UK To Mull High Video Game Taxes — To Fight Knife Crime 615
chareverie writes "The Prime Minister of the UK is being urged to impose high taxes on violent video games in an effort to reduce the number of knife-related crime. The request comes from Richard Taylor, who argues that young people 'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.' He doesn't have a definitive number on how much to tax on the offensive video games, but says that they should be 'very high.' Rap music is also voiced to be a concern due to the alleged negativity and language. Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing."
Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
People spending more time playing video games have less time to stab people.
HUH? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if this will have an opposite effect than intended. Now instead of being able to vent their frustration on the Helghast, that knife on the kitchen table looks mightily attractive...
Plus, if you've gotten to the point that you want to stab someone, you have a mental problem...sucks that the UK government is punishing the citizenry for the acts of a few disturbed individuals.
They would be better off (Score:5, Insightful)
if they would put police on the street. Apparently, spy cameras don't deter knife crime unless someone actually gets arrested for it.
Is anyone surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is anyone surprised that the chavs and yobs running around with knives are powerful, and the defenseless British public are scared and powerless? This is exactly what happens when the criminals lack fear because the British people have been completely disarmed. What is a person supposed to do now against someone who has a knife? Ask politely for them to stop?
While the timing of this article, and response, is very poor given the two horrendous gun crimes yesterday and today, perhaps it is time to revisit the anti-weapon stance that has gripped England since the Scottish school massacre. Take away the guns, then only criminals will have them. Outlaw knives, and only criminals have them. Outlaw video games next?
Re:Correlation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory xkcd for you, and it's even a recent one: correlation [xkcd.org].
Unfortunately, most idiots who spout drivel like this don't even have a strong correlation in the first place. Sales of violent video games may be up, and knife crimes might be up, but is it even the kids playing the games committing the crimes?
Giving adolescents more productive things to do is the best way to fight teen crime. If they're busy earning money, cleaning the parks as volunteers, acting in community theatre, playing music, dancing, painting, or playing organized sports they're less likely (and have less free time) to go out and commit crimes.
Plus (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus there is the minor side issue that most video games use guns, not knives to inflict damage. It sounds like the proponent of this tax are yet another example of knee-jerk reactionaries with a hate-on for video games and rap music. Why is it that such nutbars are even heard by government, much less seriously considered?
Misleading Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Just for clarity - the UK government aren't doing anything like what's being implied. One man, rightly or wrongly, is suggesting this.
And the problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
outlaw guns, use knives
outlaw/outtax knives, use baseball/cricket bats
outlaw bats, use rutabagas
You can never prevent crime, just certain tools used to accomplish it. Even if they have to resort to bare handed strangulation, that's what they'll do....
Re:Correlation... (Score:5, Insightful)
England prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what happens to a country that takes people's guns away.
Alternatives. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:HUH? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the same reasons that raising taxes on gun sales does nothing to stop gun crimes.
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:1, Insightful)
sucks that the UK government is punishing the citizenry for the acts of a few disturbed individuals.
I think they started that [wikipedia.org] sometime ago.....
If you ban guns... (Score:4, Insightful)
... soon criminals will only have knifes. What's next? Sticks and stones?!
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
You erroneously assume that logic comes into play with government.
Fixed that for you ;)
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
What has this got to do with guns?
Do you think violent crime would be so rampant if the criminals weren't assured of having unarmed victims?
The Government can empathize with young people (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:England prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
but you do know that there are plenty of countries without guns where this issues aren't prevalent?
There are also plenty of countries with guns and a fairly low rate of criminal activity. There's also US States with liberal gun laws and lower crime rates than US States with strict gun laws. Perhaps the mere availability of guns doesn't cause crime and there are other underlying factors we should be addressing, like poverty?
Re:England prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or genuine genuflection at the NRA's altar... but you do know that there are plenty of countries without guns where this issues aren't prevalent? Or that death by gun is exactly like death by knife? Right?
I think what the original poster was talking about is that UK politicians pushed through large restrictions on gun ownership in the name of reducing crime. It didn't work, so they obscured the numbers, changed how they count crime to give plausible deniability, and declared success. So when violent crime continues using different implements many people (convinced that the gun legislation was successful) look to additional legislation to try to restrict ownership of other items.
