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Court of Appeals Overturns Indiana Video Game Ordinance
hayfever writes: "Catch the scoop. The Indianapolis Star is reporting here that the US 7th Circuit Court of appeals has overturned the Indianapolis ordinance banning violent video games from arcades (see previous Slashdot article here)." Findlaw has the decision, and there are some really good lines in there: "To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it."
Update: 03/24 10 AM EST by J : The contrast is striking. The same day, our new Attorney General John Ashcroft released a statement:
"Ashcroft on school shootings: Video games are part of the problem."
Gun control? He prefers thought control: "We have to exhibit responsibility in other ways, so that the culture inhibits or restrains this impulse."
What's important (and, as I read it, what the court is saying) is that children be prepared not for violent situations, but rather for exposure to depictions of violent situations. Whole different thing.
And the bookburners suffer another defeat... ah, this makes my day (along with the release of OSX).
I'm inclined not to worry about Ashcroft. It may be best that the old fool was made Attorney General, because he's no longer a lawmaker. This leaves him with perhaps the ability to influence, but utterly impotent to take a direct hand in lawmaking anymore.
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I'm getting a little tired of Slashdot being so obviously pro-citizen disarmament (ie: gun control). Many Slashdot readers are libertarians, not liberals, and know that the right to bear arms is every bit as important as the right to free speech.
Regulations of this type are very much NOT "insignificant" in the scheme of things. Oh, some person might just snap and run through a Catholic church with a broadsword if he see that! We can't allow anyone to see it. Oh, someone might go rape that young woman if she dresses like that, so we should outlaw miniskirts (a crime if I've ever thought of one. Miniskirts... GOOD! Uh, what was I saying? Oh yeah.) You might say that these are contrived examples, but some psycho did run through a church with a broadsword a year or two ago in England. OK, the second example is pretty bad.
What do you think the next step is? Tracking your location through your cell phone? Haven't read about that idea from the FBI. How about collecting all traffic through an ISP, just in case somebody is talking about their plans to shoot up another school... But it's for the children! (you don't want me to start on that rant. really.)
I don't know exactly how to say this -- I'm running on little sleep and much beer. I feel very strongly about this. Would I give up my freedom to save someone I love? Yes. Would I give up a nation's freedom? NO.
It sounds callous, even to me, but if I had to choose between my niece's life, and the first amendment, I would choose freedom. You can't allow the freedom of all to be destroyed to protect the few. If I had to choose between my freedom, and her, I have no doubt that I would sacrifice myself. But that is my choice, to give up my freedom to save another.
Maybe I'm unusual, but I'd be willing to give up my own life or freedom to protect those general freedoms, or to protect those I love. But I won't give up those general freedoms to protect them, since I don't consider that protection.
-30-
Okay, I don't agree that video games should be censored, but he's right about violence being a problem of culture, not gun control.
For our first example, let's look at Japan, which has strict gun controls and a low murder rate. A case for gun control? Not if you note that the murder rate by all methods in Japan is lower than the murder rate in the U.S. by non-gun methods. If every gun were to dissapear from the U.S. today, and everyone who would have killed with a gun abstains from using an alternate method, the U.S. would still have a higher murder rate than Japan.
Next, let's look at Switzerland, which has an automatic assault rifle in virtually every home. Yet it too has far fewer murders, inculding school shootings, per capita than the United States.
Now, perhaps we should note that neither low-murder-rate Japan nor Switzerland has a subculture that produces gangsta rap, justifies riots as expressions of outrage, etc. Cultural attitudes about violence are different than in the U.S. Perhaps, maybe, then, the U.S.'s problem isn't guns, but the cultural embrace of violence?
Steven E. Ehrbar
I don't know...if I were a 16 year old again, I'd be pissed by laws like this, but I think its a good thing. Here in Indianapolis, its already against the law for children under 18 to play most arcade gaming machines during school hours. Why? Because if they are under 18 they should be in school.
:-)
The law never BANNED anyone from playing video games, it made it so they needed their parents consent to play them. A few of the bigger arcades using the newer game cards sell one set of cards to those who don't produce a valid ID and another to ones who do (***and dammit if they didn't sell me the wrong one when I'm fricken 29***). If you are with a parent or guardian, they can opt to get the unrestricted card and allow the kiddies to play what ever they want.
