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CT State Senator Wants To Ban Kids From Using Arcade Guns
New submitter Nyder writes "In a move that is sure to bring tears to the eyes of kids everywhere, Connecticut State Senator Toni Harp proposed a bill in January that would ban anyone younger than 18 from playing 'violent point-and-shoot' video games in arcades or other public establishments. 'The bill also called for research into the effects of violent video games on young minds, through a committee called the Violent Video Game Task Force within the Department of Children and Families. The task force would advise the Governor and General assembly on state programs that "may reduce the effects of violent video games on youth behavior," suggesting before the research was done that violent video games have an effect on children's actions.' Hopefully this won't pass; I guess the video game lobby hasn't paid this Senator enough 'funds' for her campaign."
But they can still play cowboys and indians, running around with toy guns pointed at each other, pulling the trigger and saying "bang, you're dead!", right?
The birds are chirping, and clueless politicians race to implement laws protecting children from video games and other "immoral" behavior.
They want to ban firearms for purely cosmetic features that make no difference between it and other models, why not? Who said laws have to make sense, they clearly don't with nutter Diane Feinsteins gun bill.
Communists, "gun violence", video games, SARS, terrorists, jesus fucking christ. I can't believe people are actually stupid enough to fall into line for the scare of the day anymore.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
wait, people still play in arcades?
...invisible or something?
How on earth can a country be so contradictory?
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Maybe 17-year olds could be allowed to play with parental consent. After all, they are allowed to join the army and use real guns to kill real people.
I wish to hell people would elect sane and responsible government representatives. But getting people to do that would be like getting a goat to drive a car.
Fata viam invenient.
The American people are being victimized and harassed by a bully out to get a rise. Do they really want to back everyone into the corner. They may get a black eye. I am frankly amazed at the self restraint an enormous percentage of the population has shown. Or we are just to trapped to do anything about this kind of bullshit.
So, the idea is that all the recent gun shooting sprees have been the result of violent games.
Virtual guns are bad, it seems, because they kill virtual people. But REAL guns are not bad, because, erm, they kill REAL people? I think this is a deflection, an attempt to shift the gun agenda into an anti-video game agenda. Harp is just a foolish patsy for it.
People get angry, for lots of reasons, and when they're angry they do stupid things. Teenagers particularly with all their hormones raging. When all they've got to throw is a stone, it does little damage, but when they've got a submachine gun, TAKING OUT THEIR ANGER, becomes a mass shooting incident with lots of dead.
Guns are killing machines, they're there to kill. A man with a stick is a pretty useless killing machine, a man with a gun is a danger.
I think this is really about gun control, and I think gun control is the best solution.
That will keep them from acting out.
Why don't we just ban everything!? Let's just ban everything till the we get to the point of having no joy in our lives whatsoever .... oh wait, we're already there.
Video game guns now more illegal than real ones.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Considering that pesticides kill far more people in the western world than guns do; I think we should definitely ban FarmVille... :p
... Gun shaped video game controllers kill people.
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
Pretend guns are dangerous and must be banned. Real guns are safe and must be constitutionally protected. The mind boggles.
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Every day the Nordic countries look more and more appealing.
It's wonderful that in both the linked article and Toni Harp's own official web page, you can't find a political party affiliation anywhere. Seasoned players of the "Guess The Party" game know that means she's surely a Democrat. Google search? Yep, confirmed.
Here we go again...
It seems appropriate that information just out has cast more than doubt on _Seduction of the Innocents_, the book and its
author behind the censorship and restrictions on comic books in the 50s. Once again all the research keeps showing little
if any connection between games/movies/TV and the propensity to violence but the "true believers" know otherwise. It'll
again be "damn the evidence, full speed ahead -> censorship, criminal penalities, etc".
Dr. Frank J. Nagy Fermilab Computing Division Authentication and Directory Services Group
The kids won't be able to play 2010's Terminator Salvation...
