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Jack Thompson's Violent Game Bill Signed Into Law
simoniker writes "Louisiana Democratic Representative Roy Burrell's HB1381 bill, covering violent videogames, has been signed into law by Governor Kathleen Blanco. The law takes effect immediately, the latest in a very long line of video game-related bills specific to one U.S. State. The measure proposed by HB 1381, which was drafted with the help of controversial Florida attorney and anti-game activist Jack Thompson, allows a judge to rule on whether or not a videogame meets established criteria for being inappropriate for minors and be subsequently pulled from store shelves. A person found guilty of selling such a game to a minor would face fines ranging from $100 to $2,000, plus a prison term of up to one year. Needless to say, the ESA will likely be mounting a legal challenge to this bill in the very near future."
Kathleen Blanco should be worried about the coming hurricane season rather than wasting everyone's time with this.
I see the point of this, if you're going to Wal-Mart or GameStop/EB. But what about online side of retailers, Amazon, GameStop, Wal-Mart, etc. This bill only affects Louisiana, so if you can't find the game on store shelves, you'll be able to find it online.
Was a new state law really needed for something like this? Wouldn't it have made sense to simply apply the same rules that currently apply to the distribution of R-rated movies on DVD?
At least this wasn't a federal initiative. If the people of Louisiana have a problem with this law, they can certainly let their government know about it.
(Although, considering all that's happened in the last year, I can't imagine that current local leaders in that state have a very long and rosy political career ahead of them anyway. It's kind of tough to rein in a lame-duck government which is already world-famous for corruption. The people of that state who don't like this law might just have to wait for the next administration to work on getting it reversed.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
*Yawn*
Bill gets challeneged in court and dies.
Couldn't we just get the current videogame ratings enforced instead
of the geschtapo tactics?
I know, it's beyond Jack-off's reach to understand such things.
"The reason is that this industry, through the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board), its developers' lobbyist, the ESA (Entertainment Software Association), and the retailers' lobbyist, IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) are involved in ongoing fraudulent conduct in marketing video games that contain adult material to children."
1:) Prove it
2:) If you can't do you as an attorney know what Libel is?
3:) IIRC Libel can be grounds for revocation of your BAR registration.
I think I want to drive to Louisiana and kick this guy in the nuts.
Playing violent videogames never made me want to shoot anyone.
Listening to violent music never made me want to stab anybody.
Reading a violent book or watching a violent film never made me want to go out and hurt anyone in any way.
Fearmongering idiots getting ridiculous laws made, on the other hand, would seriously test my limits were I not reasonably confident of this eventually getting struck back down by someone with half a brain.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I like how this generation of parents is teaching this generation of kids to value and defend their freedoms.
http://outcampaign.org/
Jack Thompson may have his head in the wrong place, but he's not as stupid as people make him out to be. While it's a fair bet that the ESA will go after this bill (just like they have in every other state to sign one into law), I wonder if they'll have more of a difficult time with this one. After all, they have one ruling at least to go on (Illinois), one law that's been unchallenged (Maryland), and after the fiasco with his Modest Proposal I doubt Jack would help author something else that was going to be a sure loss.
Just some thoughts.
This isn't about God hating violent video games. As a Christian, I don't like to see violent/questionable games sold. But that's not something that you get a law written for. It's the parents who should be following the rating suggestions to avoid games that aren't appropriate for their kids. Different parents will have different standards, so a state-wide (or worse, federal) law doesn't fix the real problem. As other's have stated, enforce the rules we have, and let the parents do the parenting.
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
I live in Louisiana ...and there are a hundred things far more important than this shit.The state of education heres is pathetic , NO hasn't recovered from the last hurricane season ..and the new one is already upon us. Crime is off the charts ...and so on.And they waste time on passing a stupid video game law. Blanco needs to get her head checked .
The bill's intent is to keep adult-oriented (this criteria to be determined by a judge) games from getting into minor's hands, and fines any store responsible for selling said games to minors. This is not necessarily a bad thing; one of the biggest weaknesses of the ESRB is its lack of real power: it lacks any and all punitive ability. It can assign ratings all it wants, but when it comes down to it, individual store policy determines who can buy any given game. Clearly this has been ineffective in keeping inappropriate games from the hands of minors. We can argue all day long that: "this is the responsibility of the parents, zomg the government is evil, how dare they try to say that killing hookers is bad, zomg," but really the gaming industry lacks any coherent self-regulation and this needs to change.
