Congress To Consider Age Limits On Violent Games 591
labrat1123 writes "It looks like Congress is getting ready to revisit the 'Protect Children from Video Game Sex and Violence Act.' Cliff Notes version: It would become a federal crime to sell or rent a violent video game to anyone under 18. Entire article available on CNN." Note that this is not a law; it's a bill being readied for reintroduction after its original version was killed last session.
What's the current punishment for... (Score:5, Interesting)
Say, selling a R-rated movie, or music CD with 'Explicit Lyrics' to a kid under the age of 17/18?
What about selling pornography to a person under the age of 17/18?
Free violence for kiddies! (Score:5, Interesting)
What about giving the games away for free? What about violent freeware games?
Well (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been saying for years that children shouldn't be allowed to buy videogames (or movies or books of anysort) without parental consent. If you want your kid to have access to such things, get them a library card, get them a membership at Blockbuster, or perhaps even have an active role in your childs life by buying it for them.
Granted, in the US it's absolutely 100% impossible to control ALL aspects of your kids life and I would never suggest trying that, but perhaps anything that encourages involvement is a good thing.
Is this really so bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Topic? (Score:5, Interesting)
So this really accomplishes nothing. THANKS CONGRESS.
Also, the movie ratings aren't federally enforced, and they work as well as they're ever going to. Why do lawmakers think that video games need more attention than films?
Good! I'm glad. (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth is, games these days should be rated. I don't think an 11 year old kid should be able to walk into a store and buy GTA: Vice City. Games never really needed to be rated before because they were never really violent before. With a few exceptions, the rise of real violence in games is only about five years old.
The same thing happened with movies. Before the sixties movies didn't have ratings. They weren't needed because before that, it would have been almost unheard of to put graphic violence or sex in a movie. But then filmmakers wanted more mature content in movies, and a ratings system was introduced.
Games are at that point now. Some kind of enforced ratings system is needed, I think.
What'll be left? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pac-man is violent.
NCAA Football is violent.
Doom 3 is violent.
Of course, violent to different degrees...where's the line drawn in these cases? I remember having loads of fun with Legend of Zelda and even the original Spy Hunter (remember that?). I was in elementary school at the time. In high school, I do remember having some wierd dreams after playing Doom, however (tell us why Psychologists, before people begin making arbtrary laws).
Mortal Kombat (Score:3, Interesting)
Several interesting things to point out... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Baca's office told me the new bill is being modeled on a St. Louis ordinance that makes it illegal to sell or rent a violent video game to a minor without a parent/guardian's consent."
Which means that if I think my 10 year old (well, he's only 6 now, but that's not the point) can handle a "mature" game, I can give him permission to get it. This is far from an outright ban, and more palatable in my eyes (the eyes of someone with kids of his own).
Also, there was mention made of having to hire adults to work the registers, under the theory that they'll be more responsible, and less likely to rent / sell "mature" games to minors. I made a leap of logic and figured that maybe minors would be forbidden by this law to work that kind of position. If this were to happen, it could cause problems for all kinds of businesses - how many grown-ups are going to want to earn the wages of a register jockey? This could leave nobody manning the tills, and a LOT of places folding up shop.
Lastly... Postal 2 is going to be a first person shooter?!? Check out that screen shot - wielding a can of gas while the store you're in burns! That game's gonna rock! }:^D
laws, laws and more laws (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems to me, instead of moaning about the incidents (in this case restricting the sale of violent games) we should be thinking about how to restrict the lawmakers so they can't create more laws.
Of course this is revolutionary talk, and with our Homeland Security nonsense in place, I'm sure I'll be getting a visit from my local Citizen Corp (Gestapo) representative.
Age limits at McDonalds (Score:5, Interesting)
While the congress is hardly at work, they should also consider age limits on purchasing Fast Food. It would be inline with the current trend of suing food vendors and blaming them for their child's "weight problems" [wtopnews.com], which supposedly kills alot more people over time.
Where does a video game fit in with this crowd, while ignoring music and food? IANAL, but federal law doesn't seem to address any of the other items in my list (except sex).
The next installment of Mortal Combat needs a Saddam character, so we can all do our part in the war on terrorism.
