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Utah Senate, House Pass Jack Thompson's Game Sales Bill
Ars Technica reports that the Utah State Senate and House have both passed Jack Thompson's proposed legislation that would stiffen penalties for the sale of M-rated games to minors. Oddly, on its trip through the state legislature, amendments rendered it largely ineffective; retailers are in the clear if the employee who sold the game goes through a training program, or if the minor misrepresents his age. It's also possible that the bill could cause some retailers to simply take down their ESRB-related advertising. Thompson's statements about the bill put the focus on advertising, but discussion on the Utah Senate floor had a familiar ring, touching on the story of a Grand Theft Auto player who killed two policemen in 2003. The ESRB wrote an open letter in opposition of the bill, saying it could undo the efforts they've made to popularize their rating system. The bill's sponsors fired back, questioning the industry's overall commitment to ratings, and now it awaits only the governor's signature before becoming law.
From skimming a selection of the linked sources, the gist is that they're using a false advertising angle: if a retailer says "we won't sell M-rated games to children" (like most do), and then sells them anyway, they will be fined; however, if a retailer makes no such claim, they'll be unaffected. So the safest choice for a retailer is to simply drop their voluntary policy not to sell M-rated games to minors, to avoid liability in case they ever make a mistake.
I love how state after state try to pass this exact same bad law, only to have it shot down in the courts and they have to pay legal fines.
Great to know they're doing something productive.
'Training programs' sound like a money-maker for the videogame censorship movement.
Um, this is Utah.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is no different than the war waged by the religious fanatics (and yes, folks, Utah is filled with them) against fantasy roleplaying games. They latched on to something of an urban myth surrounding James Dallas Egbert III. Religious fanaticism, ignorance and intense dishonesty go hand in hand with these types.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The fact that a law is unenforceable doesn't mean that it should be there on the books just for shits and giggles.
Ah, but what if those 3 players would not have otherwise killed cops?
Catharsis is a myth; no research supports it. All we've ever learned from psychology research about violence is that it is largely a learned behavior. Kids will learn it mainly from family and friends but they also learn violence from strangers, TV, movies, music, and games. Now, violent media may not explain a lot of the variance in violent behaviors but it is completely naive to say that it does not have an affect. There are some people who can drink alcohol and never become alcoholic; there are others who try alcohol once and become alcoholic very quickly. It's the same with violence. Just because violent games may not generally lead to increased rates of violence in a society, does not mean that they don't for some people.
I'm not calling for a censorship of violent games. I'm not even sure I like this legislation (I'd have to read the full bill to form a good opinion) and I'm certainly not in favor of a government doing the parenting that parents should do but kids don't need to be playing some of the games that they play.
Insightful?
It's getting as bad as Digg around here.
How about this: Politicians (UT or otherwise) are idiots who will do anything they *think* will make them popular. Right now fighting the evil scourge of video games is a popular choice.
The fact that they're doing this all over the nation should teach us several things -- none of which is "Um, this is Utah."