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Ban On Louisiana Video Game Law Now Permanent
Carl Carlson writes "A Louisiana judge has issued a permanent injunction against a Louisiana law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The law was crafted by video game dilettante Jack Thompson and took a slightly different approach to the issue of regulating video game sales. Rep. Roy Burrell (R) and Jack Thompson had research that purported to show a causative link between playing violent video games and real-world violence entered into the legislative record in an attempt to buttress the legislation's shaky credentials. In addition, the law adapted the Miller obscenity test to the realm of violent video games."
The fact that it became a law in the first place is kind of disturbing. Why should a judge even have to bother stopping this? Well, at least everything turned out good in the end, especially since Jack Thompson is probably pissed off that his attempts at stopping people from accessing anything that is at all violent have failed once again.
Yes. Here in the United States, parents have say over their children's disposable income, and are able to veto what they spend it on. Furthermore, they can limit their children's access to the television and to the gaming system, and have to power to check to see what games their kids are playing and to take it away, or even punish the child in other ways if they're playing a game that the parent doesn't approve of.
Heehee. I'm kidding, of course. No, there's no system.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
One can never "win" when it comes to situations like these. It takes eternal vigilance to ensure that future legislation is not passed that has many of the same restrictions as this struck-down law has.
The moment you think you've "won", that's the moment you're most vulnerable.
And by "we", you of course mean the organization whose lawyers got the bill struck down, namely the Entertainment Software Association, whose members include Vivendi/Universal (hello RIAA), Microsoft (Who do you want to screw today?), Sony (this rootkit might sting a little), and Electronic Arts (nuff sed).
Mmmmmm, ironyburger.
Way to go for Louisiana yet again...why worry about protecting the state from flooding when you can "protect the kids" and pass bad legislation.
Is anyone else tired of people attacking our freedom of speech and expression? I for one am glad the courts are still on our side. Separation of powers at work.
my mom posts on slashdot.
Yet another attempt to stop young people from buying violent video games. And why? Because it is making them violent... What a load of garbage, GAMES are for entertainment purposes and granted some take them too seriously... like my Neverwinter Nights addiction. BUT the point is that you can't keep blaming violence in society on games, and if a child buys a game that their parents deem 'too violent' why don't the parents take it away from them?? There are too many violent influences, but in the end it is the responsibility of the individual to decide if they are going to shoot someone in real life or not. So, let's stop passing the buck and take responsibility for our own actions. Next thing we will hear is someone wanting control of games such as 'World Poker Tournament' because it MADE them have a gambling problem.
I don't play video games but I'd say a convincing argument can be made that playing violent games doesn't turn people into violent offenders. Namely, that none of these people has mowed down ol' Jack with a bazooka or GTO.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Ok, I'm one of the many anti-Jack Thompson people around... I can't stand the way in which he is going about his 'crusade' against video games. However, is enforcing game classifications in regards to selling to minors such a bad thing? Seeing as many people (read: parents) don't seem to have much control or responsibility over what their kids are buying / doing, perhaps it's time that the retail sector did enforce these things.
Here in Australia, kids are asked for identification when they are purchasing alcohol or cigarettes, or when they go to an MA15+ or R18+ rated movie... why not carry that over to games? If a parent is happy for a kid to have the game, then they can go and buy it for them.
Its the parents responsibility, first and foremost. The idea of using the government as a crutch will only encourage people not to think on their own.
Causative Link? Bullshit!
People want to find a damn scapegoat for everything. First it was "Violence on TV", then there's "Heavy Metal Music"! Oh my god! Will someone please think of the children! Seriously... you can get more violence in some religious texts than on TV, or Music. Computer Games, TV, or Music don't make people want to commit violence. This was used as an excuse for Columbine.
The fact is that we can owe it to either bad parenting, or maybe a more obvious fact. Homo sapiens is a territorial, aggressive, war-like species. For all our intelligence, we still like to beat the crap out of each other. This is obvious perhaps in more individuals than others.