Unfortunately, this bill is one step in the right direction (fining retailers who sell GTA3 to ten year olds) and three steps in the wrong (absolutely no specification as to what can be considered "inappropriate," granting sole discretion to the judge, and calling for any "inappropriate game" to be pulled from circulation.) The last wrong is the one that concerns me the most: since when does content "not suitable for minors" suddenly translate into "not suitable for sale?" That seems to me a gross overextension of what the bill should be trying to do, which is to keep minors from playing excessively violent or sexual games. It's no secret that idiots like Jack Thompson believe the world would be a better place without video games, period, but it shocks me that any legislature would buy into this. There are plenty of types of media (rape-pornography, for instance) that the courts currently do not have the ability to demand be removed from circulation. I'm supposed to believe that ANY game could be more harmful to society than the simulation of rape? That doesn't make any sense at all.
I've found that America, and Americans are all about finding people to blame.
Blame the governor and Jack Thompson all you want, but in the end, the geeks of Louisiana are the ones who dropped the ball here. Did anybody follow through on those calls to "write your legislature, blah blah"? Does anybody ever? Nah, too much like work. But goddamnit they should know how we feel!
A bunch of smelly non-voting hippies with a complete apathy towards government whining about not being represented.
Boo-hoo..
Don't worry, they'll keep making GTA games as long as there's money in it. You'll be able to buy them, too, so long as you aren't a minor.
And they'll probably keep slipping in little porno mini-games to be "edgy" and "push the envelope" and "fuck everything up by making a joke of the ESRB and prompting the government to take notice and usurp it."
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I can't masturbate because it's a sin, I can't play violent video games because they make me violent, & I can't sleep with the girl next door because her dad owns a shotgun, what the hell am I supposed to do ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I really do. Like Florida...constantly getting federal funds to repair the damage from hurricanes that just keep comming.
On the upside, this is strong selection pressure against people who like to live near violent storms.
Blar.
That is what 'meter maids' do. As for Sobriety Checkpoints...I think they are the evil product of cowardly turds who fear what they are told to fear.
But you do have a point, except for the fact that morality (which is what this law entails) is NOT part of the government's job.
Blar.
Politically, state law can affect other states in a couple of ways. First, politicians are always playing 'keep up with the Joneses.' If poll numbers go up for legislators in La. or a borderline incumbent gets reelected after campaigning on 'save our children from evil video games' you bet your sweet ass that will have a bearing on how other states deal with video games.
Also, politicians are lazy farks. Why do think they pass laws written by lobbyists? La. has a bill demonstrated to be passable. You think every other state considering a law on the same material is going to reinvent the wheel? Heck no! You can probably already buy a copy of this law at Office Depot--all you need to do is fill in the name of your state.
Now legally, a law like this can have great bearing on how other states deal with violent video games. Let's say there is a legal challenge to this new law in La. Whatever the outcome of that suit, again other states will use that information in forming their own laws. If it get's thrown out, expect the lobbyists to study the ruling closely to determine exactly what version of the same law would stand up in court. Think dealth penalty.
If I buy an "inappropriate" game in my home state of Missouri and give it to my minor aged (15 tears old) nephew in Louisiana as a gift who goes to jail?
The problem in this case is that 1.) the pre-established criteria are not based on any scientific evidence, and 2.) the defendent being held accountable for the sale of the video game will be the sales clerk, not the retailer. Can you imagine being sentenced to a year in prison for selling a kid a video game? To put that in perspective, three years is a typical sentence for manslaughter. And to make matters worse, why in the world would you give a judge the right to remove a product entirely from circulation? Unless it's ruled as obscene, (and thanks to the porn industry, I can't think of any game that would satisfy the legal definition of the word), there's no legal precedent to allow that sort of power. The bill's a mess.
The problem isn't Floridians. We know how to get through a hurricane. It is all the immigrants who come down and don't know how, and won't listen until they go through one. And then they bitch and moan when their services are not there the next day.
Hurricanes are a piece of cake to deal with. I'd rather deal with them then earthquakes or tornados.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Why is Louisianna dealing with this stupid issue when there are lots more pressing an immediate issues at hand, like gays getting married
Not that it probably makes too much of a difference, but bear with me for just a minute here. I used to work at EB Games (before the gamestop merger, can't say whether or not this is still true). I can't say anything on walmart's policy, but when I was at EB there was a pretty simple policy in place... You don't sell an M rated game to a minor, or you're gone. I know that came from at least as high up as my district manager, who implied that it came from at least as high up as the regional manager, though I can't vouch for other parts of the counrty. Not only was this policy in place, but it was in place about a year before the hot coffee mod.
