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'Games as Porn' Bill Passes Utah House
The state bill which attempts to equate gaming with pornography has passed the vote in the Utah house of representatives. GameDailyBiz reports: "Even though there's still no evidence of a direct link between video game violence and acts of violence committed in real-life, Hogue suggested that playing violent games leads to 'automatic learning of aggressive behavior,' and that violent games have played a role in school shootings. 'Would these same kids have done this anyway without watching violent videos? Maybe not,' he said, referring to the Columbine massacre."
Would these same kids have done this anyway without being made to go to school? Maybe not.
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
The dreaded "gamer." Three kids go on a shooting spree and so the 1,000,000+ who play are all lining up at gun stores.
This is a law brought to you by the people who want intelligent design taught in school.
It also an example of why people are disgusted with legislators around the country.
Not to start a big flame war or anything, but doesn't invading other countries kind of encourage aggressive behavior?
It seems that it isn't a question of aggressive behavior per se, it is where the aggresive behavior comes from that matters. In other words it is bullshit.
I am not going to say "video game = go on killing spree". However, what I am going to say is that when I went to high school in early to late 80's the idea of gun violence did not cross our mind. I do realize that not all high schools are equal and that some gun violence did exist.
However, what disturbs me about many youth is that they do not think twice about getting a hand gun. I grew up in the country or cottage country to be exact and guns were common things. Though guns were used to go hunting for bear, deer or moose. I can't remember anybody in my circle in friends saying, "Hey look at this hand gun". It was more like, "Hey did you see the bear I shot!"
What I want to say is that I think we should consider the message we are saying with shooter and violent games. I am not so sure it is totally innocent!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Worse yet, they might start reading The Holy Bible, with it's sordid tales of lust, murder, incest, homosexual rape, etc.... just imagine what kind of ideas they would get out of such obviously subversive literature!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
These idiots who think they can save the world by denying people the right to look at the "wrong" things would be comical if they didn't so often succeed in getting idiotic laws passed. Humans enjoy ritualized violence, whether it's playing tackle football, boxing, hunting, video games, movies ... that's not going to change until humans either evolve away from it or become extinct.
Taking away access to this stuff in no way takes away the innate human desire for it, and pretending otherwise is just willful stupidity. Before kids had XBoxes they had cap guns. Before they had cap guns they had toy spears and sharp rocks. It's not the behaviors that have changed, just the tools and implementation. As for the Columbine kids, I'd argue that he's got it all wrong. The kids sought out and surrounded themselves with violent imagery because that's what spoke to their hearts and minds, in the same way another child might seek out beautiful landscape paintings or elegant progamming code or slapstick comedy or politics or religion or who knows what else. If he honestly thinks that some bright-eyed, angelic child with no evil or violence in her heart can pick up a copy of GTA and turn into a murderous freak, he's even stupider than I give him credit for already. I'd also argue that if they hadn't had access to violent imagery they'd have probably been more inclined to create their own (torturing animals, etc.).
Just because kids are imitative enough to use what they've seen in games or movies as templates for their own acts of violent stupidity doesn't mean they wouldn't have come up with something else on their own if they hadn't had something to imitate. I love action movies, murder mysteries, violent video games. I've committed virtual murder who knows how many times and loved it. I still remember blowing bodies all to pieces in Soldier of Fortune, sniping brains all over the walls and gleefully mutilating corpses. But you know what else? The thought of gleefully or even accidentally hurting an actual person or animal is repulsive to me, just as it is to any healthy human being no matter how many slasher flicks they've watched or virtual corpses they've dismembered. The notion that the majority of us shouldn't be able to do a thing because a tiny, dysfunctional minority might not be able to handle it is absurd.
Thanks for the links, I hadn't found the actual legislation yet.
I live in Utah and this is the first I've heard of this.
The slashdot summary is a bit misleading. I found this nice sum-up description after following the "previous coverage" link in the article. You can also confirm this using the links the parent poster has supplied.