So stop trying to find things to blame. Making laws are not going to make us less violent.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Permanent injunction does not mean "forever." It is simply an injunction granted after a complete hearing on the merits, as opposed to a preliminary injunction, which is granted before a trial if you show a "reasonable likelihood of success" and other things, like irreparable harm.
What?
"Its the parents responsibility, first and foremost."
It'd be nice if this were only true.
Pretty much if you live in the states, your parents work. I don't have all my stats here (I have them in chart from from census data at work), but around 90% of all kids have at least one parent working. More than half have two parents in the force. Most of these are not folks that just want to work, but have to. Since the mid80s, the 40 hour work week has expanded to 45+, and not just for yuppie middle managers. If you can't get the job done in 40 hours, you stay until its done. Walmart was just sued for requiring many employees to clock out at 39hrs, but were working these folks up to 60hrs. The employees won the suit...everything I hear from folks in this field state that the practices haven't stopped -- Walmart already paid the overtime fee and don't expect the gov't to do anything about it again for another 10 years, in which time, they will have made their money back in whatever fine / lawsuit came up (the lawsuit ended up with a fraction of what was truly owed to these people).
Parents don't / can't spend the time needed with their children. When they have the time, they are worn out / exhausted. I hate the idea of a nanny state as much as the next guy, and I don't believe in censorship for adults, but given that a government's entire role is to mandate the areas of society that need to be regulated but are not self-regulating, someone had to take the responsibility. Children that are not taken care of by their parents, either by negligence or because they are in a catch-22 (you stay home to take care of them, but can't because you don't have a job, or have a job and spend no time), but those children that are not taken care of by their parents become societies problems. Society created the situation in the first place. Gov't is a mirror of society.
Beyond this, psychology shows without a doubt that male children exposed to either violent tv or violent videogames seem to be deeply influenced by this entertainment. For some reason, females exposed to the same media are not as influenced and those that are, the effects are fleeting. There is some believe that there is a gender difference that us men are hardwired to react to violence because it is a self-preservation technique. We know the developing mind stays active until between 18 and 21. Also a reason the anecdotal reasoning behind the drinking laws work -- your brain doesn't start to start working correctly until after this. Before that, it is in acquisition mode. It is being shaped. The experiences it picks up are how the brain expects it will have to deal with the rest of its life. If the kids are being exposed to violence, either simulated or real, that directly affects their brain and future life.
Given the overwhelming evidence -- and yes, the evidence is in mostly 'theories', but the theories are as strong as those 'theories' people discount on items such as 'evolution' (and seemingly discounted by the people that think the far right are idiots for adhering to their religious dogma). But given this, I strongly support a ban on violent media that has no educational or otherwise redeeming value for those under 18. No, this isn't as strict as the Miller test but I think the bar should be lowered more than this when talking about children. For instance, I like pornography and I like some of the more deviant aspects of it. Hell, I don't even care if there is not a single redeeming piece to it as long as its done by legal adults.
Parents want to buy this stuff for the kids? Cool. I can deal with that. But all in all, I'm glad their is public policy in this area. Jack Thompson is an idiot, he makes a mockery of lawyers, he needs to be disbarred. That doesn't make him wrong about these games being bad for children.
Posted anonymously because I do work in public policy (and play GTA and recently CoD -- which to me is actually more disturbing, even if it comes off as a more 'patriotic' game). My opinions are my own, and not my employers. I disagree with my employer quite often, but I agree with them more than I disagree.
And now MADD wants breathinterlock on every car.
Enjoy the pain, America.
Why is it always assumed that adults are somehow immune to the effects of violent games/TV/movies while kids will be horribly warped by it?
Personally, I feel that there is some truth to the nasty media -> bad effects meme, but it effects adults too, and the type of content is far more important than rough metrics like violent scenes per hour.
My gut feeling is that verbal violence (which usually does not involve curse words) and displays of disrespect have a far greater impact on people. It's both far more prevalent and much easier to imitate/believe than physical violence. "Saved by the Bell" is quite likely to bend many teenagers' beliefs towards conformity (more rigid gender roles, more focus on social rank, etc.). "Pokemon" has bent many kids towards materialist/consumerist views. "Star Trek: The Next Generation", despite showing people die and other forms of violence, is unlikely to engender either pro-violence/pro-militarist or antisocial behavior. Even "Power Rangers" probably has fairly muted effects since it's pretty devoid of any real substance.
