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Illinois Videogame Law Struck Down
Big_Al_B writes "CNN reports that a federal judge ruled against the state of Illinois law that banned the sale of some games to minors." From the article: "The Illinois law, which also was to go into effect January 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors, and allowed $1,000 fines for violators. Kennelly said the law would interfere with the First Amendment and there wasn't a compelling enough reason, such as preventing imminent violence, to allow that." Triumphantly, GamePolitics offers up the ESA's reaction to the decision. The Governor has vowed to appeal, so this isn't over yet.
Amidst all the cries of regulating violence and sexual content, this law seems rather moderate. Parents can still buy the stuff for their kids if they want to - nothing is banned. Too bad the more sane laws get struck down while extreme and harmful ones pass inspection.
With Freedom comes responsibilities. It is about time parents took some responsibility for what goes on in their home and not defer their parental responsibilities to the State. The sad fact is, too many parents don't take any responsibility for what their kids watch, read or play.
Pick a standard and stick with it - kids should either be allowed to purchase sexual images or they shouldn't. Just because one particular format sells more than others isn't a valid reason to allow it but exclude everything else.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Does this mean that it's unconstitutional to ban the sale of Playboys to minors?
Honestly, I'm confused here. I'm all for freedom of speech and all that, but this was a ban on selling "extremely violent or sexual games" to minors. I'm guessing this is AO rated stuff, which could be comparable to nudie mags (Playboy Mansion?). What's the big deal?
The way this law looks now it's more of a patchwork, and a kind of "let's do something so it looks like we care and are actually giving value back to the tax payers" law which should be shot down and replaced with something better. Or ignored.
Would it not also be helpfull to expose a kid to all the things in life, but explain to the kid what is morale and what is not. Looking at extremist behaviour, it is mainly because of taboos that they get worse than necessary. No taboos, but just a good sense of what is normal and what is less normal (or plain abnormal) works a lot better.
So next time when you think of forbidding something because it is bad, maybe you should allow it and educate on it.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I was under the impression (from over here in the UK) that the rating on a game means that no-one under a certain age should be sold it. The article suggests that such a thing is against the First Amendment, WTF?
Over here in the UK, games are rated in the same way that movies, alcohol, tobacco etc are in that if you are caught supplying them to anyone underage you can get prosecuted.
I'm against censorship in that an adult should not be censored from what they wish to see/do, but ratings are a good thing IMO. This kind of court decision just seems back-asswards to me. Does this ruling mean that a child can go to an adult rated film, and if they get denied entry claim it breaches their First Amendment rights?
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
As a parent and a grandfather, I would not want my kids partaking in this sort of degenerate filth. It's garbage.
So be a responsible parent and grandfather then, and restrict those things from your kids yourself. Don't take the easy, selfish route of asking the State to do your parenting for you. Your temporary convenience is not worth your freedom, nor the freedom of your neighbours.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
"...to ensure that children have access to violent and or filthy materials?
Do you think that it's GOOD that kids should be seeing this sort of trash?"
Obviously, you don't believe YOUR children shouldn't. Doesn't mean everyone should automatically agree with you.
The reason this is being fought tooth and nail is because it's a stepping stone to greater losses of the so-called freedoms you americans face (note, author of this post not american)
"As a parent and a grandfather, I would not want my kids partaking in this sort of degenerate filth. It's garbage."
By your reasoning, so's most of shakespear's work.. oh. so that's written on paper, so that's okay? Right, double-standard much? May as well burn every library and start again with fresh culture.
"And don't get all excited. I'm an atheist so I'm not some religious right wing zealot.."
*blink* so that means you're just a right wing zealot? You don't have to be religious to be a moral crusader, it just seems to be common.
"I'm an adult and I know what's bad for kids. I've raised two kids myself, they are adults now and I'm happy to say I think they turned out pretty good and I had strict rules on this sort of thing in my home. I absolutely forbid MTV and such trash under my roof and it was NOT a problem, as a matter of fact my son came home from college last year and told me that he was glad that I had forbidden MTV type trash in the home.."
A sample of two is not a valid experiment. Come back and talk to me when you've raised about 30-thousand children, AND when you have a valid cross-section of lifestyles, living areas, etc. Your experiment is also loaded with bias. Read http://www.badscience.net/ for examples of bias in experiments.
