72% of US Adults Support Violent-Game Ban For Minors

SpuriousLogic writes with an excerpt from GameSpot: "The US Supreme Court won't start hearing arguments over California's law banning game sales to minors until November 2. However, the ruling in the court of popular opinion is already in, according to a new poll. This week, parent watchdog group Common Sense Media released the results of a survey it commissioned on children's access to violent games. Conducted by polling firm Zogby International, the survey asked 2,100 adults whether they would support a law that 'prohibits minors from purchasing ultra-violent or sexually violent video games without parental consent.' Of those surveyed, some 72 percent said they would approve such a law. Common Sense Media CEO and founder James Steyer, whose nonprofit organization is lobbying for game-restriction legislation in many states, hailed the poll's findings. 'We hope the [state] attorneys general will take a look at these poll results and that they'll side with families over protecting the profits of the video game industry.'"

Comments

Do they not already have restrictions?

[bertoelcon]

I have had to show an ID to get M rated games from stores here in Texas, does California not already do that?

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[jgtg32a]

Corporate policy not an actual law.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Lord Byron II]

There's a difference between store policy and the law. Despite what I've been told by numerous cashiers, there are (AFAIK) no laws against selling to minors:

-M-rated video games
-CDs with the Parental Advisory sticker
-tickets to R-rated movies

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[AltairDusk]

In my experience all of the chain stores will refuse to sell an M rated game to a minor as store policy. I was even asked for ID at one of the local GameStops (and I normally don't get carded at the bar so it's not that I look like a kid).

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[MichaelSmith]

Probably the bartender knows how to read a persons age while the borderline aspergers kid at the game shop has to check ID.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[SirGarlon]

There's a difference between store policy and the law. Despite what I've been told by numerous cashiers, there are (AFAIK) no laws against selling to minors:

As skeptical as I am about "industry self regulation," this is an instance where it appears to work fine. People who are concerned about availability of violent games (to minors) should be lobbying the retailers, not the government.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[nomadic]

If I'm reading that correctly, that means that there are more de facto restrictions on minors purchasing virtual guns than there are on minors purchasing real guns.

Minors are prohibited by federal law from purchasing or possessing guns, so not sure how you read it that way.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[commodore64_love]

Nonsense. It's easier to lobby a single entity than to lobby ~100,000 different stores. And before you go off about "my right to buy a violent game or porn video", I'm sorry but non-adults don't have rights. They are wards of their parents who make the decision of what to buy or not buy.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Minors are prohibited by federal law from purchasing or possessing guns, so not sure how you read it that way.

Purchasing, yes (Federal), possessing, no. Some States do

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Something is out of whack here

What, that at one moment you are not allowed to buy a game where people are mowed down with machine guns but the very next moment you're allowed to sign up to do that in real life? Happy 18th birthday, young man.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Svartalf]

Brilliant question... Why do you need a law? You don't need the government to play nanny for your kids- you, as a parent, should be responsible for their upbringing and making bans won't do a single thing to keep the ones that're going to get it from getting access to violent games.

Much like minors getting ahold of alcohol or cigarettes. Yes, we need to largely prevent their access to those things- but without parental guidance and oversight, they'll still get the stuff anyhow.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[edmicman]

So shouldn't their parents be involved and know what their children are buying rather than depending on the government to babysit and do the parenting for them?

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[geekoid]

The Gun Control Act of 1968 specifically made it illegal for minors to possess firearms.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000922----000-.html

[(v) , (w) Repealed. Pub. L. 103–322, title XI, 110105(2), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2000.]
(x)
(1) It shall be unlawful for a person to sell, deliver, or otherwise transfer to a person who the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is a juvenile—
(A) a handgun; or
(B) ammunition that is suitable for use only in a handgun.
(2) It shall be unlawful for any person who is a juvenile to knowingly possess—
(A) a handgun; or
(B) ammunition that is suitable for use only in a handgun.
(3) This subsection does not apply to—
(A) a temporary transfer of a handgun or ammunition to a juvenile or to the possession or use of a handgun or ammunition by a juvenile if the handgun and ammunition are possessed and used by the juvenile—

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[cawpin]

PLEASE STOP SPREADING FUD!!

That is completely and utter bullshit. There have been a FEW, counted on one hand, cases of dealers selling firearms illegally. Most of the cases that were brought up in "studies" were thrown out do to illegal tactics used by the ATF. Mayor Bloomberg in New York was also breaking the law with his cronies going over state lines to try and illegally purchase firearms. He said they were able to purchase guns at 3 neighboring states. The only problem was, they had to break the law to do so. They provided false information to the dealer. The FBI and ATF both told him to cease operation of these "stings" or he would go to prison.

