Courts Block Washington Violent Game Law

Thanks to Reuters/Yahoo for their report that the enforcement of a Washington state law, designed to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors, has been postponed. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik blocked enforcement of the law, set to start July 27th, and to impose fines on anyone selling games to minors depicting violence against 'law enforcement officers', saying: "Plaintiffs have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of House Bill 1009 and the balance of hardships tips in their favor." Doug Lowenstein of the IDSA praised the move, praising "..the judge's finding that games are a form of protected speech like music and movies", but the Washington Democrat politician sponsoring the bill suggested that "..any injunction would only be preliminary and that.. the case [will] go to trial." The saga continues..

Comments

Re:The future?

[NanoGator]

"But how many more times can these types of bills be defeated? It'll only take one to get through, and we head down the slippery slope... "

Yeah but each time it gets defeated, it gets harder and harder to pass it.

I find it amusing they're trying to 'violence against officers' angle when TV and movies have been able to portray it for years. I don't think they're going to get anything like this through until they find something unique yet common to games. Maybe they should try to make 'violence against fungus based life forms' illegal to sell to anybody under 18.

I'm sure i'll be modded down but..

[NightWulf]

Is keeping violent games out of the hands of minors really a bad thing? I don't believe violent games make people any more or less violent than they already are, but some games go to the extreme, and I really don't think putting in an age restriction is a bad thing. If the kid really wants the game, he can gladly go into the store with a parent, and they can buy it for them if they think their child is mature enough for said game. Think of it like pornography, sure kids can get it online for free, but legally there is an age restriction. Now I don't think some 13 year old boys checking out a penthouse will become raving serial rapists but there are age laws put in place, and for a good reason.

Re:I'm sure i'll be modded down but..

[MaverickUW]

This isn't so much about keeping violent videogames out of the hands of minors. The principle behind this, and why the ISDA has been so against this law, is it renders their ratings useless.

The premise is that any game that featured any violence against cops would automatically be treated like a rated M game. This means games like Enter the Matrix, which is rated Teen, would not be able to be sold to teens.

If a game rated for everyone (let's say for this example something like Super Smash Brother's Melee) had a cop in it, even if it wasn't realistic and that cop was fighting, it would be ILLEGAL to sell it to anyone under 17. This is where the problem lies.

Think of it this way. If there was an equivilant law for movies, the disney animated "Robin Hood", which is rated G of course, would end up with an NC-17 rating due to the fact that there is violence against the Sherrif of Nottingham.

In the end, you have to look at how this would affect other genres if they had the same laws. The ISDA fought this because they've been trying to get universal recognition of their ratings system (since certain Senators don't recognize there is one), and a law like this hurts that.

It starts with the family.

[Agent R]

Aren't there enough screwy laws already? Do we really need another one for the books? (And exactly how will this be enforced? Kids still manage to get cigarettes.)

I don't think it is the games that need to be looked at as opposed to how much interaction the kids get at home from the parents. It appears that quite a number of these kids that go off the deep end tend to have parents who didn't check up on them enough to make sure everything is fine.

Re:How many more mass murders?

[LordBodak]

Violent games, stories, movies, music, whatever... it's nothing new. Our parents had it, their parents had it, all the way back to the beginning of time.

The problem with out society is everyone wants to blame someone else. Parents need to take responsibility for the way they raise their kids. You don't want your kids seeing violence, keep them away from it.

Parents have the option to decide what their kids do and do not see. The government needs to stay out of it and leave the option in the hands of the people, where it belongs.

Re:How many more mass murders?

[redwolfoz]

Bad parenting wasn't the only thing that caused Columbine.

An endemic problem of systematic abuse was allowed, even encouraged, at the school for decades.

The high population of evangelical christians at the school felt it was their god-given right to both physically and verbally assault anybody who wasn't a mindless clone. The school authorities allowed this to continue and eventually somebody snapped.

You kick a dog long enough, don't be surprised if you get bitten.