St Louis Continues Pushing Violent Games Law

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for pointing to a St.Louis Today article indicating officials have decided not to give up on trying to outlaw the sale of violent video games to minors, despite a recent tide against their effort. As a CNN article explains, ".. [the original] ordinance, passed by the St. Louis County Council in 2000, requires children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games", but this was struck down as unconstitutional on June 4th, with a judge citing the First Amendment and the protection of free speech. The County has now set a petition for review, saying the courts "set too high a standard" for proving a link between videogames and violence. The saga continues..

Comments

St. Louis County is not the City of St. Louis

[trentfoley]

...passed by the St. Louis County Council in 2000, requires children...

Thank god I live in the City of St. Louis. I keep hearing about this kind of strange goings on out in the County. The last time I heard about anything this crazy was when they tried to ban MTV in St. Charles County. That didn't last very long, though.

I have kids too, though. So, of course, I'm a concerned parent. But, as Bart said unto Lisa, "How can you expect to become desensitized to violence if you don't watch it."

wackos not "whackos"

[GuyMannDude]

Perhaps a wiser use of our money would be to establish a national DNA database of these whackos that are spending their free time pretending to kill people...

No, no, you've got it all wrong. "Wackos" pretend to kill people while watching a computer screen. "Whackos" pretend they're having sex with people (usually sexy women) while watching a computer screen.

GMD

The question they need to be asked:

[lightspawn]

Would you pass a similar law for books? movies? television? Why be media-specific?

Oh, and that game those punk kids play, you know the one where they pretend to have this war, you know? and they're trying to kill everybody on the other side so they can capture the king? That seems pretty violent too.

Too high a standard

[Danse]

On June 4, that panel said the county's use of "anecdote and supposition" did not establish enough connection between violent games and violent behavior to warrant a limit on the game makers' free speech rights.

The county's petition for review says the 8th Circuit panel set too high a standard.

Yep. I can definitely see where they're coming from on this. I mean how much more scientific do you have to be in order to take away people's rights? What does the court want, an actual scientific study or something?! I think the court just doesn't place enough value on a good anecdote or a seemingly plausible supposition. If the court insists on more evidence than that, then they might have to actually make an effort, and its even possible that the study might not support their position! (although, granted, that's not likely, depending on who they hire and how much they pay)

Well....

[Monark24]

I live in STL County, but being a bunch of years over 17 I don't care... I have been following this videogame violence stuff since the mid 90's, and what it comes down to is if the parents think that violence and content will ruin their children's minds they have the right to say "no". What I don't understand is why with the ERAB Ratings ON THE GAME PACKAGE why they dont make a decision for themselves instead of going for legislation... I suppose that could be asking to much for parents...

The troubling pr0nography issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we do have a similar laws to keep pr0n out of the hands of minors.

We have only anecdotal evidence at best that this is harmful to kids. (Unless there was a study wherein they showed a bunch of pr0n to a bunch of kids...and that's messed up).

Why do those who feel this is different, feel that way?

Could violent games be to potential murderers like pr0n to the potential rapist?

Discuss.

Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

requires children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games.

From the sounds of things so far, slashdoters make this sound like a bad thing.

Guess then you don't care for the same rules applying to movies either. By this logic little Johny should be able to see M an XXX rated movies.

Re:another question that needs to be asked

[ronfar]

I'm guessing that the people that really want this law are parents who don't want their kids playing violent video games. So why don't parents just not let their own kid play the violent game?

Actually, I have a theory about that, it's not only that they don't want their own kids playing videogames, they also don't want other people's kids playing videogames either. There are lots of reasons for this. I mean people believe in things like the ideas that games cause murders and suicide as a superstition. When I was a kid, it was D&D, nowadays it's GTA. So, if you believe something like that, then you don't want anyone playing videogames. Because that weird kid (who exists mostly in these people's imaginations) who plays video games obsessively may kill your family.

There is also H. L. Mencken's definition of Puritanism to consider, "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." He was really onto something with that. Think of all the things that have been in trouble. Pool, pinball, comic books, Rock and Roll, and RolePlaying Games have all had their time in the dock. All of these things have in common that they are fun without being educational or "spiritual." Some people really hate that, you have to come up with a better reason for stuff like that to exist than just because it is fun, because to those people fun=bad.

I actually kind of wish that the game companies would fight this not in courts but by complying. They could just stop shipping games to stores in St. Louis County and close the arcades. The trouble is they are worried that if it succeeds in St. Louis, Joseph Lieberman will decide to introduce a bill making it national. It would be interesting to see what would happen, though, even though a lot of small arcade and video game owners would end up suffering in the short term. (If I was an arcade owner in St. Louis county, I'd already be looking to relocate.)