Buying a firearm at a gun show is no different than buying one at a store. You have to fill out the same paperwork and go through the same background check.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[cawpin]

To buy a gun you need 2 forms of ID

Not federally, that is a state restriction.

in some states you need to go before the police, and get them to do a background check which can involve interviews with neighbors, friends and family and Police to determine you have a NEED to get a gun. After all that, you still might have a waiting period (even if you own guns already) and still get all the fun at gun store.

I'm not sure where you got the "interview neighbors" bit, maybe communist New York? I've never heard of even them doing that.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Eskarel]

There are indeed no laws, but game retailers have been sensible enough to know that any government regulation in this area is just going to make life more difficult(see Australia, the lack of an R rating and what that does to games everywhere). Therefor the ESRB was created and, at least when I was a kid, it was fairly difficult to buy M rated games as a minor.

Unless retailers have gotten slack again and stopped enforcing their own rules, there's really no need to implement a law. If they have, it might be. Kids don't need M or R rated games.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Quirkz]

I can't really bring myself to be too upset by this. The movie ratings system isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't bother me much, and this sounds similar, on the surface at least. Everyone agrees the parents ought to be ultimately responsible. This (sounds like, if I'm reading it right) a shift from an automatic whitelist with the option of parents to blacklist, to an automatic blacklist, with the option for parents to whitelist. Not sure that's a huge difference, except for the parents who prefer more control.

Sure, kids can get around those things, but if the fact that people break rules is a reason not to have rules, then we wouldn't have any rules at all.

Now I do question the wording of the poll, and I question whether the group involved here would put forth reasonable ratings. And, were I a parent, I'd likely whitelist a lot games for my kids if I knew they could handle it, but I wouldn't really be ticked if my kids needed my active participation to pick up some of the more violent games.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

I'm sorry but non-adults don't have rights.

Well that's a shitty view to take of things. I thought all men were created equal and were endowed by their creator (whatever that is) with certain unalienable rights. I didn't think all men were created equal and were endowed by their society with certain unalienable rights once they reached a certain age.

I know when I was 16 that if someone had tried to suppress my rights to speak my mind, defend myself, or reserve my privacy both of my parents would have been up in arms about it. Then again, my parents raised me with enough respect and trust that they probably felt I wouldn't abuse those rights to an egregious extent. Quite frankly, I find the fact that you think non-adults don't have any rights to be one of the most offensive and blatantly bigoted things I've ever seen modded up on slashdot. Remember, the current dividing line between adult and non-adult is an arbitrary one that varies from society to society. What's to stop society from drawing other arbitrary lines to determine who does and doesn't have rights? Jackass.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[MBGMorden]

As so many have noted, that law applies to handguns only. In rural states where hunting is popular almost all kids in the country own their own guns. Hell I owned a gun (20ga shotgun) at 8 years old. My parents bought it for me to hunt with. Perfectly legal in South Carolina.

There are a lot of exceptions. For instance a "straw purchase" (purchasing a gun for another person) is illegal, but there are exceptions made for buying a firearm as a gift. I can't take $500 from the guy standing outside to go in and buy a gun, but I can legally purchase a gun with the intent to give it to my brother as a Christmas gift for example.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Creepy]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - while I don't have a problem with restricting access, I have a fundamental problem with this law unfairly targeting video games and not all media. In mass killings, the top influences were movies and music, not video games (movies were something like 2x more influential than video games, as well). In secret shopper surveys, kids were more than twice as likely to be able to buy R and UR movies and explicit lyric CDs.

The movie ratings system is voluntary just like the video game industry. One of the reasons for the push for the law was because "the movie industry polices itself," but that is fundamentally flawed - that is theaters only - retail is still voluntary, just like for retail video games. If arcades were still around and popular, this would be more akin to stopping kids from access to certain arcade games but still letting them buy the game at the store (if the store allowed).

In the US, the video game rating system is actually stricter on sex/nudity than the movie industry - in fact, it is one of the most restrictive systems in the world, where frontal nudity is always an M and more than ~2 seconds of it is an AO. Violence is typically split into Teen vs M or AO by gore content.

most stores self police already (see secret shopper link above) - in 2008, 80% of kids trying to buy M and AO video games were stopped - in 2000, that number was 17%. In a study, only 8% of kids try to buy games without parental consent, so of the 8% trying to get away with it, only 20% do.