Face it, if you are under 18, you are dependent on your parents for most of your rights. I think this is a good thing. You are given a set of progressive rights until the gov't thinks its reasonable to give them all to you. At 15 (least when I was a kiddie) ya can get yer Driving Lerners Permit (need an adult with ya in the car though). At 16, you can get your Drivers license, can legally work in most estabishments and can drop outta school with yer parents permission. At 17, with yer parents permission (I think ya still can) ya can enter the military...I had a friend stupidly do this because he was sick of High School and wanted to get outta his house. At 18, you can ***Vote*** and are technically emancipated from your parents (except where it comes to your schooling until your are 25...Thank you Pres G.H.W. Bush for that little bit of law that allowed my parents NOT to pay for my school, me not to get any financial aid because my parents were well enough off even though they didn't pay shit, AND allowed them to check up on my school records when they felt like it). At 21, you can Drink and receive the rest of yer rights.
So, no I don't think we should shield our kids, but they shouldn't be able to get into anything they want to. It should be a parents right to shield or not to shield. I wouldn't want my kids being allowed to walk into a bar, but if I gave them a beer that should be allowed to as a parent...hmmm...is this about free beer or free speech? Never mind
clif - Indianapolis Native
let's shield our kids from everything, and maybe they won't grow up like us. we are the ones that are playing the shoot 'em up games. why do we protect our kids from everything, and then wonder why they end up more violent.
i believe every restriction we put on ourselves, causes something else to be replaced. look at the alcohol laws in the US against the laws in france. anyone at any age can just about buy any type alcohol in france. is it a coincidence that france has much lower levels of detrimental alcoholics? in the US, we treat alcohol like a taboo, until a certain age. the US has one of the highest detrimental alcoholic levels.
the whole idea of the internet is an open forum environment. the internet should not be controlled or filtered by anyone.
the people that try to censor because they are "protecting" children should learn to teach their children morals, instead of just letting other people take the blame.
the guy who went shooting a few weeks ago in a san diego high school was said to be "depressed and angered about other peers picking on him in school". *tear* where were the parents? where did he get the gun? the parents never took responsibility for their offspring. it always has to be someone else's problem.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
As for Ashcroft's stance on video game control, well, what do you expect? He's a 7th Day Adventist, and doesn't even believe in dancing. But I don't think the gun control nuts whom Salon sets up as his opposition are necessarily right, either.
I really don't know what to say anymore. Maybe we do need some kind of controls on violent video games, equivalent to the "R" rating of the MPAA, so they aren't banned altogether. I think we could use a little more control over guns, of the "trigger lock" variety, but quail (or Quayle? :) at anything more harsh--in fact, I'd like to see a nationwide concealed carry law. As for the overall solution, well, I'd plug parental responsibility here, but the cynic in me points out that there's no way to legislate that.
I don't know quite what's going to happen, but something tells me it's all going to get worse before it gets any better.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Yes. Xenu won't stay put forever, you know.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem like the more controls are placed on the purchasing of guns, and the more certain types of guns are banned, that more school shootings occur? I'm not saying that their is a direct correlation, just that gun control isn't solving any problems.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That's somewhat amusing with the claims that video game violance and death lead to real life violence and death. "Fatal" indeed,
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
at least that particular story.
--
+&x
Unfortunately, this idea seems to have been lost, and, instead, people under 21 can generally only drink irresponsibly, and thus have bad drinking habits when they are later allowed to drink as they want.
That's a common problem with attempting to control recreational drugs. You'd think the USA would be the one place on the planet not to fall into this kind of trap, at least you'd think that if those involved had learned anything from history.
First: You are correct that last year saw the lowest youth violence rate in recent time (aka about since 1983). However, so far this year the youth violence rate has gone up at an alarming rate
Exactly how is this measured. It's quite possible for very rare situations to produce this kind of statistic.
Oh, I agree with you on almost all points. First, about mental maturity. My suggestion of 12 as the cutoff is only an approximation. Some children will mature faster, and some slower.
The alternative is to use something other than simply a person's age. There are situations where this is done, e.g. people don't automatically gain the ability to legally operate a motor vehicle.