What do you mean 'we win'? Who wins? I don't understand why so many people are hell-bent on violence in this (American) culture. What makes a violent video game incomparable to an 'R' rated movie or sexually explicit material (which both cannot be sold to minors)? The only entities winning here are the corporations making money by selling to a larger audience. Meanwhile another generation of violence-exposed-to kids will turn into violence-loving adults. But anyway, the whole 'violent video games make people violent' argument aside, I fail to see why video games are placed in an untouchable category regarding law when other media and substances like alcohol have strict age limits. I fail to see how anyone 'wins' either.R rated movies can be sold to children. There is no law preventing this. There are conventions preventing this, adopted voluntarily by the stores.
Other media are not in a different category. Substances are. And I think most people can observe a difference between chemical ingestion and media exposure. If the law went into place or stood in place the games could still be sold to parents who can choose what to expose their children to. That seems like a winning situation to me. Giving kids rights to buy all kinds of explicitly violent games before they may be old enough to understand the implications (whatever you think they may or may not be) seems like a losing situation to me.Those of us on the other side just prefer not to have free speech rights eroded. Parents still have plenty of control over what media their children are exposed to. If their ability to purchase the games is the gating factor on their exposure, you have a serious problem with how you're raising your children.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't think simply telling the kids they aren't allowed to play those games is the right approach. Banning something only increases their desire to get it (remember, kids ALWAYS try to rebell against their parents). The kids need to understand WHY you don't want them playing those games*. And better yet, they should be able to tell right from wrong and real from virtual by the time they actually encounter videogames.
*=Randomly reminds me of when my parents told me not to play a game called Zaxxon because I pronounced that like Sexxon and they thought that's what the game is about as they've never seen the game itself. It's a simple isometric shmup, actually.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
well I never used to have too much trouble getting ahold of them when I was 14. Is it any different today?
When I hear some politician whining about "our kids are being corrupted!", I want to ask them "how old were you when you had your first beer?".
I worry more about how deeply embedded hypocrisy is in our society.
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Restricting "R" rated movies is done entirely by the movie industry. It's not illegal for a 15 year old to go to an "R" rated movie, but the movie theatre people won't let them.
Drugs and alcohol are legally restricted to people over 18 or 21 because there's a very real physical effect for using them. If you let a 12 year old drink and smoke cigarettes every day until they turn 18 there will be a negative effect every single time. If you let them play violent video games every day, they'll turn out fine 99.99999% of the time.
Are you kidding me? Just because a kid is legally able to buy something, that doesn't dismiss the parents of any responsibility. If somebody doesn't want their kids playing violent video games, it's their responsibility, as parents, to take an active role in their kid's life, and make sure they don't play them. It's not the government's job to babysit.
Has it occured to you that maybe that's the real problem? Not violent video games, movies, and music, but idiots hoping the government will raise their kids for them? But of course, that can't be the real problem, because that would actually require people to take responsible for their actions. And that would just be fucking terrible.
The thing is. It IS true. Parents need to start taking responsibility for the children they have. And the government needs to not be passing laws designed to "make up" for parents who don't take responsibility, instead perhaps they should be holding parents responsible along with the children for their actions.
Say what you will about parents being too busy, but I was raised by my Mom, who worked >40 hours a week (IT staff) my entire childhood. She also was always aware of what I was up to and took her role as parent very seriously. She knew what I was watching, she knew who I was spending time with, she knew what games I'd bought and was playing (because she made sure she was the one that bought them). She also did something that I see lacking from most parents these days, including families where one parent IS home with the children... she COMMUNICATED with me. She made sure to keep the dialog open at all times and to listen to what I was saying too.
Meanwhile the friends I had with the most screwed up childhoods? One parent was always home, parents still married, parents completely self absorbed and ignoring their kids. Go figure.