Retail stores sell unrated movies that have added sexual or violent content, but AFAIK, no video games are sold unrated from any major retailer.

Video games have 1" ratings labels that must be on the lower left hand corner of the box. Movies have inconsistent size, location, and box requirements. CDs I believe also require explicit lyrics to be on the front of the disk (all of mine are, but I only have a few).

So in conclusion, I don't have a problem with restricting sales to minors, but I have a huge problem with video games being the scapegoat. The problem is media in general and the continued perception of video games being like animation and for kids only, which the US seems to hang on to even though it is incorrect. I wonder how many of the same people with that perception went to see Avatar, which was basically one big cartoon marketed to adults...

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[zeroshade]

Nonsense. non-adults DO have rights. Some of these rights are restricted, but they DO have rights. For example, the government can't restrict the speech of a child any more than they can restrict the speech of an adult. Same with respecting the right to practice their own religion, etc, and all the other rights adults have. It is only when it comes to certain situations/nanny state examples that their rights become restricted. Such as the sale of alcohol, porn, etc. Some of these I agree with and some I don't. However a non-adult DOES have rights. Being a ward of their parents just gives the parents the legal right to have a say on their child's behalf in all legal matters, and make certain decisions on their child's behalf. Such as medical decisions.

I'm REALLY sick and tired of people assuming that just because you are not 'legally' an adult, you do not have any rights. It's completely backwards and wrong. Turning 18 does not immediately bestow some magical knowledge to a person making them "an adult". I've met immature adults who were exactly the type of people the restrictions were meant to protect, and I've met highly mature non-adults who knew enough to be behave responsibly when it came to drugs, alcohol, etc.

Re:Do they not already have restrictions?

[Transaction7]

Too much of our First Amendment jurisprudence dealing with commercial speech, advertising, and entertainment, has departed completely from the original intent of the Framers. When the Court included commercial nude lap dancing in the same protection as core political speech in 1981, things really started to go awry. Interestingly, most of these cases benefit not the poor disenfranchised little guy who might need protection but the wealthy and influential. One has to wonder how much that has to do with the Supreme Court granting First Amendment protection to “virtual” child pornography, for example. Whatever other protection the Constitution provides, or ought or ought not to provide, for sexual activity, for example, it simply isn’t “speech” or “press,’ nor is it a modern version thereof, hardly being a modern invention or innovation, so it does not fit within the text, intent, or framework of First Amendment jurisprudence, any more than the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment do. The logical place to put most sexual liberty would be under the Fourth Amendment, but you can’t fit a right of publicity or very public activities under that. Driving on a public street and running a red light is not protected by either amendment, either, contrary to some people who know better but argue that red light cameras which capture open activity on the public roads are somehow unconstitutional. If something that wouldn’t lead you or me to do something destructive, tortuous, or criminal, even if we listened to or watched it, reasonably arguably might be likely to cause, lead, or encourage a small minority of minors or other particularly susceptible people, not readily identifiable in advance, to do so, and these are commercial and don’t really have anything to do with ideas except exploitation of base tendencies and incitement, it would be entirely proper to uphold a law regulating this conduct that 72% of the people in our democracy within a republic favor. This has no positive value. Now one real practical legal and Constitutional problem with trying to reduce the amount of such pollution by legislation was aptly summed up by the late Justice Potter Stewart in his famous comment, “I may not be able to define it [pornography, in words], but I know it when I see it.” Why, however, do we require impossible perfection in the drafting of such laws when they might affect the profits of a very profitable industry targeting minors? Of course, unless you believe that not only all members of Congress but their legal staffs are ignorant idiots, you have to ask yourself why, so often, the bills touted as solving all the world’s ills always seem to wind up having either gaping loopholes or obvious defects the courts have already ruled rendered other laws, and would render any new ones, unconstitutional, unenforceable, and void. When I was in law school, our famous Dean liked to quote Will Rogers: “Whenever Congress tells a joke, it’s a law, and whenever they pass a law, it’s a joke.”

Why people distrust pollsters

[Sonny Yatsen]

This is why a lot of people distrusts pollsters. How people answer is dependent on how the question is written. The question that Zogby sent out here was whether people supported laws that "prohibits minors from purchasing ultraviolent or sexually violent video games without parental consent." Of course they're going to say they support the law - Zogby purposefully loaded the question against the opposing option! Do you think a lot of people are going to say that they support something that was just described to them as "ultraviolent" and "sexually violent"?