However, in the good old USA, you see extreme alcohol related problems with minors. I like to call that the 'forbiddin fruit' effect.
A nastier part of this is that "using" is judged just as bad as "abusing". Thus there is no incentive to "use" rather than "abuse"...
I agree with you that for most of us, video games are a safe and even fun way to release tension and fuffil primal urges. But what about that .01% that have progressive adiction. What about that .01% where violent video games feeds the urge? That .01% can do a lot of damage.
Would getting rid of video games make any difference? Maybe they'd just find another "trigger". It's not as if violent people only came in to existance when there were video games.
Everyone will be able to drink themselves into a stupor whenever they feel like it.
Though there then become negative consquences of abusing, rather than simply using, alcohol. Most people are probably not into waking up with their own vomit or ending up of first name terms with paramedics...
Yea, that sure has helped. Gun control in the UK has lead to the police carrying heavy firearms, something they have never done! Gun control does not work!
Possibly the same problem as with drug control. It's illegal to use drugs so instead binge on them. It's illegal to have a gun, so if you are already planning to do something illegal then carry the most lethal gun you can.
An armed robber is hardly going to be worried that their gun is illegal...
Then you too could have been in the majority.
War is necrophilia.
Hit a sore sport did I? No bush didn't even win florida. His cronies did everything they could to subvert the votes lucky for him his cronies were in charge of the state legislature, the governor ship, and the state election office.
War is necrophilia.
As it happens, there *weren't* all that many murders in the old west. That's why the shootout at the OK Corral was such a big news story: it was not an everyday occurrence.
Hollywood is not the historical record.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There's a reason why he lost to a DEAD MAN in his congressional race. That's all I've got to say on that subject. :)
"To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it."
When did we become Klingons? I'd like to think that life in America is peaceful enough that I don't need Mortal Combat 4 to train my kid to be violent enough to survive. Did Indiana somehow get zapped into being the evil, alternate Hill Valley from Back to the Future 2? I'm all for freedom of expression, and letting people do business without excessive regulation, but to hear a community leader defend violence in video games as a necessary part of the instruction of our youth makes me want move to Pennsylvania and become Amish.
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
It looks like the Seventh Circuit's reasoning is that the City of Indianapolis hasn't drawn a sufficiently clear connection between violent video games and "harm to children". Surprise, surprise.
And I went into the opinion expecting to find an economic argument. After all, it was Judge Posner writing the opinion.
...and you will see what this future could look like. There will be glorious times ahead for those few who still understand the concept of kicking someone's ass! :-)
--
Cthulhu fhtagn!
And if they by some miracle manage to make it to 18 in your happy little world, they'll be in for quite a shock when they leave their bubble and turn on the TV. God help them if they actually go outside! I like to think this is what the judge was talking about.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
People have been snapping under that pressure all along. One of the news sites carried the story of an elderly gentleman who went to school some decades ago now, who one day took a gun to school and threatened to shoot a kid who was shaking him down. Violent video games aren't at fault here. The way the school system works may be, but I don't think it's ever going to change either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
State laws maybe?
Different places has different "legally adult" ages. They're just lazy - choosing the oldest among them just to be on the safe side...
If I was in Indianapolis, I'd be outraged. There need to be laws protecting my kids from the horrors of dot-munching little yellow dudes.
And don't get me started on the alien shooting...
In this age of sheltered youths, I wonder what is in store. In the future, if there is more censorship (or perhaps if we just keep on this course), what will the kids raised on Barney and Teletubbies be like as adults? Will a policeman feint at the sight of blood? Will a teacher run away when unable to stop a fight in class? Will fear of terrorism rein? Violence has always been a part of entertainment. It shouldn't be the only form of entertainment, but it definately should be out there. Is censorship really the only way to promote nonviolent games? Why can't somebody just make a good movie or game without as much violence and other objectional materials?
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
This has been an interesting generation to grow up in. I turned 23 in December, so I'm old enough to remember when Apples came out, and I watched the rise of Big Blue, MS and the internet. So then, shall we blame technology? Why not, it's an easy target. My age groups is also considered the children of the baby boomers. Well, if that's the case, let's all blame our parents. But wait, I grew up during the Reagan era, so here's an idea, let's blame the Republicans. Hold on, I forgot, the Democrats controlled Congress, so I think it's safe to blame them, as well.