Now the original poster was by no means clear, but one could easily argue that this sort of absurdly unscientific attempt to mollify the people can be laid at the doorstep of those who did the same thing in the past (with regard to guns) and then waged a misinformation campaign against the citizenry to hide their incompetence.
More nonsensical pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
I still don't get this. Why is knife crime suddenly such a big deal here in the UK? It seems like every other day some newspaper or TV news or something is talking about it. You hear phrases like "knife-crime epidemic" bandied about.
See 2008 crime figures [bbc.co.uk]:
Nothing to see here. Move on. Stop whining, and yes, Daily Mail editors, I mean you.
Re:HUH? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, yes, why not do that? If the sale of knives creates some danger in society, than it should be taxed equal to that danger and the funds should go toward extra police or similar.
Raising taxes can indeed be a way of fighting crime.
Oh really. Do you have any examples or argument for this astonishingly fatuous assertion? To the extent that taxes affect crime, it is that they create an opportunity for it. If you raise taxes on a commodity enough, it becomes profitable to bypass the tax—in other words, a black market springs into existence to satisfy the economic imbalance created by the tax. Of course, outright prohibition works even better at creating crime, because people must necessarily pay the going price for outlawed commodities. And that means profit. Or did you think that people would say, "oh no, coke is too expensive now because it's illegal, so I guess I'll stop using it". (Substitute substance of your choice, if you like.)
I suppose one could argue that the British prohibition of civilian gun ownership has had an effect: instead of "gun crime", they now have hysterics over "knife crime". But I would like to think that the true objective of the British government was to stop violent crime; I would like to think that the commodity to be limited was violence, not firearms per se. If so, they would have to admit the failure of their prohibitive laws. I would be naive if I really believed anything of the sort, of course.
I suppose that when they ban knives, they will have "club crime" and "rock crime". (Sounds like a new sort of music, doesn't it?)
Re:Is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, the victim has a Duty to Retreat [wikipedia.org], sometimes even within their own homes. It is laws like these that have made the public scared and powerless. For the convenience of the government, it is better for ordinary people to simply lay down and die when face with criminal activity.
People have the right to stand their ground and yes, use violence when they are in danger. While I don't agree with "shoot first" laws that some American states have implemented, it is not always the case that the first person to use violence is in the wrong.
It's not just guns and knives. People have been seriously injured, permanently disabled and even killed by bare hands and boots. It may be more legally clear who is in the wrong if your attacker strikes first, but that will not help you much if you have to walk with a limp for the rest of your days. Unfortunately, modern legal systems do not recognise this, and will judge the honest man who strikes first far more harshly than the career criminal who does so.
It's not a question of being armed. Arming people won't help. You have to give people the right to defend themselves. The real right. Not a clause that only comes into effect when they've already been rendered unconscious.
Re:England prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
While death is death in the end, you have a much, much higher chance of surviving a knife attack than a gun attack.
I also stand a much better chance of surviving a bludgeoning attack if I have a gun. Moreover, if people think I might have a gun, I might not have to defend myself at all. Since all of these factors come into play it is important to look at actual numbers on violent crime and death with regard to any proposed restriction.
Re:Correlation... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, if there is any correlation, it's a negative one: more video games, less knife crime.
Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite side of the correlation != causation arguments that come up on slashdot every time violent video games come up. I know you're not concluding this in your post - but a lot of posts do tend to say "correlation != causation, and besides, violent video games help reduce actual violence ..."
Can't have it both ways, it always seems to be the same kinds of studies (whether psychological, statistical, correlation types, etc) that "prove" violent video games increase violent crime as those that "prove" that violent video games decrease violent crime.
Re:Bullying was the cause of Damilola's death (Score:1, Insightful)
Bullying is bad and perhaps could have been handled better, but I'm pretty sure the cause of death was... the stabbing!?
Video games or no, any kid between 11 and 14 needs to know that stabbing people is wrong and a very bad idea.
Blaming video games, the principal, rap music or any other convenient scapegoat partly absolves these kids and their parents of their own responsibility to not stab people. Let's not do that.
