Illinois Gov. Seeks Violent Video Game Ban

Foobar_Zen writes "Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois has apparently decided to build on past "wins". He seeks to impose legislation that will prohibit the distribution, sale, rental and availability of mature video games to children younger than 18. Breaking of this law would be punishable by up to one year in prison or a $5,000 fine." From the article: "The Illinois Retail Merchants Association blasted the governor's proposal as a way for retailers to become "the violence and sensitivity police for the state of Illinois." Update: 12/16 21:14 GMT by Z : Lum's take on this over at Broken Toys is excellent.

Comments

America's Army

[justforaday]

I'd like to see how this is handled if some kid downloads America's Army...

Re:America's Army

[Stripe7]

Given that a recent survey has pointed out that nusery rhymes had more violent content than video games, I think he has to ban them as well. He should also ban all news channels for showing the violence in Iraq and American Cities. Add to that banning all the violent Saturday Morning kids programming, ie Power Rangers, Spider Man, X-Men, etc.. which all depict violent acts of one sort of another.

Re:America's Army

[sTalking_Goat]

Exactly. This thing is a joke. Like Arrnohld's new law in CA that says you can't file share without providing your email. Completely unenforcable. This is just to impress the Luddite Moral Minority who think this something your can slap some red warning tape on and it'll go away.

If you don't know what your kids are buying with the money you give them you have no right to be a parent. And if your kids are old enough to make their own money I say they've earned the right to "corrupt" themselves.

Re:America's Army

[cbr2702]

AA is rated Teen. So no worries; a Teen game could hardly desensitize our youth to killing and other violence.

Re:America's Army

[iminplaya]

Nursery rhymes?? Jeez. If anybody wants violence, they just have to read the Bible. You'll get plenty of violence right there in the first book(Genesis). It's all downhill from there. There's murder, war, anger, rage, jealousy, envy, hate, mayhem, you name it. Once again, somebody's trying to distract people from other much more serious problems. And once again, it will work. It's like a guy that buys flowers for his girlfriend to make her forget that he cheated on her last light. That usually works also.

Re:America's Army

[chuck]

Let's try to put things in perspective. A billion jillion kids read violent books, and play violent games. Why aren't there mass killings by the milliions? Maybe children need that for their psychological growth:

Killing Monsters Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence

Finally a reasonable look at children and violent fantasy. A must-read for retarded old governors and senators.

Re:America's Army

[valkraider]

What is wrong with a 14 year old kid seeing Nudity? Sex and Nudity are two completely natural things. But we let them see alll sorts of crap footage about wars for oil with real people dying. Thats Patriotic. Naked women? Evil Evil Dirty Dirty.

I know some kids who can handle so called "adult" material better than most adults...

So in the USA: WAR=good SEX=bad

Re:America's Army

[Sj0]

I was going to seriously disagree with you, because there IS a problem with letting a 14 year old buy porn in my own opinion.

Then I realized it's none of the states business.

I think it's wrong that some people are so stupid that they can't point out their own country on a map; would I be right in wanting a law to have them euthanized? Barred from serving in jobs where you have to deal with the public? Educated at gunpoint?

Freedom is a nasty business, but it's far preferable to having someone else make your decisions for you, whether it's you as a kid, you as a parent, or you as a retailer.

Availability?

[SoTuA]

If I, as a parent, decide that my under-18 child is fit to play the game, buy it (since the store can't sell it or rent it to him/her) and give it to him/her, am I breaking the law?

Re:Availability?

[Maul]

Not yet, but I imagine that it soon will be. The Government thinks it is a better parent than you and knows what is best for your family.

Re:Availability?

[Auckerman]

"If I, as a parent, decide that my under-18 child is fit to play the game, buy it (since the store can't sell it or rent it to him/her) and give it to him/her, am I breaking the law?"

Which is the only relevant question. I really have a hard time imagining WHY people could object to this. Any law that empowers parents to raise their children, within the bounds that limit abuse, is a good law. Under common law, and iirc, written law, in the States, children are classified somewhere between a slave and a citizen. They do NOT have full rights of an adult citizen, but have rights that are clearly spelled out. The "right" to do what you want without your parents permission is not one of them.

Yes, of course parents can't always watch over their kids. They are going to get access to unwanted media when they are outside the view of their parents, including video games that they aren't "allowed" to play, but at least the parent has a little more control.

Personally, I think laws like this should be extended to include ALL media (games, books) should be bought by people over an age defined by the individual state (perhaps one state wants it set at 15 and another at 18) as long as that age does NOT exceed 18 or exclude emancipated teenagers.