Millions of children grow up with video games, MTV, books, porn, the internet, and none of them turn out to be serial killers, gang members, murderers, rapists, drug users, etc.
Some kids who have no contact with any of the above media still commit crimes of these nature, hell, they were committing these crimes before the media existed at all!
Statistically speaking, the fact that there's an intersection at some point between violent crimes and these types of media is just a proof that both exist in a random selection of people!
ash
PS, I find it entertaingly co-incidental (aka, an alanis-morriset style ironicism) that i was asked to reproduce the word 'gunned' to verify my humanity.
The answer, of course, is the parents. An outright ban on the sale of violent or "filthy" materials to children ignores the fact that different parents have differing levels of comfort with what their children are exposed to. As long as the material in question isn't going to harm the child (i.e. showing real snuff videos to kindergartners or some such) then the parents should be allowed to make that decision.
The question is, do you ban everything and require specific parental consent for exceptions, or do you permit everything and rely on the parents to keep track of what their kids are doing? Personally, I'm in favor of the latter, and for that to work, children must have access to materials that some parents find offensive.
The problem is that while you may feel you are making the right choices, and you may feel that the government is making the right choices, not everyone agrees with you. If I choose to read a particular book and I feel it's the right book for me to read, for whatever reason, at whatever my age might be, it's MY choice to make and not yours and not the government's. People are up in arms about it because the choice has been taken away from the person who is best fit to make it -- the individual themself -- and put into someone else's hands, someone who doesn't know me or what's fit for me. No one knows you better than yourself.
... and play first-person shooters and watch movies like the Terminator series. I also don't drink much (I don't like the taste of wine or beer, and I keep to stuff like Bailey's and Godiva liqueurs and eggnog-with-brandy).
...
I'm 30 years old but I was a minor once (we all were) and I was a responsible person and I have never been in trouble with the law. Yet I have played "violent" games before while a minor, such as Doom and Quake and games like them, because they were what I wanted to play and I enjoyed playing them. These games involve shooting things and the use of firearms. I have also watched films that involve a lot of gun battles and the like (Terminator, Terminator 2 etc) and enjoyed them.
Yet my experience with guns so far is limited to safe use, under supervision, on a firing range; I wore safety goggles and followed all gun safety rules and before I consider purchasing a gun (what kind I do not yet know -- a shotgun might be best for home defense) for home defense or concealed carry, I will enroll in a safety course as required by local law and will be sure to wear safety goggles and ear protection during training.
In short, I am a responsible individual who enjoys some things you might ban because you feel they're unsuitable without knowing a thing about me. I know how to be safe and I take steps to ensure that I am.
The best way to handle such things is to ensure that people are educated about the subject material at hand. My parents never restricted me from drinking alcohol (the alcohol is actually kept at floor level in their house and always has been) and never monitored what games I played (admittedly largely flight sims; I'm an aviation geek, but they never nitpicked what I brought home) or the books I read. They trusted me to know what I was doing.
And it worked. To this day I play flight sims, Civilization-type strategy games, read all sorts of sci-fi and science books
Now, would you say it was bad for me to be able to access the food, movies, games, and books that I did? Did I turn out to be a bad person? No. Because my family knew I was responsible, a smart person, and unlikely to do anything stupid. They didn't need government nannies to do their job for them. They taught me the wisdom of educating yourself and to do the smart thing.
You have no right to say what is "trash" and "garbage" for anyone other than yourself. If someone not you wants to watch that stuff, that's not your judgment call to make. And if you make it, you just get people angry at you for intruding in on their lives. That's the problem the goverment faces when they start whining about what's on TV (people see a lot more sex elsewhere than they do on TV, and a lot more swearing), when they ban drinking (kids don't wait til 21 to take their first drink, believe me, no matter what you or the government wants to believe) or sex (same).
If the government would relax and try to educate people on how to live safely instead of arbitrarily banning sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. till some magic "wow, they'll be careful after this day but not before it" age (or in the case of drugs, NEVER allow them) they'd probably find that people have a hell of a lot more common sense than they think, and the "it's forbidden, I must defy authority by partaking in it because they have no right to tell me what not to do" protesting would die down. After all, the drinking age is a lot lower in Europe and you don't hear as many insane "drunk college kids" stories from over there
i am a soviet space shuttle