Oklahoma Senate OKs Violent-Games Bill

CNet is reporting that the Oklahoma Senate unanimously approved a new violent-games bill on Monday that makes it a crime to sell violent video games to children under 18. From the article: "The bill passed 47-0 in the state Senate, but is being held on a motion to reconsider the vote within three legislative days before being sent back to the House to vote on Senate amendments."

Comments

violence in the media

[Weh]

I recommend that people interested in the effects of violents in the media should this book/site. The guy makes some very interesting points, one of them being that the effects of being desensitized don't surface until someone is actually confronted with a violent situation.

Re:this is a good thing

[barzok]

Movie ratings are voluntary. There is no criminal penalty for allowing a 15 year old into an R-rated movie without someone of age accompanying them.

Which is basically where the on-box game ratings are today. Voluntary, done by the industry, but if the store clerk or parent doesn't stop the sale to a minor, there's no criminal penalty.

This law makes it illegal to sell GTA to a minor, but it'll still be legal to let them into the theater to see Showgirls (and allowing anyone, whether they're 16 or 60,to watch that movie should be a crime).

Re:Not much of a solution.

[LordKronos]

This makes it easier to be a responsible parent

I'm quite concerned about the [growing epidemic of obese children/declining faith in God of the children] in America today. I really would like to be a responsible parent and make sure my kid [maintains a healthy diet/grows up with a belief in God]. The problem is, my kid can run into any [corner/book] store and buy [a box of twinkies/books about evolution, atheism, and non-christian religions]. This really makes it difficult for me to be a responsible parent. I think it would be great if we could pass a law making it a crime to sell [unhealth food/these types of books] to minors. That would make it easier to be a responsible parent.

Have fun substituting your own terms for the ones in brackets. Nobody said raising children was easy, but it's not the government's responsibility to do it for you.

Oklahoma is a "social right" state in every sense

[ianscot]

Don't promote the carr(i)age and use of weapons of deadly force on one hand and then act holier-th(a)n-thou...

We have relations in Oklahoma. Decent folks, live and work on their family farm... and as susceptible to idiocy like this demagogue's "anti-violence" bill as anyone could be.

This is the state that elected Tom Coburn "Lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom" as a senator. It's a fricking demonstration case for Dick Nixon's "Southern Strategy" social issues being used to scare and dupe people.

In these folks' minds, promoting "anti-violence" legislation that addresses sexuality as if it's "violent" and preventing churches from controlling who brings concealed weapons to Sunday service are not fundamentally incompatible actions. We're talking my relatives -- whose response to my idea of putting numbers (10 cents, 25 cents) on our coinage was that it smacked of world government.