Re:Please read the article (Score:2, Insightful)
... feels as if the government *must do something* owing to his loss...
Hell's bells, why do we excuse this ridiculous assumption everyone has that the government is the solution...
Did he teach his child to be aware of his surroundings, or was the government supposed to provide cops to watch his every step?
Did he consider moving since the neighborhood was turning to shit or did he expect the government to clean up the streets at some other tax payers expense?
Did he teach his kid not to piss off and enrage the unstable or was the government supposed to put him in a protective custody so he could shoot off his mouth without consequences?
Maybe none of these apply, maybe all of them do, but damn... this insistance that we can't make changes ourselves, that it HAS to be done by the government is 80% of why the economy in both our countries is sucking the crack pipe right now.
Don't know about you, but my daughter has known for the last 10 years (she's 14) that if she's ever uncomfortable being somewhere, get off the streets and call me, anytime and anyplace. And I've taught her to be paranoid an err on the side of caution... should I have to? Well, not if we lived in Candyland...
But we don't... so get off your ass, protect yourselves, and then see what you can do to make the place better... after that, then maybe the government can help. But if you haven't done that first, you make idiots look smart and the crime situation is a direct result of your (and your predecessors) actions.
--
I drank what?
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
This hysteria and panic is caused by, well, nothing. Except the fact that for some unknown reason over the last 5 years the media has become much more likely to report each and every incident of violence with a knife that they get to hear about.
Perhaps there's more media: more reporters + more vehicles of delivery = more output for the same crime.
Blow it out of proportion: one knife crime a day, 10,000 reporters to cover it, and reported in 25 newspapers, 37 TV channels and 600 websites. You would think the world was ending, too.
Re:Why not tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, because most thugs are above stealing knives if they can't afford them.
This always comes up with gun laws, etc. The criminals aren't the ones that have difficulty getting guns and they don't care if they are breaking the law by carrying them. "Banning" guns or "banning" knives or any of that sort of activity (taxing, etc) only harms those that want to abide by the law in the first place, not those that are TRYING to break it (kill, stab, steal, whatever).
He is not an expert! (Score:3, Insightful)
He doesn't know what the causal relationship is between knife crime and games, nor does he have any idea what the effect will be on demand for games should they be taxed (it's possible that the publishers would end up swallowing a large part of it because games are presumably at the price which maximises profit*number of sales).
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did he also notice that the kids who carry knives get their games via The Pirate Bay...?
Thought not.
Son killed by 11-14 year old gang bullies (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to be rude or anything, but maybe he shouldn't have named his son Damilola? With a name like that, the kid was doomed to be either the victim of a gang or the leader of a gang...
Seriously though, there's too many things wrong with the whole story to do more than begin to point them out. He's trying to legislate his grief, which has been a bad idea since the beginning of time (and the reason a lot of humanity has gotten away from the idea of kings). And in the process, he totally missed his mark. If he wants to legislate something, he should consider what went wrong in the schoolyard.
Why, with the UK's omnipresent surveillance and nanny state, did no one notice that a pack of kids had gone all Lord of the Flies on the playground? Could it be that the surveillance of everything DOESN'T WORK? That it induces a sense of false security on the part of adult supervision, eliminates the idea that personal responsibility should be inculcated in kids, and does absolutely nothing to address any of the root causes of gang violence? Could it be that by passing law after law after stupid assinine law that a contempt for the law has been bred into the citizenry? And now he wants to add another stupid assinine law...
A certain Biblical quote is apropos: You reap what you sow.
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Correlation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh, the "It's too complex for you to know that, how dare you hold me responsible" argument. I've never heard "THAT" one before...
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes the solutions are simple, but unpleasant, or require effort, so they are ignored.
Right off the bat, there's some serious overgeneralizing in that statement. However, if it is the case, then the solution is simple in concept but difficult in execution.
Show young people that the system can work for them. That involves thousands of hours of education in basic finance, civics, and law.
Show young people that the system can work against them. That involves an effective police force and appropriate punishments.
