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UK To Mull High Video Game Taxes — To Fight Knife Crime
chareverie writes "The Prime Minister of the UK is being urged to impose high taxes on violent video games in an effort to reduce the number of knife-related crime. The request comes from Richard Taylor, who argues that young people 'feel that the law has no control over them. They just feel that they can go on the streets and do whatever they like.' He doesn't have a definitive number on how much to tax on the offensive video games, but says that they should be 'very high.' Rap music is also voiced to be a concern due to the alleged negativity and language. Taylor's son, Damilola Taylor, was killed in November 2000 at the age of 10 by knife stabbing."
Correlation is causation! Mwahaha.
I fucking know who this makes me want to stab.
Now that they've done away with all gun and knife crimes, they need to fight shillelagh crimes. Shillelagh crimes have been steadily on the rise, doubling from one to two in just ten years. Even worse, some oafs are starting to hammer nails into their shillelaghs, just so they have metal pokey-bits to inflict more damage.
We need to tax all carpenters and lumberyards in the UK, or our youth will pay a terrible price in violence and fear.
They also develop better hand-eye coordination, a foundation of stabbing abilities.
^^sarcasm
Please correct my logic
This is the part where you fail. You erroneously assume that logic comes into play in the English government.
There should also be a huge surcharge on Mario Kart applied to the uninsured motorists accident fund. While we're at it, America's Army could be taxed to fund the new push in Afghanistan, and the Bee Movie game could be taxed to find a cure for the honeybee diseases. Let's get creative. In this recession we need to find new ways of extracting money from people. Gamers obviously have too much.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
If you can't see the causal relationship between video games and stabbing hookers, then you've never played Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
they need to head off spoon crimes. I recommend SPOOOOOOOOONGUARRRRD!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Exactly.
So, instead of raising taxes on video games, they should impose a tax on stabbing people.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
What about belts, man? Without belts there would be no sheaths. Maybe we should just ban clothes for everyone from 18-25. Oh wait then you get into a different set of nutjobs.
I heard Jack Thompson over at the pub commenting that the degradation of society has a strong corollary with the development of more violent games. Remember Pong? You could scarcely kill someone with a pong machine as it took the strength of 10 geeks to lift it. Now when cartridges came by there was a critical paradigm shift which resulted in a switch from 'death by console' to 'death by cartridge'. If we use the same measure it takes .005 geeks to lift and swing a cartridge with deadly force. Yet this was the equivalent of using an animal bone until the advent of optical media. Coupled with the introduction of bad asian ninja movies it took very little for young minds to substitute throwing star with cd. Now it seems perfectly reasonable to tax the hell out of games.
They also develop better hand-eye coordination, a foundation of stabbing abilities.
While that's true, button-smashing is even less applicable to stabbing than what you do playing Wii Sports Tennis is to playing actual tennis. If there was a "Wii Stab" game, you'd probably play most efficiently by sitting in a chair and using a bicycle pumping motion (what?) to do the stabbing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Lol, ahhh I can't stab old laddies in GTA...time to start stabbing them in real life.
People will just start killing folks with the sharp edges of the cans or the plastic containers from small electronic equipment.
Because the vaunted chefs of England would rise in revolt, brandishing their filet knives!
Pfft. The CCTV camera boxes would just announce "You there, stop that!" via loudspeaker. Revolt quelled.
Well whatever he's smoking will probably be taxed with the money going to convince people to quit.
They are pushing the criminals towards fresh fruit because there is a famous instructional video about self defense against someone armed with fresh fruit...
They made knives available and cheaper to the lowest common denominator of society. Plus easy credit made it possible to order with express shipping! So it's MasterCard's fault too! And the TV stations that broadcast these calls for slaughter!
Don't forget your local/national/international package delivery service for allowing dangerous, dangerous knives to be dropped off at the homes of young, impressionable children. It's called "The Postman Always Rings Twice," not "The Homicidal Maniac Always Rings Twice."
And the parents, such horrid parents, for using knives in front of their children, cutting meat and chicken like so many innocent bystanders.
Home kitchens should have all utensils tethered to the walls like in prisons. I've seen it on TV. I've never heard about anyone getting stabbed in a prison kitchen.
Now how much would you pay? In dollars or the souls of your victims?
I prefer the good old days of clean cut television. Wholesome programming like "Leave It To Beaver." But can anyone help me remember what Beaver's last name was?
You never expect irony, do you?
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@iyfwrestling
I would postulate that knife crime and video games are mutually exclusive.
Everyone knows that kids that are obsessed with video games will never leave the house voluntarily.
If raising taxes is a method of fighting crime (it's not, but supposing it is) then why not raise taxes on the sale of knives ?
That is a damn good idea. And to stop rape, we should tax penises. By the pound.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Dangit, when will people realize that it's the parent's responsibility to teach their children how to stab, not video games.
The Internet is generally stupid
I always felt stabbing people was already taxing enough... :)
But according to the CCTV footage, the criminals start by crouch-walking to their targets, then they start stabbing at one stab per second while still two meters away, escalating to bunny hopping if the victim fights back, and eventually crouching again after the crime.
they should impose a tax on stabbing people.
Hey, it's how they got Capone ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Tonight I'm going to start on a flash game. Basically your an intoxicated youth, you run around knifing people in town centres trying to stay off CCTV (because that's what youths do I understand), you need to steal bottles of liqour and syringes as power ups. If you drink too much your screen blurs, you fall down and The Fuzz get you, if you sober up, you go back to school get a job and the game is over. Watch out for the CCTV. What shall I call it? "Tax This!"
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
agreed, this comment isnt very good anyway
Hey don't short-change the Vulcan government!
The enemies of Democracy are
Everyone knows you run faster with a knife!