"The bill states that "inappropriate violence" would include video games with material patently offensive to the prevailing standards in the adult community, as long as it didn't have "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors." Those that legitimately used violence to further a game's plot (such as games based on historical wars) would be exempt, however."
This appears to also only be for interactive video and video games after the ammendment, originally it was for just about any violent material.
After reading up, I can understand (I think) their reasons why they are trying to pass this law. While they seem to have a reasonable basis, I can't think of any reasonable implementation that wouldn't be misused. Not that my opinion matters much.
But then, Orrin Hatch actually is supposed to represent me, and I disagree with most of what he does nowadays. (And yes, I voted) Sucks to be me.
Call this a knee-jerk reaction stemming from childhood wounds, but I beleive many school shootings don't happen becasue of violent video games. These kids were screwed up for other reasons. I blame bad parenting, either being abusive and / or negligent to their child. Next I blame the school administrations. I have been to seven different schools, and 5 of them all did the same thing. Say student A and his buddies start irritating student B. Administration tells studen B to ignore it. Student B will only ignore it so long before reacting. 99 times out of a 100, student B will get in trouble for reacting, but student A will get off with nothing. This pisses of Student B. Eventually studen B gets more and more pissed. Mabey we should see what's going on inside the schools?
Rep. Lorie Fowlke (R-Orem) pointed out that HB 257 is the most narrowly defined legislation of these kinds of violent games bills. "I think it is worth a try," she said. "Otherwise we give up and say the court will always determine our values."
And, Dastardly said, "It is worth a try to keep these bills from being passed otherwise we give up and say the politicians will always determine our values."
By the same token, maybe Utah should ban football, or televised sports containing any body contact. Violence in sports likely has the same impact as violence in games, then again my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. I an imagine what kind of uproar that would cause, "What do you mean we can't watch the superbowl?"
"What use is power to the Keeps of Balance?" -Disnt of Nightmare LpMud
Yeah, but if you don't live in Utah, are you going to tell the people of Utah that they're not allowed nor entitled to censor themselves if they want to?
As a citizen of the United States that still has a first amendment, yes, I'm quite prepared to tell some people of Utah that they can't censor other people in Utah. If one individual wants to censor themself (whatever that means) that's entirely different.
AccountKiller
Would these same kids have done this anyway without being picked on daily at school? Maybe not.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they went after the potheads, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a pothead. Next, they went after the protesters, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a protester. After that, they tried to crack down on unwholesome music, but I wasn't a musician so I said nothing. Now, they've gone after games and I have no excuse on which to base my arguments.
(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller.)
And yes, I realize the seriousness of the original context... but I couldn't help mentioning the similarity.
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
Of course, repealing the 2nd ammendment and banning firearms would be death at the polls
Aye, because firearms bans are working so well elsewhere.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
But it does seem hypocrical to ban the games which might have precipitated the shooting and to allow semi-automatic weapons that definately assisted in the shooting. How can you ban games that let people shoot in fantasy but not the weapons that let people shoot in reality?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There are a number of problems with this benign scenario:
1) Unprecedented. Violent Movies or Music do not have the same restrictions. Other than dumping millions of dollars into legislatures all over the country, how are they any different?
2) Limited Access means limited sales which means limited green lights from suits who work for game companies. If M games are limited like this they are less likely to get made in the first place.
It's a very round about way of doing it, but in the end this amounts to censorship of material that isn't "indecent" (or at least shouldn't be classified as such).
"Would these same kids have done this anyway without watching violent videos? Maybe not,' he said, referring to the Columbine massacre." What a moron. Would they have done this if guns were illegal and therefore much harder to get? Probably not!
Give us this day our garlic bread and lead us not into vegetarianism but deliver us some pizza.
As someone who has lived here all my life, let me tell you there are far more repressive places that Utah...which suprises me. For example, ever try to by a beer in Pennsylvania? You can't even get one at the grocery store!!! Please do not lump all people from Utah as backwards or repressed.