Re:Punishment is a deterrent (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think punishment of any form is not a deterrent
He isn't saying that punishment has no effect, he says that harsher punishment has no effect. People might reason about getting captured by police, but they don't reason about getting 5 instead of 3 years in jail when commiting their act. If you want to stop future crime you have to fix the underlying causes in society, which of course most of the time isn't that simple or easy.
Re:Correlation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Question for you:
If the majority of the population are retired, and they vote for the young minority to work double shifts to support them, and the police enforce the will of the majority vote, is that freedom, or is it slavery?
Re:They would be better off (Score:3, Insightful)
It probably doesn't help that so many cameras generate such shitty images that you wind up with a news report saying "Police are looking for an amorphous grey blob that stabbed another amorphous grey blob".
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
While a lower violent crime rate in the UK is not an argument saying that outlawing guns lowers violent crime, I think it is a fairly strong argument that allowing everyone to own guns doesn't necessarily lower it either.
I suspect that we would both agree that the best way to lower crime is to address the underlying causes of it. You'll note how crime tends to go down when the economy is doing better and less people are pushed into desperate acts for example.
I also suspect that we would both agree that no matter how good of a job you do on paragraph a, you'll never be able to entirely eliminate violent crime. Once you accept this you have to decide if you want your citizenry to be able to defend themselves or if they should have to rely on the state to do it for them. Personally I want to be able to defend myself and am glad that I live in a country where that is possible.
The biggest argument against your reasoning, however, is your implied assumption that criminals use game theory to decide if it is rationally beneficial to commit their crime
*shrug*, I've seen studies of convicted criminals that suggest that one of the biggest fears they have is running into an armed victim that is able to resist their attack. Either way though I don't really have to justify my ownership of weapons in the United States. It's a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs.
Re:Is anyone surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
If someone barges into my house and threatens me, I should not have to retreat at all before I defend myself. I'm not one who enjoys shedding blood, but I'm far more concerned with my own well being than that of my assailant. I would try to give them a chance to leave or surrender without shooting first, but I'm not going to leave myself open to attack. If I have to shoot them to protect myself, then so be it. I would prefer to avoid killing them if possible, but I can make no guarantees. The way I see it, if an aggressive intruder gets hurt or disabled, then it's their own fault for being where they shouldn't be and conducting criminal activity. I'm certain they wouldn't hesitate to shoot me if the situations were reversed.
Re:Correlation... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, the people who own all the resources that you could very easily go and do productive work with are comfortable and have no desire to allow you permission to work them. But you can go stand in front of their box of stuff and say "Cash or Credit, I'm sorry sir, you'll have to pay for that" all day, and they'll feed, water and house you like the animal you are...
It's not unemployment, its disenfranchisement. While the disenfranchisement continues, the employment or lack of it are rather irrelevant.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not sure what both parties carrying guns would accomplish, except to make one or more parties into a fatality.
And the criminal ending up a fatality is a bad thing, because.....? The criminal is the one who made the decision that somebody was going to die when he decided to pull that knife or gun. At that point it's just a question of who.
But the few times when I have been mugged, me having any sort of weapon would have very quickly become the criminal having that weapon, along with my wallet and phone
Maybe you should learn some situational awareness so you won't get surprised like that in the future? Go take a self-defense class. You need not carry a gun to learn ways to defend yourself against those situations, although the gun certainly helps.
Should you have the right to kill someone because they want your wallet?
I would only kill someone if I believed my life was in danger. If someone pulls a gun or a knife on me then my life is in danger and his underlying motives (be it robbery or murder) don't really matter, do they?
I really dont think arming more stupid humans is the right way to go.
So what is the way to go? You'll never eliminate all crime. Criminals will always be armed with something. The only question is whether or not the citizenry should be able to defend themselves. I've yet to hear a compelling argument for why they shouldn't be able to.
Re:Separation of problem and solution (Score:3, Insightful)
On this count you're dead wrong. "Can you see our bowler hats? We're not faceless bureaucrats!"