Do kids even play arcade games that don't spit out tickets?
Its only acceptable to take a child out to the gun range and have them fire a few thousand rounds from their very own AK into a racist picture of a "bad guy"
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
And you'll keep on researching it, until you give us the answer we want.
I'll be happy to let you ban violent video games if you and your peers are willing to lighten up about, oh... let's say bare breasts appearing on television. Frankly, I'm beyond tired of the dichotomy, wherein a person's insides, blown all over the place by gunfire/explosions, is fit for all ages, but the naked human form (the outside of it, at least) is not.
I can't think of too many gun related massacres which were the direct result of "violent video games". In fact, most were the result of mentally unstable people coming into possession of a some type of device to cause harm -- not just guns. I think a lot of the tragedies could have been prevented had people close to the murderer(s) taken responsible action, early on, when harmful behavior was exhibited:
Most people can "Doom away" 24x7 and have no problem separating fantasy from reality. A small portion cannot. That same small portion who cannot will result to whatever means is at their disposal when they become unstable. Banning guns, video games, magazine capacities, does not address the core issue and actually ignores it.
Role playing is important for healthy mental growth. Video games aid in that role playing for most healthy individuals. Prohibition isn't going to fix anything. Never does.
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One state rep filed a lousy bill that won't go anywhere, but might (not coincidentally) land some bookings on news shows. Then everyone packs this forum to talk about 1A rights (as in 2A for the gun enthusiasts).
Hey people, relax. Nothing happened, OK?
That the nanny-state life controllers who happen to have a "D-" in front of their name are just as numerous and active as those the the "R-".
They positively revel in how they are able to push people around and make them behave in their private affairs. That is the real danger here, not toy guns.
I'd say these politicians are jumping the gun, but they've probably introduced a bill to ban doing that as well.
What is this 1995? Do these types of arcade games even exist anymore? Do arcades even exist anymore? Also, the perpetrator of the Aurora shooting was older than 18. Not sure how this is going to solve anything.
More importantly, lets have a study regarding the effects of the united states having troops in nearly every country on earth, being involved in at least 3 wars simultaneously, and the US military glamorizing their profession through television and news adds. If you want to stop gun violence, stop putting rifles into the hands of teenagers and sending them into 3rd world countries to "keep the peace" I don't think playing Halo or hunting squirls with their dads are having anywhere near the effect of what the US governments planting into their heads about guns and "justified violence"
The task force would advise the Governor and General assembly on state programs that "may reduce the effects of political campaign advertising on youth behavior,"
I would say it is just as harmful as violent video games. Look at the assholes who are always winning the elections.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The NRA's new policy of blaming video games is only going to backfire on firearm manufacturers. Part of the alure of top selling firearms like the AR-15 is how cool you think you are as soon as you have one. Take away movies like Rambo and Scareface or video games like Call of Duty (which pays gun manufacturers royalties to depict the various makes and models), and the demand for AR-15s and AK-47s is sure to decline over time.
Hunting as a past time has been on the decline for several decades now, and without movies and video games only sporting enthusiasts from law enforcement and military backgrounds will have much serious interest in these sorts of weapons. The arms industry is going to have to go back into the business of stoking violence between nation states in order to keep their revenues and their stock values growing at a competitive pace.
"But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let's face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out."
A 400% increase in youth violence after the law pass and is enforced.
...
So the logic is that people who are more prone to violence play these games, which might increase the tendency towards violence.
And the solution is to prevent them from playing public violent games? What? How about just use the public games to find the violent people and aid them.
You've already made up your minds, studying it is a waste of money. You've already come to a conclusion, if you commission a study and it agrees with you, you'll use it as evidence supporting your position, and if it disagrees, if it shows you're likely wrong, you'll commission another study, and repeat this process until the study parameters are fine tuned in such a way as to produce the results you want.
So why waste money on studying it?
People wonder why the shooter in Connecticut did what was done. Just the same, people wonder why the hell the US went to war in the middle east.
