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Indecent Game Sales Now A Felony In New York
Gamespot reports on the final passing of New York senate bill A8696, legislation proposed just last week, that now makes it a serious felony to sell or rent a violent game to minors. The bill makes it illegal to sell a console without parental control options and establishes a group to second guess the ESRB's rating decisions. "'This bill is impermissibly vague,' EMA president Bo Andersen said in a statement. 'A8696 seeks to apply real-world standards of violence to the fictional and fanciful world of video games, an environment in which they have no meaning. As a result, retailers and clerks will not and cannot know with certainty which video games could send them to jail under A8696. It was depressing to hear members of the Assembly note the constitutional problems with the bill and then state that they were voting for it.'" The senate seems to have no fear of possible overturn of the bill, and claims it's only thinking of the children.
sold to a minor don't even warrant a class E felony, and they have prove harmful effects.
You mad
Just ruled unconstitutional. C'mon, a "serious felony". What about movies with equivalent ratings? And books. Books have no rating systems at all. My six year old niece can go and buy any Diane Steel or Stephen King book and I would not recommend either to an immature audience.
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I'm not a citizen of the USA, but I thought felonies were very serious crimes, like assault, or bodily harm. Not selling violent video games to children, yeah, it's probably a "bad" thing to do, but making it a felony seems a bit over the top.
We all knew the kid growing up who had the porn, whose parents didn't care, and who had the latest violent-est video game. I guarantee that this will not slow down kids' exposure to such games, because they'll all just congregate at ol'johnny's house to play re-bloodening 3. It might slow down individual sales, but if exposure to the game is the problem, then consider it as unsolved as ever. In fact, making the games harder to get usually makes them more attractive to kids, as in "this one must be really bad, lets go to johnny's and see!"
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It's funny, in a sick way, that a lot of the politicians that are quick to place restrictions on video games and music seemingly don't care a bit about violence in the entertainment industry. Like everything else, you only need to look at the money to figure out why.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
They can point out constitutional problems and still decide to vote for it knowing it can be overturned; sounds like a whole lot of political "I need something for my re-election" garbage. I imagine the exceedingly gross penalty stands for nothing more than a Get Tough (tm) on non-crimes stance.
Honestly, what is happening in this country where we've lost sight of what really matters?
Oh god my... I can't believe i wrote that...
You mad
Or violence in real life. For that they sell yellow ribbon bumper stickers.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Nothing!! That is just the solution actually.. Leave the parenting to the parent and make parents responsible. Sadly, most parents want it the other way around anymore.
Who has time to be bothered by a troublesome kid.
Sure glad the kids at school, now I can have some peace.
Isn't there some kind of camp or afterschool activity I can send my kid to
Why don't you go play over at some one elses house
Parents don't raise their kids anymore, they expect government to do it, and government in turn wants to put THEIR religious and moral beliefs on our children, and punish the parents who disagree with THEIR views.
"Well, there goes my idea of opening a game shop where all the employees are topless women."
You'll likely scare away most of your customers; they're not accustomed to the real thing.
Knee Jerk reactions by the legislature are not new to New Yorkers. I have three words: Rockefeller Drug Laws. At the time they were the harshest penalties in the United States for drug possession. From the article:
... or more of heroin, morphine, ... opium, cocaine, or ... marijuana .... or possessing four ounces or more of the same substances, was made the same as that for second-degree murder
the penalty for selling two ounces
So this isn't an overreaction by the New York Senate - it's standard operating procedure! Even better, the laws weren't reformed for over 20 years. Just goes to show why we're the most dysfunctional state government in the country.
Or, God forbid we actually try implementing some reasonable restrictions on handgun ownership in this country. Because, after all, if we did, then we'd turn into a totalitarian dictatorship where violent crime would be even worse, just like what happened Canada.
then we'd turn into a totalitarian dictatorship where violent crime would be even worse, just like what happened Canada.
Or Britain?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Am I the only one that's tired of having their life inconvenienced for everybody's else's children? It's not my fault you're too lazy to watch what your kids are buying/playing. Why is the New York legislature even wasting time on this?