Imagine if Zogby asked a different question bent towards the other direction to the same 2000 people it polled for the first question - for example: "Do you think parents should be responsible for preventing their children from accessing video games containing violent content?" I would bet you that those same 72% are going to say "yes" to that as well.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[Jaysyn]

I'm just shocked that a whole 28% of those polled saw thru the loaded question.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[jgtg32a]

I saw the loaded question and still agree

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[ArcherB]

"Do you think parents should be responsible for preventing their children from accessing video games containing violent content?" I would bet you that those same 72% are going to say "yes" to that as well.

I agree! What better way to make the parents responsible than to make the parents buy the game.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[Defenestrar]

War (legal ultraviolence) is a lot different from rape (illegal sexual violence). It's bad enough to combine separate questions (loaded enough), but the article doesn't even summarize the fundamental aspects of a statistical study!

There's also the fact that 2,100 people is a very small number to base any sort of national (or even state) law and policy on. What are the survey demographics? What are the statistically significant differences of opinion based on group? What is the study's power to detect (a significant difference 80% of the time)? Was the survey terminology defined to the participants, or if not - were there survey questions to obtain the participants' definitions of the terms?

X% of adults agree to outlaw pictures of "kittens, hamsters, and child porn" 100-X% of adults have been put on the child molestation watch list.

Now I'm going to have to look up the original survey because of bad survey reporting. It's possible that the survey was done well and the reporter dumbed it down, but it's also entirely possible that the survey ignored experimental design and statistical considerations - but in that case the reporter should have publicly ripped the survey to shreds. If a reporter can't understand statistical analysis they have no business reporting survey results!

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[Jaysyn]

How about we make it illegal to show kids rated R movies first. Or even better, how about the government quits trying to tell parents what media is or is not appropriate for their children. This is just comic books all over again.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[AltairDusk]

I have little hope that will help anything considering I've seen a woman in EB with her 8 year old (my estimation) in tow complaining to the clerk how violent and horrible some of the games they sell are. 15 minutes later (after 10 minutes of pestering from her son) she was buying the kid Grand Theft Auto.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[Pojut]

Agreed. The only people who should be able to ban violent video games for minors are parents.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[ElectricTurtle]

I am raising a child, and no, it doesn't take a village. I know that damn well as I'm thousands of miles from all of my family and it's a pain in the ass to not have anybody who would watch them for free. Making it illegal to purchase certain games without parental consent solves nothing. Kids will just play those games over at their friends' houses whose parents do buy them for their kids. If you don't do actual parenting and investigate the environments and people that your kids are hanging around, things you might rather not happen can do so easily.

I for one don't believe that kids need to be insulated from much of anything. Maturity happens from experience, and understanding cannot occur without knowledge.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[ArcherB]

How about we make it illegal to show kids rated R movies first. Or even better, how about the government quits trying to tell parents what media is or is not appropriate for their children. This is just comic books all over again

Actually, this would be government forcing parents to be responsible for what their kids see. This is making it so that the kids can't buy this stuff without an adult (hopefully a parent). No one is saying kids can't own these games. They just want to make sure the parents are aware of it.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[ArcherB]

I have little hope that will help anything considering I've seen a woman in EB with her 8 year old (my estimation) in tow complaining to the clerk how violent and horrible some of the games they sell are. 15 minutes later (after 10 minutes of pestering from her son) she was buying the kid Grand Theft Auto.

It's not up to you to agree or disagree with it. That's the parent's right to make the decision and since she bought it for her kid knowing what was in it, it's now her responsibility. When her kid pulls his car over to kick prostitutes, she is going to have a hard time taking the game maker to court since she knowingly bought the game. It might even help further if a big label was on the cover of the game that says something to the affect of "Hey, mom! This game has whore kicking!"

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[hsbaker]

Agreed. When I was a kid, it was somewhat difficult to get things I "shouldn't" have without my parents finding out. It mostly involved enlisting the help of someone old enough to buy the cigarettes/beer/porn.

That is not the case today. Kids can easily get digital products from the comfort of their bedroom, with little chance of alerting mom & dad taht something suspicious is going on (no need to explain the new 22yo 'friend'). If the law requires you to be 18 to purchase explicit magazines, then why not explicit digital products?

The goal is not to do the job for parents, but to help the parents do their job.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[Schadrach]

Of course, the law should require you to be 18 to purchase explicit digital product as much as it does magazines, but only so long as we're talking the same definitions. The problem is that something like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is in the realm they want to declare explicit and illegal to sell to minors, while the same kind of content as a movie, TV show, comic book, novel, or even magazine (somehow) would not be "explicit" in a manner as to be categorized with the likes of Hustler as far as sale to minors.