All these kids these politicians and lobbyists that "worry" about kids playing violent video games should realize that these same kids have grown up in the post 9/11 Bush terms fraught with publicized and accepted war in the middle east. Certainly, they are not witnessing REAL violence on the television; it's those pretend video games that teaching them that killing real (and innocent) people is acceptable. Hypocrites!
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
I'm expecting that by the end of the year a random person from the federal House to introduce a bill to make all FPS games be considered to be only appropriate for 18+ whether the ESRB likes it or not (and if necessary replace the ESRB with a federal agency).
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
I can't read the article thanks to a work filter but does this bill differentiate between violent point and shoot games versus non-violent point and shoot games? I mean, are games where you are shooting at digital representations of people going to have this ban whereas games where you shoot at digital representations of animals or clay discs going to be exempt?
Are the Big Game Hunter and Police Trainer arcade games where you shoot at animals and paper targets going to have the same restrictions as Area 51 and Time Crisis? What about the Terminator Salvation arcade game? Definitely violent, but you never shoot at people. In fact, I'm pretty sure the game penalizes you for shooting at people.
Also, this bill is completely ridiculous. Though I'm glad it's calling for studies on how video games affect children because the majority of those I've read about conclude that video games have little to no affect.
One last though, while you're at it go ahead and ban minors from air hockey and basketball arcade games. Whatever fucked up logic necessitates banning light guns must also ban sports related games so kids don't take up steriods. And don't forget to ban Guitar Hero arcade knock offs. We don't want our kids to take up heroine.
Now, if only they would ban stuff that has real danger to the mental health of America.... such as Fox News.
Can we instead ban politicians from speaking?
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Yes the solution is to make sure that all people are helpless (by law). That will keep them safe! ... So when a person goes wacko (crazy enough to ignore those laws) they will be ... Uhhh ...
... Uhhhh ...
Wait, that isn't turning out the way it was intended.
Well the police will keep us safe! Yes because when all of those violent crimes happen the police are there to save us!
Wait, that was on those episodes of 24 and Hawaii Five-0. On the news the police show up much later and they sometimes figure out who did what to whom (much later...).
Wake up. We live in the safest time in history. Idiot politicians are trying to legislate safety. I have a secret for you: Life has a 100% mortality rate. The "Safety" they are trying to legislate is a feeling.
What business do politicians have trying to legislate safety? They aren't are our nanny's and a government is not a responsible organization. If you had children who made the same choices regarding spending money and honesty you would ground them for life.
Lets talk about outlawing something that is a mass contributor to unhealthful living conditions and is responsible for a number of deaths each year (even when done in a safe fashion). It wastes natural resources at an astounding rate. Lets outlaw it!
A smaller percentage of the country pursues it has a past time the those that pursue shooting as a past time. Doctors used to recommend that people with sever asthma or other lung ailments move to Tucson, AZ (and similar places) because of low pollen counts. So they moved there and then people built golf courses and Tucson no longer had low pollen counts.
Trying to legislate safety by outlawing something that is generally safe because it could conceivably done to cause harm is a direct destruction of liberty, unpatriotic, stupidly insane, and tyrannical. Read up on what Franklin had to say about safety.
Hey guys. Connecticut resident here. Just popping in to say sorry!
Sorry!
What year does this senator think it is?
I honestly want that question asked and answered.
You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
so they can enlist at 18 and play with real guns?
The senator gets to appeal to the liberal extremists among his constituents, while at the same time proving that not every person who's full of bad ideas self-identifies as conservative. Everybody wins!
Few people know how to shoot a rifle today. Imagine a population that knows nothing about firearms and becomes engaged in a land war. Bringing troops to the ready will be extremely difficult.
Estimates are that during the Vietnam War 30K-60K bullets were fired for every enemy casualty. In Iran and Afghanistan they speak of a quarter of a million rounds per enemy casualty. To some degree these poor numbers can be laid to "cover fire" but it also cannot be denied that the average army grunt is nowhere as skilled a shot as his grandfather.