Re:Availability?

[SoTuA]

But you miss the point. My question is: "If making a mature-rated video game available to a minor is a crime, is buying my under-18 son a mature-rated video game against the law, even if as his parent I decide that he is mature enough to understand that it is a game?".

If the answer is yes, the law doesn't empower me, it takes away from me the right to decide what is fit for my children and what is not. It means the gov't meddling in my child-raising, which I wouldn't appreciate.

Don't they have more important things to do?

[supersloth]

... than doing the job of parents?

What's the problem?

[DeDmeTe]

I don;t see the problem with this legislation. It's just like the R rating at theaters, or the fact that kids can't buy tobacco until 18, or beer until 21. I certainly woulnd't want my kids to (at age 9) walk into a store and buy GTA 8: Be a Porn Star. When he's 18, or I decide to buy it for him.. fine.

Re:What's the problem?

[GimmeFuel]

It's just like the R rating at theaters, or the fact that kids can't buy tobacco until 18, or beer until 21.

How's that working out, by the way? I assume no one under 17 watches R-rated movies in theaters, no one under 18 smokes, and people under 21 have never even tasted alcohol...

Kids dont buy games

[Hatta]

Kids don't buy games, they warez them. This is a broken solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

video games are NOT physically harmful!

[garcia]

"We already place limits on alcohol, tobacco, even adult movies. It's just logical that video games, which are so heavily marketed to young kids but many of which contain adult images, should not be available to young people or to minors," Ottenhoff said.

Ok, I see the connection with adult movies (and I'm talking about porn, not R rated movies) but I cannot see how they think this can cross over into alcohol and tobacco territory!

Alcohol and tobacco are PHYSICALLY HARMFUL. You can die from alcohol and tobacco. You *cannot* die from abuse of video games... Explicit or otherwise.

On a personal note: Yes, video games showing full frontal nudity or realistic depictions of death (and when I say this I mean watching actual video clips of people being tortured, decapitated, etc) should be looked into as we do with movies... But video games showing a completely unrealistic depiction of human characters (as real as video games are looking they are still not 100% on) in a fantasy world should be treated as such.

I thought that as we matured as a society that this type of conservative bullshit would cease. Perhaps we are regressing?

Re:video games are NOT physically harmful!

[Ambassador Kosh]

The News, The general media etc take your pick. Video games are a reflection of life they are not a creation of that reality. I have known long before I played any video games from other sources about head shots and other sure kill shots. I have only fired a gun once and that was a shotgun with the help of my uncle at some cans.

I think most of the problems we are having is one of acceptence. Schools and other sources are pushing people to conform more and more to some extrovert idea of what someone should be. As you turn up the pressure and also remove options for having stuff changed people turn to violence. That has been true for all of human history that I know of. I know when I was in school I was considered a nerd because I liked math, science, reading etc and was picked on for it and the teachers certainly permitted it since they never tried to stop it. At some point you turn to violence to solve your problems. I learned from the society that when you are forced into a fight by a group of people that you fight to win and you better go for shots that count because if you don't you are going to end up much more badly hurt. So you go read up on nerve strikes and how to hurt someone as quickly and efficiently as possible.

If the society did not permit the first kind of behavior people would not be forced to learn the other stuff to protect themselves. I did have times where 10 or more kids would find some need to prove themselves to others by trying to beat up on me. You learn fast in situations like that and the schools allow it to happen. It is the same way in the rest of our society. Just look around you. This society is endorsing violene as the primary way to solve problems (bush), that you can do anything you want to get money (corporate america), that laws are made to be broken and are just the cost of doing business (corporate america) etc. What do you expect from kids that are raised in that world? The world is violent and the usa is growing ore violent and a pretty rapid rate and it is getting a lot meaner and the kids are a reflection of that.

You can't shelter people from reality but you can work to change it. In the end violence only creates more violence unless you go for the complete extermination of all other viewpoints which in the end leaves everyone dead. We need to defund our military by a huge ammount and fix it at no more then 5% of our budget which would still have us spending more then any other country does both as an absolute ammount and as a percentage. Then we need to get rid of the entire debt and fix the education system. Have people that really are trained educators and pay them well to do so. The schools needs to be made a safe learning environment. The other thing we need to do is clean up the rest of the crap in the society. Fox News, CNN etc need to be held to standards on reporting the truth and when they lie they need to be very heavily fined. We also need to take away corporate rights. Corporations are not people and should not have the rights that people do and they need to have a lot more responsibilities. Cleaning up the source of the problems which is a society issue not some set of pixels on a screen is the only way to really solve the problem.

