I actually agree, to some small degree, with that guy.
I don't agree that games affect our lives to such a point that we want to imitate them, but what about all those kids that DO get affected by them? I think thats the point he's trying to make, and the study that he's proposing, whilst not so hot in our eyes, has been done countless times before, albeit in different forms.
Why do I say this at all for fear of being beaten by the whole PGC forum community? I'm doing a course at uni about the media and such. And so far since the beginning of the semester, all we've been discussing is the effects of the media on the public, and some specific audiences. The media have been under study since the intro of TV, so games hasn't been much of a scapegoat until recently. The reason why it's been under heavy fire now is because it's interactive, and more realistic.
I think using GTA3 is a great example of this influence on society. Thing is though, it's not the physical effects, but the mental and social effects that we have to worry about.
Now with the Columbine shooters, I don't think that games actually influenced their actions, but I think games, in the past, have had an influence on the way they might think. That is what the senator is trying to get at. We say that games don't influence people to do crap like this, and so we blame the parents and how they raised the kids.
That is the one thing that i agree with him on. Everything else, just utter crap that we have to put up with.
So that's my two cents.
There is a lot more to say here, and I do agree that some points are sketchy, but thats everything from the top of my head that makes sense.