Congresscritters, please protect me from myself, for I know not what I do
This is about Campaign Contributions (Score:2, Interesting)
Look, Joe Lieberman is pushing this - he's concerned about violent video games, but he gets a stiffy thinking about sending American kids off to war. Ignore the rhetoric and follow the money.
This *could* be a good thing (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see why video games can't be rated and regulated the same as movies. If a movie is R rated, you have to be of legal age. This permits movie producers and directors to put content in the movies that is 'for adults.' I have always wondered why video games were not regulated in the same manner.
This may actually help to remove the stigma that video games 'have to be for kids since theyre video games', and allow more adult entertainment (ie gratuitous sex and violence) in video games without tons of media hype and right-wing conservatives jumping all over them and saying they're evil and destroying our youth.
So... rating systems may give us better games and less controversy over them. There is no hype that our youth is being corrupted with the release of each R-rated movie.
.
Re:Oh, the Children! (TM) (Score:2, Interesting)
And that changes the issue.
How we might make them accountable (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good! I'm glad. (Score:4, Interesting)
R rated movies are supposed to forbid access to those 17 and under without adult (read, 18+) supervision. When is the last time you saw the police show up at a movie theater and arrest the 16 year old ticket seller for selling tickets to the latest R-rated action flick to his under-18 friends?
Ratings, yes. It helps people be more informed. Criminalization of "ratings violations", no? How many more non-violent offenders does the US need in its jails?
Graphics/Violence (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps its time to re-think the rating system?
"Voluntary" labelling schemes (Score:2, Interesting)
- Holier-than-thous see something they dislike, demand it be censored
- "Moderates" appeal for private-sector solution - "voluntary" labelling
- Years pass
- Holier-than-thous say the labelling isn't working
- Congress-weasels pass law to criminalize possessing / selling content with certain ratings
- Practical effect: private voluntary ratings now have force of law behind them: de facto censorship, especially as retailers get cold feet about selling higher-rated content.
Just something to remember the next time someone plays the voluntary / private / market-solution canard. Maybe one of these days we'll learn it's bullshit.--realinvalidname
It's not that unerasonable. (Score:1, Interesting)
On one hand, I don't like any legal action that discourages parents from having accountability for their children, and these kinds of laws encourage lazy parents to slack off further. "Oh, good, I don't have to screen Billy's video game choices any more." The real concern I have is that game produces will compromise content to secure "safer" ratings so they have a wider sales base, just lke how movies are getting more and more watered down.
The idea of limited games by age/rating is ok. If the Cliff Notes version is accurate, this incarnation of the law is complete crap. And to the people bitching about congressional priorities, you'd probably vomit if you knew how much tax money is spent on the consideration of bills that are FAR more asinine than this one. We're paying elected officials hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to sit in committees and bicker over incredibly stupid things.
Re:How we might make them accountable (Score:2, Interesting)
Then came the Whiskey Rebellion. Not only did the individual states disagree on what to do, there were problems getting enough troops to quell the rebellion. With no guiding force from the top down, there could be no cohesion as a whole, which is an important aspect of a collective world government as I understand it.
The men who first drew up the plan of a bottom-up government realized that it was ineffective and unstable, and quickly scrapped the old nation for the United States of America.
My history lesson for the day.
Re:Biggest lie yet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Go over to the IRS website (irs.gov), find the link to the newsrooms, then facts and figures, and read up on the IRS's own data.
In summary, the highest 1% of income earners earn about 17% of the wealth. They pay about 39% of the total income taxes collected. The top 50% of income earners pay 96% of the income tax collected!! How much is "enough"? Good grief already.
What people like you really want isn't so much an income tax as a wealth tax. Huge bloody difference.
Why sex? (Score:3, Interesting)
Only in USA do people prefer to see death more than life.
Re:The interesting ommision here! (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely wrong that the rest of us are subsidizing the wealthiest people in this society. It is exactly the other way around. There is a large part of our society that does not earn enough to pay significant taxes, and yet leftists still want to give the tax breaks to these individuals, who are by definition the most nonproductive individuals in society. How can you be given a tax cut when you already don't pay taxes?? The Democrats don't want to just cut taxes for the "poor", they just want to take other people's money and hand out to those who do not deserve it and didn't earn it.