There's no reason that laws making it illegal to sell certain categories of content to minors shouldn't be medium-agnostic. That isn't this however, this is a desire to make certain addition kinds of content also "explicit", but only when presented in the form of a video game.

This is literally the "Comic books/rock music/whatever are evil and somehow innately different than all other media" fight all over again but with the next type of media.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[StuartHankins]

I usually consider myself very much against the government telling me how to do anything. However, I think in this case I'd agree with preventing a minor from purchasing the product. That allows a minor who really wants an adult product to have a parent purchase it for them -- it's not "illegal" to own, it just stops kids from purchasing potentially harmful things. It goes along with the policy of not allowing children to purchase beer, cigarettes, adult magazines or toys, certain weapons, etc.

Why would I change my mind for this when I consider myself a libertarian? I think the harm these games can do to the children is irreparable -- not that it happens in every case. I'm old enough now to see how different my kids behave when compared with other kids who were reared on lots of sugar and violent TV / games. Some of the other kids frankly scare me.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[DJRumpy]

Just like a 12 year old can walk into a liquor store and pick up a 5th of gin? I don't think so...

No one said this would remove all responsibility from a parent, and certainly current parents don't just assume their kids can't smoke, do drugs, etc. It will make it more difficult for them however, which achieves something that is better than no control at all.

Re:Why people distrust pollsters

[MobyDisk]

...allows a minor who really wants an adult product...

Ahhh... but you are not thinking like a libertarian. The libertarian asks this question: "Who decides what is an adult product, and what is not?" And therein lies the problem with these kinds of laws.

I RTFA and no poll data

[HBI]

Is this an "all" or "registered voter" poll? What areas? But I won't find that out from this article.

Besides which, Zogby has been sucking hind tit in polling for at least the last decade. Blown calls of '04 and '08, badly blown ones on Election Day, come to mind.

I wouldn't trust him if he told me the sky was blue, without checking.

Even the /. Headline gets it wrong

[Lord Byron II]

The trouble with these types of surveys is that the always ask a very specific question and then the media generalizes it. In this case, they asked about "ultraviolent or sexually violent" games and if those games should require parental consent to buy them.

The Slashdot headline broadens the games to simply "violent" and broadens the purchasing restriction to an outright "ban".

I suggest we give the same people a new survey, but ask about "a government ban on mature-themed video games" and see how many people are still for it.

Meanwhile...

[Arancaytar]

Other polls show that more than 95% of US children are opposed to the ban. :P

Hooray for wastes of the taxpayers money!

[antifoidulus]

Enforcing rules such as this are always a joke. What ends up happening is that the state ends up hiring a whole bunch of cops who do nothing all day but roam around the area going to various stores and trying to get the overworked clerk to sell them one of these games. And if the clerk gets caught the corporations usually end up not having to pay a dime(thats why they hire lobbyists), it's the poor overworked kid who made an honest mistake while performing a job that is a lot more stressful than most people realize. So now instead of paying for school he winds up having to pay a huge fine, may have his name printed in the paper etc. And yet pretty much any kid that wants these games will still be able to get their hands on them.

Ugh, Americans really need to give up this law and order fantasy where they think they can modify people's behavior just by creating laws(attn pro-lifers and anti-drug crusaders, this means you)

Re:Hooray for wastes of the taxpayers money!

[bberens]

So last weekend I went to see the new Resident Evil flick and I was amazed/appalled at how many parents brought their 5-10 year old children to see that movie. That is a wicked violent movie with lots of gross imagery. While I did spend a few minutes during the previews questioning the parenting ability of those people at no time did I think to myself "Boy, we really need to create a new regulatory power which would stop this." That would be stupid. Freedom means people are going to do things you think are retarded. *shrug*

Wait, wait,

[Iburnaga]

You already can't sell violent games to minors in most places. Minors aren't buying the games, their parents are.

Re:The other day...

[tophermeyer]

Those measures are put in place mainly by retailers.

Like the MPAA, the ESRB encourages retailers to set aged based restrictions to games with more mature ratings. Their goal is to make sure that laws don't need to be passed, and retailers are being responsible in who they sell violent/sexual games to.

Unfortunately it is really hard for the ESRB to get retailers to play along. They have very little power over the industry other than to withhold a content rating, they have no ability to stop distribution to any retailer that doesn't play nice. That is why some people are claiming we need laws.

