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St Louis Continues Pushing Violent Games Law

Posted by simoniker on from the ain't-over-til-it's-over dept.

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..

5 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. St. Louis County is not the City of St. Louis by trentfoley · · Score: 4, Informative
    ...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."

  2. The question they need to be asked: by lightspawn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Well.... by Monark24 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...

  4. The troubling pr0nography issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Ok... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.