California Legislature Passes Violent Game Bill

404Ender writes "In a move similar to the passage of a law designed to restrict the sale of violent video games to children in Illinois, California is now awaiting only the signature of Governor Schwarzenegger before a similar bill becomes a law. Does this action signal the start of a disturbing trend of the restriction of First Amendment rights? How can we as gamers fight back against this type of government action?"

Re:Maybe you should re-read the constitution.

[HeavyK]

The MPAA rating systme isn't inforced by law. It's voluntary just like the ESRB. And that's the way it should be.
Also minors DO have First Amendment rights. So this law does have to do with free speech and the constitution.

Full text

[Anonymous Coward]

Full text of the bill: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_1151-120 0/ab_1179_bill_20050908_amended_sen.html [ca.gov]

Silly sticker, but otherwise OK.

[cgenman]

Inflamatory rhetoric aside, this seems like an OK bill. Basically, it is saying that certain types of media can't be sold to kids without parental permission. This is consistent with movies and other forms of entertainment.

The whole "2-inch sticker" seems a bit ridiculous, especially because it implies a new ratings system, a new ratings board, etc. But that's a pragmatic problem, not an ethical one. Both sides come out smelling like zealots here, with one side saying that it will destroy first amendment rights, and the other saying that videogames are as bad for you physically as smoking.

I also don't necessarily agree with the findings of the bills, that "Even minors who do not commit acts of violence suffer psychological harm from prolonged exposure to violent video games." Taken literally, this is true of basically anything. It does go into some lovingly crafted detail [ca.gov] on what constitutes violence. I'll be amused to find out how the courts decide to interpret the requirement that a virtual victim must be conscious of the abuse at the time it is inflicted.

Re:Restrict the sale to children?

[Dormann]

I'm pretty sure it's:

Restrict (the sale to children)

not:

(Restrict the sale) to childern

(I get the joke, I'm just saying the grammar gets a C+, not a D-)

Re:1st Amendment Rights lost?

[suitepotato]

Wrong further. Pornography is BANNED under American legal precedent BECAUSE it is considered obscenity and obscenity is considered outside the First Ammendment. Adult entertainment must be pegged by a court AS pornogrpahy AND obscenity or it is merely indeceny but NOT pornography. The government does NOT regulate the sale of porn which would be regulating the sale therefore of obscenity and thus by default admitting that it has its place, rather it regulates the sale of objectionable materials and their assumed affects on individuals based on age, statistical experience, and a lot of assumptions.

This splitting of hairs has largely come about because the majority of Americans publicly would ban adult entertainment and not just limit it but privately want to be free to enjoy it if they change their mind. They want to have their cake and eat it too. There's also a fair amount of emotional and spiritual exhaustion on this in the land after close to thirty years of the subject being intertwined with everything from civil rights to Viet Nam to television.

Minor nitpick, but it is important to the remember that at present in the US, any speech or press deemed without redeeming value and in contravention of the supermajority of community standards is thus considered obscene and thus not protected whatsoever. However, not a lot manages to satisfy that for every judge up the chain to the SCotUS which has taken for itself the status of ultimate arbiter when in fact the US Constitution gives no such power to them or the executive or legislative branches to decide what the line to draw is or even that there can be such a line.

Re:yes, it's absurd

[Shaper_pmp]

"How about, why can't my *fourteen* year old drive himself to school?"

If you need an explanation for this, you're either trolling, making a joke or need to get your head examined.

We have enough problems on the roads currently with supposedly mature, otherwise-sensible grown adults who drive stupidly, drive drunk, drive without insurance or in unfit vehicles, and your solution is what, to open up driving to people even less mature and sensible?

And that's leaving aside the implications of putting half a ton of speeding metal in the hands of young adolescents, who clinical studies have shown routinely suffer from a measurable loss of co-ordination and judgement during puberty.

I agree that treating someone who's 17 and 11 months the same as someone who's 2 1/2 is stupid, but we don't. Instead (eg, with film certifications) we carefully degrade rights as the age gets younger, to allow for the progressive drop in maturity, experience and responsibility.

Everyone knows a wise-beyond-his-years 17 year-old, and everyone knows a pathetically immature 40 year-old. However, two extreme and discrete data points doesn't constitute a valid basis for a rule which applies to everyone.

We can either lump people into rough groups based on age, and set rules which are fair for the majority of that group, or we can institute a draconian "citizenship examinations" scheme, where everyone has to pass additional specific "maturity" tests to gain rights like freedom of speech and association, voting, licence to drive a vehicle or own a handgun, licence to drink, etc, etc, etc.

Legally, politically, culturally, ethically (who sets the rules? Who defines "maturity"?) and bureaucratically this is clearly a non-starter, so what's your alternative?

It should also be noted that I'm not unsympathetic to your point - I'm only 25, and remember what it was like to be (apparently an unusually mature) 18 quite clearly. I'm also fully aware of how much further I've matured even since then, and the thought of the average 14 year-old I know pissed-up, with a gun, behind the wheel of a car is terrifying.