Contrast the Civil War (estimates 500 shots/kill) where the largely rural South had an advantage over the urban North because their soldiers had been hunting and shooting all their lives.
I would go the opposite direction: *encourage* target games, and even more realistic simulators, as part of trying to limit availability of real weapons. Insist that anyone who wants a gun license should be able to score high on a realistic simulator, like a driving test. Treat it like karting compared to real car racing.
That said, I have found that games like "Descent" (shooting at robots and mining machines) give me just as much excitement as games shooting at people, with fewer qualms. (Yes, it's an old example.)
PS - book partly based on this concept - "Quozl" by Alan Dean Foster. Aliens have ultra-violent entertainment and games *precisely* to avoid their inclinations to be violent in reality.
Why not mandate governors which make it impossible to exceed the max. highway speed limit in an area?
Several thousand people are killed each year riding motorcycles, why not ban them?
One woman ran over her child while backing up her SUV --- removing the reverse gear is a bit much, so let's mandate rear-view cameras (in addition to obnoxious beeps and extra mirrors which reduce gas mileage).
Some people are too careless w/ their near silent electric cars / hybrids when not running the engine, so let's mandate speakers blaring out noise since noise pollution isn't a real-world concern.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you. Let's have a little personal responsibility instead, okay?
Wait, this could be good. What would arcade game manufacturers have to do to work around this? The only thing I can think of would be some sort Kinect-esque system where the child just needs to hold their hand up to the game in a gun like fashion and go "bang, bang" like they do anyway. Or perhaps have one hand as the gun and one hand on a fire button. It could work. This could be a great catalyst for some innovation.
We get to decide between two morons for each position and then we are shocked when they propose dumb things, or just do nothing at all.
I used to play Time Crisis a lot in college, almost 20 years ago. While drunk. Haven't shot anyone yet.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
...like this 13-year-girl. She's getting out of the house, away from staring at a screen, spending time with family and learning useful skills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yd4B77PkeaU
I feel sorry for folks stuck living in places where this sort of thing is prohibited or considered socially unacceptable.
Hey, if we get attacked by floating metal balls, cartoon bullseyes, and aliens at Area 51, I want kids covering my back with covering fire if there's no adults around.
This is the slippery slope. Thanks Liberals.
Thanks, conservatives.
"I've met the man in the street. He's a cunt."
-- Sid Vicious
Don't ban the real guns, its the fake ones that are doing the real harm!
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
The best way to get kids to want something? Take it away from them. Brilliant.
Be ready to give the guns to the criminals, and you'll be a criminal for protecting yourself.
Times are REALLY backwards... People react with knee-jerk reactions which are not intelligent, or thought out.
Good luck to you America. You were a shining beacon to freedom in the world. Progressive politics killed you. Damn shame.
They might encourage kids to take up stoning people to death!
Mathematically insignificant really. It's only because of the media sensationalism that this is even a national issue. More people die horrible deaths from so many other things that we do nothing about.
I thought arcades died in the 80's. Only thing I've ever seen that resembles an arcade are those little nooks in malls and movie theaters. Even then the only thing i notice are those damn DDR machines with their flashing lights and techno music.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
How about put parents in jail if their offspring commits crimes under the age of 18?
Are they involved in a point-and-shoot video game. Hey, just askin.....
I can just see this arcades like Dave & Busters having a "membership only area" where for the price a quarter you can join with parents consent where that quarter will be applied to your first game. That would be away around it, right?
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
WTF is an arcade grampa? (Barely looking up from Cowadoody on the 60" oled display in their bedrooms.)
I'm just waiting for the legislation requiring modification to the human genome, so that the thumb opposes the pinky finger, making it impossible for one to make "pew-pew" hand gestures. After all, this is the root cause of violence in American society, not the recent 4.5 year economic down turn, reduction in psychiatric services, or the continued marketing ploy dividing Americans into convenient niche groups.
