Indecent Game Sales Now A Felony In New York

Gamespot reports on the final passing of New York senate bill A8696, legislation proposed just last week, that now makes it a serious felony to sell or rent a violent game to minors. The bill makes it illegal to sell a console without parental control options and establishes a group to second guess the ESRB's rating decisions. "'This bill is impermissibly vague,' EMA president Bo Andersen said in a statement. 'A8696 seeks to apply real-world standards of violence to the fictional and fanciful world of video games, an environment in which they have no meaning. As a result, retailers and clerks will not and cannot know with certainty which video games could send them to jail under A8696. It was depressing to hear members of the Assembly note the constitutional problems with the bill and then state that they were voting for it.'" The senate seems to have no fear of possible overturn of the bill, and claims it's only thinking of the children.

Re:Yeah, It Won't Be Overturned

[drinkypoo]

If it's not Congress making a law, I don't understand how it's unconstitutional.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution [wikipedia.org]

HTH, HAND

Re:Yeah, It Won't Be Overturned

[eln]

Even if you're right, and I don't think you are, this law is still unconstitutional because the New York State Constitution, Article I, Section 8, prohibits passing laws abridging the freedom of speech:

Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.

Re:Yeah, It Won't Be Overturned

[CrashPoint]

Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Re:A felony?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, pirating media can get you a longer sentence than kiddie porn.

Re:Classic systems have no parental controls..

[Constantine XVI]

Neither does the Nintendo DS. The current best-selling game system is now illegal in New York, which is also the location of Nintendo World. Way to go NY

Re:politicians.

[Kelbear]

Handgun restrictions vary heavily from state to state.

For example, here in New Jersey, it took 3 written reference letters and 6 weeks of processing for my law-abiding honors-student volunteer firefighter friend to get his gun permit.

Transporting the gun requires that the gun be unloaded with the ammo kept away from the gun. The gun must be in the trunk. The gun must be locked in a safe.

There's a great deal of restrictions out there. The problem is that it doesn't do anything to discourage those who have acquired their guns illegally, like my other friend who owns an unregistered shotgun with a shaved off serial number.

Re:You know, I don't get it.

[praxis]

Asking retailers to follow a rating system is just fine, and intrudes on no adult freedoms. I think the problem with this particular bill are two fold:

1) It's makes it a felony, which is a bit harsh for what it's trying to do. As far as I know, selling cigarettes to minors is not a felony, for example.

2) It doesn't proscribe any metric by which permitted and verbotten games are determined. To return to the cigarette analogy, every retailer that sells cigarettes knows what a tobacco product looks like. Not every video game store clerk knows what a "voilent" video game box looks like.

Sure he can use the ESRB rating to make a judgement, but then he's usuing a different metric than the law, and possibly facing a felony charge while the girl accross the mall selling the pack of smokes knows exactly what she's doing and facing a lesser charge.

At least, that's my truck with it. (I didn't do my fact checking on the cigarette sales laws, so I could be wrong and they could be felony charges too, but I find that unlikely)