My point is this: My generation, and the next, have all been trained to Blame The Other Guy.
Nothing we do is our fault at all.
Did you cheat on a test in 6th grade? Obviously you felt tremendous social pressure to do well in school. It's OK, we'll curve your grades anyway so that "you can feel good about yourself."
Did you steal a car when you were 15? That's OK, obviously you were under great peer pressure and your parents didn't love you enough.
Did you shoot someone when you were 18? That's OK, you probably had a very good reason. Maybe they used to take your lunch money when you were in grade school.
Don't get me wrong, good parenting, peer pressure, social pressure, these are all very important things to a child's personality development. But whatever happened to personal responsibility? Perhaps if we being to teach children actual values and responsibility instead of selfishness and passing the buck, they would be mature enough to decide what games to play on their own.
God forbid that, though, because then the government couldn't mold its citizens into little state funded automatons, completely reliant on Big Brother.
"A mime is a terrible thing to waste."
ThE iLlUsTrIoUs IdIoTt
'Evil Empire got you down? Use the source!'
http://www.dolinux.org/
While I am all for supporting free speech in any form (including video games), doesn't that last line scare anybody? Since when were video games supposed to prepare people for the "real world"? Especially violent ones.... While I praise their decision, I must protest their reasoning. Violent video games are not a good way to be preparing for "real life". And sometimes we wonder why there are so many violent acts committed by young people unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality... It's no wonder they tend to get confused.
-James
-James
This may sound a bit cold to say, but I'm going to say it anyhow. My brother was murdered in 1996 at 19 years old. (No apologies please, I hate that). However, I do not even for a moment think that sheltering kids from any form of violence, like video games, will help anything. I'm not that naive. I bet a whole lot more people kill for a person's money, like they did to my brother. The person(s) were never caught either.
Video games aren't the cause of all this, nor even the symptom. It's the fucked up people in the world out there that think a couple hundred dollars is worth taking someone's life for. This has been going on much longer than movies, tv, video games, etc ever existed.
Matt
Don't take life so seriously; it isn't permanent.
www.penny-arcade.com
--
Dyolf Knip
I agree. A friend of mine is a middle school teacher and her biggest complaint is that the parents so often just don't care. It's a major problem and one that needs to be addressed. But laws like these will do nothing to encourage parental inolvement in a child's life.
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Dyolf Knip
New Hampshire is considering taxing video games and movies, and using the money to help sex crime victims. Says proponents: "both forms of entertainment often feature sexual violence or portray woman as objects of sexual gratification".
Does anybody think the connection being made her is a little tenuous?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If this was a Supreme Court decision, we might have a hope of overturning library filtering-for-funding and indecency laws. I'm of the opinion that children should have access to whatever they're actually searching for.
"Forecasts estimate a 35% probability of heavy rain at the time of the civil-rights demonstration scheduled for today in Sometown, Somestate. Wash away the commies, Lord!"
This is how 99.9% of the mainstream news is. Even the weather is biased. Basically, since the news is slanted in such a way, you just have to read it, disregard the majority of the crap, find out what the facts are, then go back and research to find out if they were lying or not. You'd be suprised of how much in the paper and on TV news is made up so they can have a good story, or are too lazy to get the real facts.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Me too. Now I can stomp on mushrooms better than all my coworkers, and I bash my head against bricks a lot. I did get in trouble when I went into that pet store and kicked the turtles though. It seems the majority of the people are just not aware of the mighty Koopa invasion. Let me go put on my red coveralls and matching hat now, I have a princess to save!
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
So what do they have against the Ibrator?
And I haven't seen any sex in video games in the arcades. I mean c'mon, Princess Toadstool's dress didn't even show her ankles! Oh, but maybe those "power balls" that Ms. Pacman eats were something else entirely...Oh my God!!! Ms. Pacman ate my balls!
Anyways, this is silly, I will stop now.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Pennsylvania state code is not online (apparently they are the only state in this condition, according to one site I went to), so I can't say what I found there.
