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."

Comments

Why?

[alexjohnc3]

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.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something...

[pluther]

...but isn't there already a system that makes it so that minors can't play some games?

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.

Nobody every "wins".

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Woot!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Forget the hurricanes and flooding.....

[dt_aybabtu]

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.

Accept Responsibility!

[wolf_lord2002]

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.

Is this really a good thing?

[Beefysworld]

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.

Re:Woot!

[Admiral Frosty]

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.

Scapegoats?

[vivin]

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.

Re:Scapegoats?

[Anonymous Coward]

But none of that relates to people being violent.

Video games, movies, martial arts, and the military have made me a well oiled machine and a very efficient killer, but the cold hard fact is that my psychological profile gives me a 2(50 being normal) on my violent indicator score.

It isn't possible for someone to have had a longer experience to violent first person shooters than me besides people that actually work at ID software testing the original wolfenstein.

Working in a team to efficient kill was trained in me over 2400 baud modems in Cyberstrike on GEnie.

If video games and the military make people violent why am I not violent? Why have I never hurt anyone since the 4th grade? When I was 6 I bit a kid that tried to take my ball.. When I was 9 I was attacked by 2 bullies on the bus who were 2 grades above me and I fought them off but didn't chase when they ran.. Since then I have managed to defend myself from every other engagement with another human without causing them any harm whatsoever. People that have attacked me have been injured, but its usually from breaking their fist trying to punch me in the back of the head or missing me and hitting a wall.

The Army is my job, sometimes we engage and fire on the enemy.. but it isn't like my blood is pulsing and i'm out of control. Your average football player is more psyched up and out of control than the men in my platoon. It is just a job and we are good at it, we don't go around smashing heads because we like to or even want to.. Calm and control is something the video game generation exhibit better than the generations before.

When you are calm and in control you are able to think and use your frontal lobes when faced with a possibly violent situation, you know the harm you can cause by pulling the trigger or stabbing with a knife. You know the person has families and people that care about them, untrained killers don't have time to think about this because they are under control of primitive fight or flight instincts.

I think people like Jack Thompson and their views are more responsible for violence than anything else. When someone does something violent, Mr Thompson doesn't blame them for their actions and would instead blame TV, rap, rock, video games, or even Satan or something silly. People need to be taught cause and effect and understand consequence for their actions. If you kill someone they die and you go to jail, is it worth whatever reason you wanted to kill them for.. when you THINK about it the answer is almost always no.

Re:Super mirrors

[Yartrebo]

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.

Re:Woot!

[Surt]

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.