Huh, maybe we should focus on the loons using guns to kill rather than kids playing games. Time to put the blame where the blame is due, not guns; not video games; but LOONS and CROOKS.
Heh, most dads make comments about sitting on the porch with a shotgun waiting on their daughter to get him from her first date.
I wonder whats going to happen in her house ...
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They'll ban toy guns. Then I wonder what they'll use next as a scapegoat after the next mass shooting. Lets see....anything but guns. When it comes to pinpointing and admitting to the full cause of these shootings, the gun advocates just keep missing the target.
Or phone sex on pay phones.
Gun games were really huge in the late 80s to late 90s and have pretty much disappeared.
The most popular ones like T2 Judgement Day and Alien 3: The Gun had recoil and provided a very realistic experience. There were lots of them in arcades, Lethal Enforcers, LA Machine Guns, Virtua Cop, Mad Dog McCree, etc. All home game systems back then had gun peripherals too; Justifier, Super Scope, NES Zapper, Sega Light Phaser, Menacer, etc. Nobody thought twice about it. Some were quite realistic and used real video footage or digitized images of actors that you shot at.
So it's weird to blame these types of games in 2013, which had their heyday largely pre-Columbine. I should point out that when these games were at the peak of their popularity, we had _less_ mass shootings than we do now.
I recently read This (https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/chris-dorner-wrongful-termination) article. It leans towards social issues spurring violence, not desensitization. It's probably as biased as any other source of news, but I think it puts forward an interesting point of view that doesn't see much serious consideration.
They'd ban children from attending churches until they were old enough to think for themselves.
First they burn books, then they burn people.
is not the appropriate place to start the body of your message.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
What if a link were found between actual gun violence and violent video games?
I imagine that it wouldn't matter -- the folks here would go all global-warming-denialist on the researchers, write knee-jerk responses screaming "correlation is not causation" (even though causation implies correlation), etc.
Whether the link is there or not, I have not studied. But I'll never forget the comment of a fellow coder during a brief stint I had at a game studio -- that we were "working on a murder simulator" (it made me think really hard about the cool new gig I had landed).
No link again? I think maybe you didn't read the results right, here's a sack of cash, check it again.
We better hide the Monopoly game too....we don't want our kids turning into thieving bankers. We should also hide all the Hungry Hungry Hippo games. They send entirely the wrong message. Hippos are dangerous, people! They do NOT like to eat big white marbles! Thank goodness this esteemed senator is taking the right steps to protect our children.
I look forward to taking my kids hunting when they are older. My 4 1/2 year old already likes going fishing and we went almost every weekend last spring summer and fall (when the weather wasn't shitty or there weren't other plans). Then this is the same child who also last summer learned how to operate the chain saw (with dad's help) but lots of people would find that offensive as well, including my neighbor who calls the cops on me all the time.
Time to offend someone
Dad probably won't have to worry but the boy friend will.
Time to offend someone
The idea is that if you can't repeal the 2nd Amendment, try work around it - by using methods like stigmatization and brainwashing.
My other UID is three digits.
The UK's handgun ban is still a relatively recent thing.
The strange part would be that if you go back in history before the gun ban, the US murder rate was even higher and the UK's lower. After you banned guns your murder rate rose/remained stable(mostly), while after a time the US murder rate underwent a huge drop.
Oh, and the black thing - I'm not racist, but we have done some incredibly bad things to the blacks in our country; as a result a violent and destructive culture has developed; mostly self-destructive. There are areas in the USA where if you're a black man the odds are you'll die a violent death before 40.
In general, if you're not in those areas, as a white person you're safer in the USA than you are in Europe.
I don't read AC A human right
nor are the real ones.. It's a toxic, oppressively passive aggressive culture obsessed with political correctness over truth that pushes lanzas over the line. While our politicians bicker about access to methods, they conveniently (for them) ignore their own parts in it.