Chapter 60a in WV has several clauses pertaining to age of those consuming alcohol. Twice it exempts blood relatives and spouses from the penalties for providing alcohol to persons under 21, once it does not. In one section it merely states that no alcohol is to be sold to those under 21, but in another it states that it is a misdemeanor for persons under 21 to purchase or consume alcohol. If a person under 21 were to consume the alcohol in the home, it would require a violation of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution to determine this, provided such consumption was not done in plain view from the street or another building. Frankly, I'd consult a lawyer in WV concerning this before I made a presumption either way. The law (to my non-lawyerly eyes) is self-contradictory.
MD appears to outright forbid anyone under the age of 21 from even consuming the stuff under all circumstances.
Interestingly, while it does appear that the original complaint about Indiana is correct, the IN law contains a curious exception in that "family" (i.e. homemade) beverages are not covered by the state law at all.
So, as I said, the laws vary state to state and obviously some states aren't as cool as the one I live in. {grin} Next time I hear someone around here (MN) complaining about our bassackwards liquor laws I think I'll mention this.
From what I've heard these sorts of rules don't really exist in most of Europe at all. And frankly, Prohibition in the US is the biggest failure of a policy EVER. Just imagine if it was as easy to avoid paying taxes as it was for those under 21 to get liquor. The Air Force would be holding those bake sales to buy bombers after all.
I do not have a signature
What a LOAD! If you are under 21 the only way you can have alcohol is in church (and that little thimble of wine is all you'll get there) or your parent's home (with their permission of course).
Unless there is some extension specific to Indiana or Fort Wayne that I don't know about, this sounds like a dad making excuses (or perhaps there are extenuating circumstances). Alcohol laws are vary state by state. Here the MN State Law that very clearly states that persons under 21 are allowed to drink in their parents' homes.
The government has been very loathe over the years (and you can thank the Republicans and their ideological type for this) to interfere with families, for better or worse. It's Democrats with their Nanny State that won't let parents be parents, but are all too willing to sue everyone in sight, including parents, when something goes wrong with kids whose parents were basically hog-tied.
Now obviously this does not extend to giving children large and dangerous doses of alcohol. That would be reckless and dangerous. But a glass of wine or beer with a meal? I've known parents who would cringe at the thought, but I think healthy families with normal chemical use patterns would see nothing amiss here (this is not intended to be a statement about you and your family in particular, please don't take offense).
To stay on topic, this law against certain video games sounds dumb as hell to begin with. Video games are a popular target right now since they have "arrived" as a mass media. But parents have every right in this case to forbid their minor children from even entering the arcade if they have a problem with the games. If an arcade owner can make a "clean" arcade which is profitable, this is surely a niche market worth tapping-- assuming that parents whose children spend enough time in arcades to be affected by the games there give enough of a shit about their child's well-being to begin with.
I do not have a signature
Agreed. While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become ensconsed in obscurity.
In other words, eschew obfuscation.
(ripped from the fortune file)
-John
Not binge drinking doesn't mean you don't have a problem with alcohol either. Drinking alcohol, even in relatively small amounts (3-4 beers), every day can lead into a drinking habit or into an outright addiction with the subsequent health problems. I know because that happened to me. It's humiliating to realize that you really need those three drinks every day, and it's even more difficult to admit to admit to yourself that your alcohol intake -- no matter how small it is per day -- is starting to affect your health, work and life in general.
(To those who're interested in treatment, there are good drugs nowadays that will help you to break the habit so you really can start working on the other problems in your life. They're not the cure, but they sure helped me.)
Now maybe they can start overturning other limited-by-age laws, like the drinking age. I don't know anyone who has wanted to drink before they were 21 who has not been able to get their hands on alcohol. I've also seen many people make the decision when attending clubs or parties where they can't get alcohol (since they're getting intoxicated illegally anyway) to go for harder drugs... because they last the whole night without having to drink yourself close to death at the start of the night. At my school we have a school-wide party early in the year and then again at the end (on the last day of classes) and a lot of the alcohol problems are early on due to people trying to come drunk enough to make their buzz last the entire time, and overestimating. And one line I hear constantly from people who really are on the verge of poisoning themselves is they don't want medical help because they don't want to be caught. Fortunately my school has a (student) medical service that doesn't report to the police for those types of cases, but many places don't, and I worry.