Your arguments are fundamentally flawed in that you seem to believe that all wealth is owned by the government, not the people who generate it, and that all members of society are equal in their productive capacity and therefore somehow "deserve" an equal amount of money. This is so completely false that it's not even funny. The uneducated low wage earners are a drain on society if anything, and they threaten to destroy the economy if too much of our country's wealth is "redistributed" to them. I'm sorry, someone who didn't graduate from high school absolutely does not deserve to make more than a small fraction of what someone who sacrificed to pay for college and/or professional school and the tax system should be structured accordingly. You don't deserve anything just for being born; you need to contribute in a positive way to get anything. I personally think that the income tax should be made flat or even regressive to penalize those who don't contribute.
Doesn't anybody see where this is going/has been? (Score:1, Interesting)
This is just a very stretched out cycle of erosion of our Constitutional liberties. Our government wasn't created to regulate our lives, it was created to create a federation of States linked together by common laws regarding national defense, roadways, and commerce. The press (ie, Media, Information, Knowledge) is *specifically* excluded from this arrangement.
It was believed that the free flow of information(free as in speech, not beer) could do some harm, but the benefits would far outweigh the harm, thus being overall very good for our nation's welfare and well being.
The slide has been consistent, but slow for 200 years. Now, there are laws censoring all kinds of things, because some ultra-prideful people think they should really focus on eliminating the negative without really acknlowedging the positive (this is largely the fault of TV - anyone care to debate this fact?).
I don't believe that parents shoulder the entire burden for their childrens' growth. Society plays a large role in behavior patterns, and should help police the environs, but I believe that can accomplished better by civil protest than by government regulation. A law is easily ignored for most merchants. They will make up in profit from sales to minors what they would lose in fines unless they are caught far more often than is the norm.
But can you honestly imagine Blockbuster's reaction in policy to a group of Moms & Dads who stand in the parking lot with signs reading, roughly, "This place sells obscene content to minors"? It's easy for the community to police: go to the store with your kid, and send him/her through a different checkout with something they shouldn't be allowed to buy. If they get through with it, call the manager and inform him/her of the 'sting', and that you'll be arranging a protest next Saturday afternoon/evening.
Any sane business will react with an instant policy change. The newspaper is also an indispensable resource; letters to the editor carry a lot of weight with company managers.
And you can bet your ass that policy will be better enforced if it is through lost profit than if it is through the threat of another law our overworked police have to enforce.
In short, don't tell me you have no time when you're surfing slashdot this deep. And your friends who spend their nights in the E-Z boy watching the boob tube? They don't look busy to me. So what if you look like a crackpot, in a sandwich sign at your local store of choice? If you don't/won't stand up for yourself, government will happily fill that void. Let me know when it becomes too overbearing for you, eh?
Oh, and the Internet is next. You can bet your ass they'll have it regulated shortly down the line. ISPs will be forced to track your service, so that they can ensure minors aren't being exposed to 'corrupting' influences.
Where will you turn when all the doors are closed in your face?
lack of understanding and stawmen (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, nobody is claiming that viewing violent media will turn you into a killer. The claim is that violent media relaxes attitudes towards violence and detaches them from making a negative value judgement of it. This may in some trigger violence urges, however, that isn't the important claim.
That just isn't true, though. A multi-billion dollar advertising industry knows that images you feel people affect them. The often claim is that mass-media had induced shitty culture in people. That belief isn't harmonious with this one.
Hmmm... let's see... (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Fails to stop Microsoft from committing illegal acts. Not just violating anti-trust laws, but breaking contract laws and the like.
2. Extends copyright in perpetuity for all practical purposes, effectively legislating away the public domain.
3. In the interest of two big media cartels (RIAA and MPAA), passes laws like the DMCA.
I'm supposed to believe that they are going to pass a law that seriously harms Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Walmart, Target and most of the members of MPAA/RIAA who sell licenses to their copyrighted content to video game studios or own interests in video game studios?
No, I'll tell you what this is. This is a shakedown. It's very simple, the State is looking for money. It will probably come in the form of campaign contributions or quid-pro-quo ("Representative Smith, while we don't agree with your law, we do find your ideas on protecting our children insightful. Ah! If only we had someone like you working for our company as a media consultant. Well, maybe someday...")
Of course, you should write your Congresspersons and Senators, but remember, people who actually matter in Washington will also be fighting this idiotic law. Washington isn't St. Louis.