...this idea would work about as well for the targeted age group as abstinence-only sex ed does.
Seriously?
Your sarcasm detector needs new batteries.
that shooting these guns at the arcade is lots of fun! ;-)
When I was a kid I made 'guns' out of sticks and yet it hasn't affected me in a negative way and I'm a violent person. I don't see an issue with it.
Wouldn't it be better for concerned parents to just take an active role in parenting and not give their kids money to use them?
When I was a kid, I went to the arcade. I played violent point and shoot video games such as Space Invaders. I turned out o . . . turned out o . . .um, . . . okay.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
nor are the real ones.. It's a toxic, oppressively passive aggressive culture obsessed with political correctness over truth that pushes lanzas over the line. While our politicians bicker about access to methods, they conveniently (for them) ignore their own parts in it.
Of course, we can just ignore those gun violence stats that say that people do use real guns to kill people.
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Violent video games do NOT cause violent behavior in our children; if this were the case, we would see a correlation between violent video game sales and youth violence. Instead, we see the opposite: as video game sales in general (with violent games comprising a large component of overall sales) have doubled over the last 15 to 20 years, the rate of youth violence (as measured by arrests) has been more than halved. The only correlation to be drawn here is that playing video games will make a young'un four times LESS likely to commit a violent crime.
And further, when looking at the statistics and accounting for the time of year that games are purchased versus when violent youth offenses tend to occur, the difference is even greater: Video game sales peak, of course, during the Christmas season, while youth violence peaks during the summer. (Relevant source: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1804959)
Now, I'm not suggesting that the correlations implied by these data -- that video game sales correlate to decreases in youth violence -- should be interpreted as causal. (Especially the summer-versus-winter part; that has too many uncontrolled relevant details, like how frequency of playing relates to time of purchase, how law enforcement focus on youth crimes relates to time of year, etc.) But I will suggest that these definitely show that the opposite conclusion -- that violent video games contribute to youth violence -- is fundamentally unfounded.
The problem that we are seeing is a perceived increase not in overall youth violence, but in a specific type of youth violence: The mass shooting of innocent civilians, usually in the offender's school. Assuming that this increase is real, and not just a result of greater news exposure, etc -- and I believe it is real -- then clearly, the cause is something other than video games, and in fact, the data indicate no reason to suspect that violent video games contribute to these acts at all. Besides, I think it's clear that the real culprit is the use of Autotune in the music to which kids listen these days. Nothin' but noise, I tell ya!
But consider this: All school shootings since Columbine are similar only on their face. The overall procedure is the same: one or more offenders goes on a rampage and shoots lots of people at school - but the motivations of the offenders seems to have no correlation at all. This seems to me to clearly indicate that the increase in the frequency of these shootings is due to children's tendency to copy each other's actions, and not to an overall increase in violent tendencies in our youth, either video-game inspired or otherwise. Add in the effect of the immediate, worldwide, unflinching focus on such events afforded by 24-hours cable news and the internet -- and I think you all see where I'm going. I'll sign off now and go to work.
I turned out o . . . turned out o . . .um, . . . okay.
...and anyone who disagrees with that should take it up with my friends Smith and Weston....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
What's an arcade?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Both the left and the right are yelling at each other, and making really stupid points without getting anything of substance done about gun violence.
Banning toy guns is something that the Left thinks 'Sounds Good", and the Right thinks is taking away their "god given" right to guns, and is just total bullshit. And I consider myself a Liberal.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Do kids even play arcade games any more? I think this law is 20 years too late for the good senator.
' ... proposed a bill in January that would ban anyone younger than 18 from playing 'violent point-and-shoot' video games in arcades or other public establishments.'
No fake plastic guns in public for you, laddie. Fake plastic guns in the home, fine. In public, you must use real guns! But fake ones, NEVER!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)