As much as some folks are right, and we Americans really do need to find someone to blame all the time, while I was at EB I saw some pretty shockingly irresponsible parenting. People would come in wanting to buy GTA: San Andreas for their 13 year old. We would ask whenever someone who looked like a parent was buying it whether they knew what the content was like, if they were buying it for a child, etc. Sursprisingly, only about 4 in 10 parents decided that beating police officers to death with a purple dildo was inappropriate for their 13 year old. Then there were the parents that would come in with little kids, one or two or a handful, sometimes so young they had to reach up to get to the controllers on our display systems, talk to them for a minute at the front of the store, and then walk away and leave the kid there to play. We told the parents they couldn't leave their kids alone in the store when we could, but we were busy, and you can't spend every waking moment looking at the door. I escorted probably 10-15 kids a month to the mall concierge, where their parents were paged. Mostly they were just shopping for clothes or something and thought it'd be a better idea to leave their kid alone with strangers in a mall than risk him being bored, but there were times when they didn't even stay in the mall. I'd be walking out at the end of my shift and see a kid sitting at the concierge's desk from 2-4 hours past. I've given trying to comprehend the thought process of some of these parents and resigned myself to the fact that there probably isn't one.
Personnaly I don't really know what where people live and the natural disasters they are prone to has to due with a videogame bill. As far as natural disasters go, just about everywhere has its own type of possible disaster to be dealt with. As far as this gaming bill goes, in my opinion, morality is not specifically the job of government to make rules on, but without moral rules, laws really wouldn't exist. In all honesty, murder is just a question of moral reasoning. If it weren't, every solder that came home from a war would need to be tried for every confirmed kill. The real question comes down to what issues are morally objectable enough for the government to step in and create a law for it. I don't believe games should be one of these issues. Thats like saying people who put their elbows on the table should get a fine and possible jail time. As a parent, I firmly believe parents should step up, learn what the ESRB ratings stand for, research the games your children want, and enforce a restriction on your child to not get a game you do not believe they are mature enough to play. Jack Handey.....er Thompson should not be the one setting the rules for what I beleive my child is mature enough to play. Of course I do have the right to buy the game on behalf of my child, but then they may look at a 5 day waiting period for the purchase of a game. "Want to make sure you're not training for black ops, y'know," says the kindly Best Purchase guy as I fill out the ream of paperwork to buy the latest Splinter Shock game. Of course the problem here stems from people who don't want to be bothered by actually taking the time to be interested in and raise their child. Enough of this rant. Back to your regularly scheduled weather......
Hurricanes are a piece of cake to deal with. I'd rather deal with them then earthquakes or tornados.
Here's the funny thing: I, and most people I know who have grown up in California, would much rather deal with earthquakes than hurricanes or tornadoes. We can't imagine why someone would want to stay in a hurricane-prone area. And I'd be willing to be that people in, say, Kansas, would much rather deal with tornadoes than hurricanes or earthquakes.
I think it just comes down to the disaster you grew up with. You know what to expect, you know how to prepare for a typical hurricane/quake/flood/tornado, you know what to do during the disaster, and you know how pick things up afterward. Every once in a while something hits on the level of Katrina or the 1906 San Francisco quake, but for the most part, the locals in any region are comfortable with their area's disasters -- and often freaked out totally by the disasters that hit other areas.
But you do have a point, except for the fact that morality (which is what this law entails) is NOT part of the government's job.
I must strongly disagree with your words here (and with the many others who espouse them), though I agree completely in spirit. Enforcing morality is the government's ONLY job. But morality is not synonymous with any particular group's common tastes or traditional values. Morality is about what is good for the everybody, and that is precisely what government's legitimate purpose is: to look out for the well-being of all of society.
But what is good for the everybody is a very small set of things: liberty and security. Any of the particulars (i.e. watching porn, eating red meat, having long hair, wearing shoes, whatever) may be good or bad for different people in different contexts, but freedom and safety are the two things that are always good for everyone. With those provided, people are free to acquire all the things that are good for them in particular and avoid those which are bad.