I worked for the DWP and we got privatised last Feb. I now do exactly the same job for the same T&Cs (because of TUPE, one thing I can actually thank Thatcher for!) but my firm is taking a profit for the work we do from the tax-payer. Brown promised to get rid of 100,000 civil servants and he did it - by transferring us to the private sector and letting them take a huge profit on contracts with virtually no penalties for failure. Plus the service we provide to the rest of the DWP has been reduced because loads of odd things we did on our site weren't in the new contract.
That's where all the money has gone, to shareholders of firms involved in the various privatisation scams.
Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
They destroyed industrial communities. They gave the police virtually unlimited powers to stop and search young people. They established a foreign policy of might-makes-right and went out of their way to antagonize and alienate immigrant communities. They lied, took bribes, started wars, incited racism, crushed civil liberties, and they are still standing trying to talk like statesmen.
And computer games are to blame when the kids go berserk? Fucking retarded.
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Outlawing hate speech would probably make "almost everyone" happy as well but that isn't a good justification to start infringing on civil liberties, IMHO.
Not at all. Outlawing hate speech (or any speech, for that matter) is a very controversial idea here, and there are significant efforts by civil rights lobbyists to prevent such things. That doesn't mean the government won't try to do it, like I said, I don't agree with them a lot of the time. But with guns the situation is much simpler.
In any case you reap what you sow -- your citizens are virtually defenseless against criminals wielding "weapons" that you'll never be able to take away unless you ban the consumption of meat. Congratulations.
I don't understand how introducing guns into the equation is magically going to make this situation better. If guns are more widely available then surely the criminals will have them, too? I don't really fancy my chances in a shoot-out! Even most police officers here don't carry a gun.
Don't get me wrong, British society has plenty of problems, not least with its government what with all of the CCTV and the war in the Middle East and the economic issues etc. but the gun policy we have here works for us and I don't really think you should be so disdainful about it. As I said before the US (which I assume you're from, if not then sorry and insert your country as appropriate) is its own place and is entitled to its own policy on the matter. I wouldn't want to pass judgement on the internal affairs of a country of which I have no great understanding.
Re:Correlation... (Score:2, Insightful)
For 18 years, the children (generally) get food, shelter, preferencial legal status (Do it for the children!!!!!!), and golden opportunities at an education for nothing more than the hard work of having a pulse.
The parents, however, have the expense of earning the money, keeping the home, and providing moral/social guidance. The neighbors pay taxes on the school whether they like it or not, have kids or not.
*Now* who's the slave?
(Such a specious argument. It's a tenant of being in a society that sometimes society pays into you and sometimes you pay into the society. It's a freakin' exchange between generations. Slavery doesn't come into it. Now get offa my lawn. Jerk.)
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correlation... (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it interesting that despite having such an apparently intense fear of inanimate tools, the UK populace keeps electing them.
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
We're also virtually defenceless against ICBM strikes, raptors, and armies of mutant zombie pirates. Oh noes! How will we ever defend ourselves!
Fact is, all the sensational stabbings the press have reported in the last year or so have had one thing in common: easy availability of guns would not have prevented them. It would just have meant that we'd have had a bunch of sensational shootings instead. I'm sure that would have been a real improvement.
Re:Please correct my logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed - the problem is that in this country, having a murdered son or daughter apparently gives you the right to pass a law banning whatever you like in your dead child's name. You'll get national media coverage for your campaign, and if the Government agrees, they'll use you as an emotional figurehead, promoting you as the emotive reason why Something Must Be Done.
I saw it with Liz Longhurst [bbc.co.uk] and her crusade to criminalise possession of porn she doesn't like, which has now passed [backlash-uk.org.uk]. Even now, she continues to pop up in the media again and again giving her uninformed one-sided views, whilst individuals, organisations and academics who opposed the law have had to fight to get even a slim amount of coverage. Anyone who dares criticise her is accused of being disrespectful, whilst it's okay for her to tell those who risk being criminalised "hard luck" [bbc.co.uk].
Grieving parents shouldn't be given additional media attention for political campaigning, over anyone else, and they are the last people we should be consulting for an unbiased and unemotional viewpoint on lawmaking.
Re:Correlation... (Score:2, Insightful)
im honestly curious, how does taxing video game sales help fix knife crime?
that being said if video games are the one true problem behind knife crime, why did stabbings occur before video games?