Illinois Videogame Law Struck Down 320
Big_Al_B writes "CNN reports that a federal judge ruled against the state of Illinois law that banned the sale of some games to minors." From the article: "The Illinois law, which also was to go into effect January 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors, and allowed $1,000 fines for violators. Kennelly said the law would interfere with the First Amendment and there wasn't a compelling enough reason, such as preventing imminent violence, to allow that." Triumphantly, GamePolitics offers up the ESA's reaction to the decision. The Governor has vowed to appeal, so this isn't over yet.
So 12 y/o kids should get playboy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pick a standard and stick with it - kids should either be allowed to purchase sexual images or they shouldn't. Just because one particular format sells more than others isn't a valid reason to allow it but exclude everything else.
Won't someone think of the children? (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly, I'm confused here. I'm all for freedom of speech and all that, but this was a ban on selling "extremely violent or sexual games" to minors. I'm guessing this is AO rated stuff, which could be comparable to nudie mags (Playboy Mansion?). What's the big deal?
Re:Laws are no substitute for Parental Control (Score:3, Interesting)
Protected how, and by who? You, me, the government, some political party, the army, our new children-protecting overlords...? The problem is that everything can be passed in the name of some Greater Good, in this case children's protection, but it soon turns out to be either ineffective, prone to abuse or tyrannical.
And there is nothing strange with that: we all want power, and given a certain situation we will exploit what's available to gain more/lose less of it. That's why it's quite stupid to fight these and other problems with regulation: you will certainly change the situation, but the only effect will be that people will adapt and keep doing the thing you don't like, while at the same time my freedom will be eroded more and more.
Also, on this specific topic... I guess you have no problem taking these children away from their families if the parents are irresponsible enough, right? They need to be protected, after all. First it will be because the parents beat them while doing coke, then it will be because they abuse them psycologically, then because they don't provide adequate <something> (adequate... to what?), and you see where this leads.
I don't need to remind you of soldiers drowning Chinese new-borns because their family already had one. Luckily this doesn't happen anymore, but...
No Limits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Deeper into the ruling the judge makes an interesting statement:
"The First Amendment embodies a principle that is at the core of our political system and our national ethos: "each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence." A law that restricts speech because of its message "contravenes this essential right. For this reason, content-based regulations are presumptively invalid."
Couldn't the same argument be made for anything? Movies? Porn? If you get specific about what constitutes imminent violence even guns qualify. In essence, you cannot stop someone from selling anything to anyone because you cannot prove it creates or produces an immanent threat to anyone.
If I were the porn industry, the focus would change to video games. Why not, since I can now sell to anyone, regardless of age. They cannot do that with magazines and online.
For the posters who said - it is up to parents. I agree to a point. I watch my children, however I still expect the police to arrest drug dealers, child molesters, etc. While I can watch mine, who knows if you are watching yours. Sure, you buy them Super Mario Brothers XXVIII, but they took the birthday money from grandma and bought Leisure Suit Larry does Las Vegas. It is also a contiguous fight with game manufactures to really explain what is going on in the game. While I would have passed on GTA for the violence, I must have missed the "Contains explicit sexual acts" statement on the game - oh wait, it wasn't on the game.
Re:Why is everyone so gung-ho (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why is everyone so gung-ho (Score:3, Interesting)
And exactly what kind of games were available to your kids when they were growing up? In your original post, you mentioned you're a grandfather now, I'd guess your children would be in their early 20s by now. I'd think the worst they would've encountered as children would've been the original Doom. So I'm not sure what sort of games you'd have been protecting them from.
Back to your original post, I also don't see what good preventing them from watching MTV did. I think they still played music videos when your children were growing up, but even if not, aside from having zero entertainment value, there's nothing particularly BAD about it. There's nothing particularly GOOD about it (especially now), but I don't see anything detrimental coming from it.
Personally, I'm glad my parents educated me on make believe vs. reality, rather than shielding me away from "objectionable" content. I don't think anyone was suggesting children should have access to this material, I think they're just suggesting parents be responsible, rather than the state. Personally, I don't see a problem with forbidding the stores from selling these things to minors - if the parents have to purchase the material, they should be able to make an informed decision as to whether or not the child is ready. However, I think too many parents would just buy it to shut the kid up.
From your posts, I get the idea you were a very strict parent - I wonder what your kids did behind your back, without you knowing.
Re:Why is everyone so gung-ho (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a shame (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see anything wrong with that: physical abuse is not a substitute for "parenting".
Actually, it's an attack on the retailer and the publisher. The retailer will decide not to carry any items which could possibly bring a $1,000 liability for the $5 the retailer would earn from the sale. And therefore the publisher will stop making these games, since no retailer will carry them.
Trying to legislate morality is always a bad idea.
Re:Uh, kinda sane (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll get no argument here. I still find it strange that at the age of 18 here in Ontario one is allowed to vote or sign up for the armed forces but not allowed to smoke, drink, or peruse sexual materials. At the age of 16 you're allowed to operate a motor vehicle but insurance rates make it prohibitive to do so (indicating the frequency of collisions and infractions by 16-18 year old drivers).
The problem being, how do you determine when an individual is 'ready' for responsibility? Individual testing for age of majority status would be tedious, costly, and entirely ineffective. Ages are set at an arbitrary number decided by the government of the day at a point they believe is reasonable. You say the age when people graduate high school - that's probably not a coincidence. One would suppose by that point in a person's life they've had exposure to enough education and general life experience that they should(!) be capable of making decisions while understanding the consequences. Whether that's always the case is suspect, but hey, it's an imperfect world we live in.
I know a lot of people who believed themselves to be ready to party, have sex, and nine months later the consequences became very real. Sure enough, they drop out of school, live on their parents' (or the tax payers') dime and eventually find themselves grossly unqualified to do anything that pays more than minimum wage. But at the age of 14 here in Ontario boys and girls are considered mature enough to have sex.
What we need is some form of mandatory training on personal responsibility in the modern world. But hey, that's just my opinion.
Re:Not really that sane. (Score:2, Interesting)
I was playing GTA for a couple of weeks. My favorite color is yellow. When I was looking for a car, I would always give preference to a yellow car. "I'm going to grab the next (kind of car I wanted here) that I find."
Now, I'm a pretty normal guy. Business owner, volunteer with local charities, etc. But after a couple of weeks with GTA, I found myself noticing yellow cars that looked similar to those in the game and having this impulse to hop out of my S-10 and into that other car to take it for a spin. Of course, I have a thing called self control and I take responsibility for my actions, so I never would have done it, but I found myself having that sense that I could.
I can't help but think that a teenager, who has that "me against the world" mentality, the self control may not kick in as instantly as it did for me.
Now before I get bashed here, I'm not saying that we need to ban video games. I'm not saying that video games cause kids to turn to a life of crime or any such thing. I'm just saying that there is a difference between a video game and a movie, for me anyway. Movies don't give me those impulses like the video games do. When I watch a movie I'm seeing other people do things. When I'm playing a game, I'm forming those thought patterns in my brain, and conditioning myself to follow through on them.
So all I'm saying here is that video games and movies should be treated differently in my opinion, because they invoke different mental processes.
Blagojebitch (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, this guy would to the ends of the Earth to try and prove he isn't wrong, even if everyone but Chicago knows he is. He thinks that fighting this thing will make mothers vote for him. I hope he's wrong.
Re:So 12 y/o kids should get playboy? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know a guy who was carded by Wal-Mart when he tried to buy the Halo 2 strategy guide. That's right, they carded him for getting a book.