Individuality? Not doing what one is told? Maybe for some elite subset of the intellectual population, but I've remarked no difference between normal Europeans and normal Americans in this regard.
I believe a bigger problem is the fact that the average American almost worships his Constitution. Rather than asking if a given law is good or bad, he asks if it follows the original intentions of the Founding Fathers, which gets in the way of any rational debate. Please remember that, living in the XVIIIth century, the Founding Fathers were obviously out of touch with what is happening (what was will happen? what would happen? I hate tenses) in the XXIst.
Le français vous intéresse?
I didn't say that things were precisely the same today as when the nation was founded.
But certain legacies from that time are still alive and strong today.
I take your meaning, but I also want to reiterate the point that those who forget the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. The freedom of speech is necessary so that men can speak their minds and influence those of others. The freedom to bear arms is the only way to guarantee the freedom of speech. I could go on down the list, but the fact is that there are points at which force is the only valid response. When you get there, yes, the system has failed. But the old adage about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots remains true.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The NES, SNES, Genesis, Atari, Game Boy, etc.
None of them have parental controls. Does that mean selling classic systems is illegal? Or do the old ones get grandfathered in?
but I am beginning to hate the children. They keep getting in the way of all our fun. Maybe we should have less children so we don't have to think of them so much.
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A) See wildly unconstitutional bill, supported by a zealous minority.
B) Realize that if you vote for it the zealots will vote for you and if not they'll bully you in the media.
C) Realize that the bill will be immediately overturned by the judiciary, who are not under the same vote pressure.
D) Pass the bill, reap the rewards, trust the judges to do their jobs and shut down the bill.
Lame, cheap and easy. All it costs is voter money and wasted time, but tax money is free so who cares!
This is why we call it politics instead of governance.
I got nothing against children themselves, but I am so sick and tired of politicians hiding behind, "but it's for the children," bullshit. The didn't seem to be nearly as many problems with children before we had millions of laws "for the children."
Thinking of the children...I live in New York and I'd far prefer kids and teens spending their free time indoors playing a violent video game like GTA than hanging out outside spraying graffiti, destroying property, or any of the much worse things they get into when they are bored and have time on their hands.
Sure, there are some kids who'll go pick up a DIY radio kit, code, or play basketball in their free time. But judging from the kids on my block in Brooklyn there are plenty who are not adept enough or self-motivated enough to do those things, but quite capable of doing harm if not directed or distracted.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Do you really think that you can "contain an errant government by force"? The right to gun ownership might have made sense as bar against government overreaching in the 18th Century - but today - there is no way you or me or any 10,000 of our friends together can stand up to the government in armed rebellion. The armament gap between governments and citizens has now increased to the point where citizens might as well be unarmed, naked and crippled if they go up against government troops. The best you could hope to do is wage an annoying guerrilla war and pick off a few soldiers before they kill you. Don't be encouraged by the success of the Iraqis. They are only doing as well as they are because of U.S. unwillingness to be seen using excessive force - not a likelihood in the case of internal rebellion.
If what you call 'personal freedom' is so aptly represented by the right to bear firearms, I'd say you have a really strange idea of 'freedom'. IMO the most important representatives of personal freedom are freedom of speech, freedom of thought, political preferences, sexual preferences, the right to decide what you do with your own property, the right to proper health care and education, even for the less wealthy, etc. etc. etc. Guns of all things *don't even occur to me* when thinking of personal freedom...
Still, the USA are famous for their bad public health care for large groups of people, their hypocritcal views on sexuality and different sexual preferences, strong commercial lobbies that dictate politics instead of common sense, government censorship, irrational soft drugs (why is smoking a joint not'personal freedom') and alcohol policy and so on. Yet the *one* thing that virtually no 'free people' from other parts of the world (the right to have guns) care about, seems to be the only fucking thing that matters when it comes down to 'freedom'.
You just enjoy your guns... err.. freedom...
Perhaps, but the military is made up of citizens as well, including friends and relatives. If something like that came about here how do you know that the government would still have the entire military following its orders? Just a thought.
~Petaris "The world is open. Are you?"