Re:Consolidating your base

[stupidfoo]

The governor of Illinois is a Democrat. Illinois is a fairly solidly "blue" state. People on both sides of the political spectrum find video games to be "scary".

What a joke though, in one article I read they listed Halo 2 and Half Life 2 along side Doom 3 and GTA. Like there's any real comparison between those games. It was clear they never played any of the games.

Ridiculous

[stratjakt]

Absolutely ridiculous the way video games are the scapegoat for this generation.

Remember Judas Priest , Ozzy, et al being sued back in the 80s because their satanic lyrics caused all of the problems with young kids today?

Remember when it was Dungeons and Dragons?

The people are idiots though, if the movie and recording industries can police themselves (MPAA ratings / "explicit lyrics" stickers), whats the problem with the (incredibly coherent) ESRB rating system?

And once again, games are created for and marketed to adults, primarily 18-40 year old males. Just go google for any statistics (Nielson, etc) on who plays/buys games if you dont believe me.

The "think about the children" argument is a red herring. This is all about appeasing Hollywood by helping eliminate the competition. Pure pork. And politicians think it's win-win because it'll get them a lot of "cranky old bitch" votes.

Err.. talk about a biased article..

[nicpottier]

The /. one that is. Ban? What?

Hello, how is this different than R-rated movies today? Mature games are intended for a mature audience and you better believe we shouldn't have 8 year olds playing GTA3 unless their parents approve of it and buy it for them.

What's the crazy backlash to this? It's absolutely sound to set up laws prohibiting sales of these games to minors (just as it prohibits sales of pr0n to minors).

If parents choose that their kids are mature enough for said games then they'll go and buy it for their kids. If not, then kids won't be playing games that they likely aren't ready for.

-Nic

Micro-Rant

[Speare]

My stock micro-rant on this topic is mostly just a quotation.

• Federal Judge Richard Posner, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, had this to say about 'protecting our kids':
• • Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old's right to vote is a right personal to him rather than a right to be exercised on his behalf by his parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid of the state to shield their children from ideas of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary either. People are unlikely to become well- functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble.
  • 
    --American Amusement Machine Assoc. v. Kendrick No. 00-3643 (7th Cir., March 23, 2001)
  Any elected government, be it Democracy, or Representative Republic, or otherwise, owes it to their constituents to allow unfettered access to ideas and information, praiseworthy or critical. To deny a citizen the right to know their own world is to deny them identity.

The problem is in the punishment

[Logan_Fu]

I don't see a problem, per se, with limiting sales and rentals of M rated games to children under 17, as the "M" rating is equivalent to an "R" for a motion picture. But, I think that a year in jail for renting a kid a copy of the new Prince of Persia game is a bit harsh. That said, there is no way that this law, even if it passes, will get past the courts, since it's so poorly written. Here's why: In Criminal Law there are what is known as "Strict Liability Statutes". These statutes are written to basically regulate the flow of traffic, commerce, and modern issues that were introduced after most of the common law was already laid down. See, most actual crimes require an act, and a criminal state of mind. The Strict Liability Statutes are the exception - they require only an act. This law is a Strict Liability Statute. The courts have said on numerous occassions, that if a piece of legislation is going to get rid of the mens rea (criminal mind) component of a crime, that piece of legislation needs to have a very minor punishment (usually a small to moderate fine) that will attach no "stigma" to the one violating it. Well, a year in jail is a pretty major "stigma" to have to bear. Dumbass legislators have, on many occassions, tried to pass these Strict Liability Statutes with long jail sentences, and almost always, they've been overturned. This bill is doomed before it's even signed.

In the UK, no...

[lxt]

In the UK, we already have a similar system. Some computer games are rated by the BBFC (the violent ones - non violent games are not usually rated by them), and are given the same ratings to those applied to films and videos. Although the system is not perfect, it allows for some degree of control. As an example, games such as Manhunt are given 18 ratings, with Quake III getting a 15 etc. Of course, this still doesn't stop the occasionaly press frenzy over violent games and children (...suspiciously familiar in tone to the "video nasties are corrupting us" 20 years ago...)

The laws only apply to sale and distribution - for example, it's illegal for a minor to buy an 18 rated game, but it's perfectly fine for their parents (if they think it's sutiable) to buy it on their behalf, and them allow them to play it, as you suggest.

Re:Neither censorship or banning.

[pudge]

What must be made clear is that the headline is incorrect. There is no proposed ban on violent video games. What is proposed to be banned it the SALE of the video games TO MINORS.