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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..
to impose fines on anyone selling games to minors depicting violence against 'law enforcement officers'
So it's legal to sell games where you blow away Ma and Pa Kettle but don't dare kill a cop in a game or it's illegal? Since when did law enforcement become some sort of sacred cow? Hmmm... I wonder if 3D Realms will have to re-do Duke Nukem 3D, recall that you could kill pigs in cop outfits in that game.
Trolling is a art,
You hear over and over about how bad these video games are, yet any loser can go and buy a gun. Such a gun culture seems to be at the heart of the problem.
After all, I doubt the British are likely to return after all these years..
I live in Indianapolis. For the lucky half of you who live on a coast, the bible-belt really, really sucks. A few years ago our mayor (Bart) was trying to make a high profile to get himself re-elected with. He chose to ban violent video games within city limits. The area, once being Klan central, and still being non-christians-are-to-blame-for-it-all, allowed it to pass. The first day it want active it started to be enforced.
In short time, arcade operators and video game vendors got the help of the ICLU and ACLU (thank god they considered this high profile enough) and sued the city. All the courts up to the state supreme court had no problem with this and let the law stand. Finally, the Supreme Court in D.C. decided to hear the case. A unanimous decision stuck it down as unconstitutional. That little media fiasco cost the city over a million dollars in legal services. Coincidentally, the legal firm that collected most of those billable hours was the same one the mayor used to work for. He made his golf buddies over $400,000 richer. He did manage to get re-elected though, thanks to selective media choosing to give most of the air time to the righteous fight and next to none for the legal loss and absoutely none to the tax money and who got it.
His next re-election campaign was right out of the movies. Anyone remember Footloose? It is now illegal to dance in the city without a permit. One of those will cost you thousands of dollars, unless you run a large music venue or club, in which case selective enforcement ignores you. It's a good thing all of the 'legal' venues play top 40 stuff, because that's quality music. The argument "Dancing and music causes kids to do drugs" just won't seem to die. Unfortunately nobody with money to spare gives a damn about this one.
This one is for all of those politicians who fight the symptoms instead of the disease: I hope you burn in the hell that you create here on earth. Screw your children, Darwinism will see that they get what they deserve comming. I want to shoot some simulated cops before I go out dancing to government approved music tonight.