Which means that the government's job, as I think you were saying, is to mind it's own business, that business being making sure that other people are minding theirs. It is not the government's job to enforce the tastes or personal values of any people on any other people.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Mr. Thompson comes across as a deluded, selfimportant, lawerish, jack-ass of an individual. Granted, the host was intentionally pushing his buttons ("I think it should be legal for convenience stores to sell beer to 10-year olds! Parents will boycott the place and it'll go out of business... let the market sort it out!") but surly Mr. Thompson knew this was going to be an interview with someone whose views were diametrically opposed to his own. Surely he could have at least engaged in a real, 2-way debate?
Thompson got so irked by the free-market ideas, he wouldn't even discuss the concept. He hung up on the interview! What an infantile, childish little busybody! These are the kind of asses that make this kind of law to "protect the children!"
Here's the clip:
http://freetalklive.com/files/thompson.mp3
Part of the Second American Revolution!
I am tired of this mindless garbage. Wacko Jacko clearly fed Kathleen Blanco some of the venom of a blowfish, which if it is of the right kind turns you into a zombie, which is in fact the origin of the zombie legend. But that is not the point, the point is that Jacko Thompson is an idiot. The only thing worse than the rabid anti-fun lobby is some of the gamers themselves. I'm talking about those nutjobs who say, lay waste to a greater metropolitan area and claim GTA made them do it. No, GTA had nothing to do with it. You played GTA because you had violent tendencies (This is an isolated example, I am not generalizing those who play such games) then because your parents are total idiots they didn't notice that you had, say, a assault weapon in your room, so then they are sure they aren't at fault because hey, it's not like they KNEW that GTA was violent OR that an assault weapon was designed to be, you know, a weapon, so they sue Rockstar, and the moronic judge who was paid about $300 by Jack Thompson, doesn't do the smart thing (Laugh the case out of court) and instead takes them perfectly seriously. The only thing worse is the fact that most Jurors are, with all due respect (None whatsoever) total freaking morons who wouldn't convict a celebrity if he had shot at them, critically wounding 3, in the past 5 minutes. They wouldn't convict him while he was still pointing the weapon at them. So why should they convict some average joe. Frankly, I don't understand the point of even having a judicial system, the media is what really tries people these days, so maybe if we just got a little sense knocked back into us, got ourselves out of the half-brained culture of compensation, and told Jack Thompson to take a hike, the cast the dark ring of deceit, forged by Hillary Clinton when she's fishing for votes, tempered in the dark ichor that the judges of suing video game companies have for blood, and finally wielded by Jack Thompson, allowing him to bypass his own intelligence for evil.... We must cast this ring into the fires of mount doom, and while we're at it, let's push in Wacko Jacko while we're at it.
I think you missed the point I was making. I understand liberal democracy and agree with it. It is not the government's job to force some people's values on other people. It's the government's job to keep people from forcing their values on each other. It's the government's job to make sure people are safe and free. It does this by enforcing rights and responsibilities on people. But the reason why it enforces rights and responsibilities is because that *is* what's best for the country. You can't just will some good state of affairs into being; you have to attempt to achieve it through some action, and there's a probability of going awry with every action. The point of enforcing rights and responsibilities is to guarantee that overall, better things tend to come about than they otherwise would if you didn't hold people to their duty.
But what I was trying to get across in my original post was that morality _ISN'T_ just some set of common values. That's like saying that reality is just a set of common beliefs. In some lesser sense you could use the words to mean "common values" or "common beliefs", e.g. "the morality/reality of such-and-such culture is ________", in an anthropological, descriptive sense. But the same way that it doesn't make sense to say that what actually is real changes from culture to culture, or that the world may be round here in California but flat in some backwards luddite society in Nebraska, it makes no sense that what is actually moral changes from culture to culture either. What people believe and what people value changes, and those beliefs and values reflect what people THINK is real or moral, but they mustn't be mistaken for what is actually real or actually moral. That's why the most moral thing to do is to live according to your values and let others live according to theirs, and avoid stepping on each other's toes, so to speak. That way everybody gets what they value as best as possible.
Ethics is the study of what is right and what is wrong; the study of morality. Political science just is applied ethics. And actual government is, of course, applied political science. So morality is the goverment's job. But since morality is not just common values, forcing some particular set of common values on people is not the government's job. Back to the original topic: this anti-game legislation is not the government enforcing morality. It's the government enforcing value. It's not the government looking out for people's freedom and safety, protecting them from one another and allowing them to pursue what they value; it's the government helping one group against others, and telling them what they should value. That's not moral. That's not the government's job.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."