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

Evil is defeated once more!

[SD-VI]

Seriously, can we go back to using TV as a scapegoat for the results of bad parenting? It's not like there's anything good on.

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.

Why "law enforcement"?

[grub]

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.

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.

You yanks are strange ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

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.

Can we electrocute them?

[Anonymous Coward]

to impose fines on anyone selling games to minors depicting violence against 'law enforcement officers'

What if that law enforcement officer was tried and convicted of a capital crime?

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:The future?

[Izago909]

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.

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.