doesn’t believe that there isn’t too much violence in our society, and games can glorify that,” said transportation secretary Richard Davey.

“A video game in a public space could be used by anybody of any age.

“At the end of the day, those games are there to entertain kids, probably for a few minutes, while their parents are resting from a long trip. I just think it makes all the sense in the world to have it be a more passive game.”

Among the games removed by the state were Time Crisis and Beach Head 2000.

“People have the freedom to have whatever video games in their own homes that they want,” said complainant Andrew Hyams.

“We were struck by walking into a [state-owned] rest stop within an hour’s drive of Newtown and seeing and hearing a life-sized, mounted machine gun on a video game.”

Finally, a survey commissioned by parent watchdog outfit Common Sense Media and political advocacy group Center for American Progress has found that American parents are as likely to blame video games for real-world violence as they are to blame guns.

The survey, carried out on 1050 parents who had a child under 18 living at home with them, found that 75 per cent of respondents believed that violent games and easy access to guns contributed to real-world violence.

However, according to the results the top contributors to real-world violence were lack of supervision (93 per cent), bullying (92 per cent), crime (86 per cent), and violence in TV and movies (77 per cent).

Respondents were also asked to rate how much they agreed with various statements on a scale of one to 10.

The statement "Addressing violence in the United States will require taking action on violence in the media and keeping weapons away from our kids" averaged a response of 8.3.

Incredibly, the average for "There is a culture of violence in the United States that needs to be curtailed and the gun industry has the power to help address this violence and should be part of the solution" was only 7.9.

"These survey results demonstrate that parents are anxious about their children's safety in America today and that they believe we need real action to prevent gun violence and change the culture of violence," said Center for American Progress president and CEO Neera Tanden.

"We need to do both; this is not a choice between two important goals."