And for those of you who might think "kids" aren't responsible enough to handle alcohol, maybe they aren't. However, artificially imposing that only adults are responsible enough to drink alcohol just makes kids who want to grow up faster (blame the media) more prone to drink, so they fit the adult image that they present. I could continue, but I'm really trying not to troll.
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
"The murderous fanaticism displayed by young German soldiers in World War II, alumni of the Hitler Jugend, illustrates the danger of allowing government to control the access of children to information and opinion."
This may seem slightly out of place in the context of video games, but it fits perfectly with some other legislation we've had recently.
The title of this Salon article pretty much says it all. Ashcroft on school shootings: Video games are part of the problem.
I'm glad I voted for Gore....
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
So guess what the drinking age is here? Yep. The Feds blackmailed us by threatening to withhold highway funds (YOO-HOO, where do you think those funds COME FROM, eh? Blackmailed with OUR OWN MONEY!!!) At first the Legislature wouldn't pass the law. It was, after all, patently unconstitutional. Then, as the deadline neared, they caved. Went to the state Supreme Court. The Supremes said, guess what d00ds, this is unconstitutional. The deadline got closer, the Lege passed it again, and this time the Supremes did a backflip and coughed and said that our Constitution does not in fact say what it very obviously says.
The period in which we refused to pass on this crap was one of the few times I've been proud of our state's elected officials. I suppose I can't blame them for finally caving in to a superior force but it was a sad day for freedom in a venue which, compared to some other things, isn't even really that important.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
So, it's either-or, huh? Come on, don't be so ridiculous. Look up the word "dichotomy."
There are two options, then, according to you: we can (1) train our children to be able to cope with life with Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament, or we can (2) give them Barney and Mr. Rogers. No in between at all, right?
I understand the fact that we shouldn't shelter our children in a bubble, leaving them unequipped to handle the real world. But you know, I know so many people that didn't play any Mortal Kombat growing up -- and (shock, gasp, horror) they are normal, productive members of society!
I play my share of violent games (Quake 2, Unreal, Q3A) etc., and I know for a fact that I will not go out and shoot someone because of the game. You have no argument from me there. But to imply that we'd be warping our kids by not allowing them to play violent video games is probably the funniest thing I've read today.
--
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
I'm almost 50. I am one of the babyboom generation that was raised with a TV in the house.
I grew up watching all the "violent" Warner Bros. cartoons, not to mention running home after school to watch the Three Stooges in the afternoon.
I am like many of my peers who were born in that postwar generation, a generation that loved watching Elmer blast Daffy Duck and Moe clobbering Curly with a great big monkey wrench.
We grew up to be called the "Peace" generation. You know. Hippies. Anti-war protestors. That lot.
But when cartoons and kids programming became, for lack of a better word, wimpified, that is, no violence at all, everybody was all lovey dovey and worked out all their problems by consensus, et al, ad nauseum, it was then we began to see a rise in juvenile violence in the 70s and 80s.
Now, I am not positing a direct correlation between these two events. Nor am I positing a correlation between the decrease in juvenile violence since the advent of "realistic" (Quake, realistic? AHEM!) video & computer games.
Still, it's an intriguing datapoint and there's probably a couple of Ph.Ds that could be earned via a study of the correlation between "violent" media influences and people born in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
You might guess that this is one of my pet peeves. *grin* I maintain, although this is only my opinion, that violent video games and violence in movies has little, if anything, to do with the youth violence we're currently experiencing in the U.S. (although probably responsible for this run-on sentence). I must admit that I'm pleased that someone in authority can see this also.
Enough ranting and have a wonderful night, all!
"an amusement machine that predominantly appeals to minors' morbid interest in violence or minors' prurient interest in sex, is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for persons under the age of eighteen (18) years, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value as a whole for persons under..."
All I can say is wow. All that just to mean "video game." I suggest we start using the above statement in our everyday speach.
Something like:
"Hey Kevin, care to pop out the amusement machine that predominantly appeals to minors' morbid interest in violence or minors' prurient interest in sex, is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for persons under the age of eighteen (18) years, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value and play some Final Fantasy on it?"
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.