Yes Congresman

[SmallFurryCreature]

Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

http://www.yes-minister.com/ypmseas1a.htm

Yes (Prime) Minister

Watch it. Understand it. Remember it.

Illegalize it

[twitch1982]

I support completely banning Minors from purchasing of playing M rated games, if only so I don't have to keep getting my ass kicked by 13 year olds in CoD.

I love surveys

[Aphoxema]

"Are you in favor of, neutral to or against the potential sale and promotion of games that may occasionally exhibit mischief and violence to minors?"

Versus

"Are you in favor of games that expose children to graphic violence, or do you hate America? Why do you hate America?"

Why not go one step further?

[Chmcginn]

But who gets to classify 'ultraviolent' vs. 'violent' vs. 'comic violence'? If it's an industry body, then there's the same kinds of conflict of interest that leads to independent films getting 'worse' ratings than big studio releases. And the last thing we need is an Australia-style government run ratings board.

The obvious solution is to prevent children under 18 from buying any media at all. That way it's a content neutral restriction, and all the responsibility for what kids are playing, reading, or watching falls on the parent.

Not a gun owner, apparantly

[Sycraft-fu]

By federal law you must be 18 to own a long gun (shotgun or rifle or the like) and 21 to own a pistol. One of the very few areas, alcohol being the only other one I can think of, that being an adult isn't enough to purchase something. When you purchase, gun stores don't just check ID, they do a full background check. They take your ID and take down a good amount of additional information. Technically, you don't have to provide it, but if there isn't enough to uniquely identify you, you wont' pass the check. They then call the police who run all that info through the NCIC. This checks to make sure you are not a convicted felon, or convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, or have been in a mental institution. If the check comes back good, the store then sells you the gun.

So no, kids are not walking in and buying a gun unless they have a really good fake ID, and that fake ID actually identifies them as a real person who is above 18 or 21, and they have all the information (like SSN) for that person correct.

Just store policy

[Sycraft-fu]

Stores don't want to get sued, and they don't want more government regulation (because that is always more of a headache than it needs to be). So stores self police. Target is extremely strict, as far as I can tell they card everyone. I'm 30 and they card me when I go to buy an M rated game there.

For that matter the ratings themselves are all voluntary. The ESRB is a non-profit group setup by the video games industry, it isn't mandated and indeed indy titles sometimes don't submit for rating (though it is hard to sell in a store without it). So are movie ratings, for that matter.

The reason is because the various industries don't want the government involved. They know what happens down that road: Lengthy, problematic, ratings process with free speech restrictions. Just look at Australia where they do have government mandated ratings and games get banned or cut down because they "can't agree" on the highest rating so games can't get it so can't be sold.

It may sound benign, but behind this isn't is always someone trying to suppress speech. The groups who sponsor things like this aren't interested in good ratings or ID checks because we get that shit anyhow. They are interested in government control so they can then pressure the government to ban things they don't like.

Bullshit!

[Athanasius]

Anyone thinking such games have a truly adverse effect on more than a very small minority of kids (who likely already had problems) should go watch this "Penn & Teller's Bullshit!" episode: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1471881/

Sadly there's no synopsis or the like on that URL but from memory one thing they did was have a 10 year old who loves playing something like Modern Warfare on his console go and actually shoot a rifle (AR-1 I think). The kid doesn't enjoy the experience at all. Yeah, the games sooooooo made him likely to grab a gun and go on a real killing spree....

Re:Bullshit!

[Athanasius]

In typical /. inhabitant behaviour I'd not even read all the summary before commenting...

So, they asked about 'ultraviolent or sexually violent' ? Way to load the question. Of course a majority are likely to say 'yes' just because of the words 'sexually violent' !

So, yeah, even more Bullshit! than I thought.

Re:"Common sense" Media

[geekoid]

So, yes those thing are also violent but that doesn't make then good or healthy.

unstated Major Premise fallacy.

They are not treating minor likie idiots. They just created a tool for parents to utilize.

I don't want 13 year olds to be able to buy a gun, alcohol, or 'violent ' video game. But here is the problem..ready?

What defines violent? well, you can't really put 'levels' of violence into law. So you make it generic and then let the parent DECIDE.

That's all this is. It's not an attack in a child intelligence, it's not on oppression of freedom, and it's not keeping them away from stimuli.

The amount of violence a child at 2 can be exposed to and a child of 17 can be exposed to without significant determent later is radically different.