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.

Just go to kid-whose-parents-dont-care's house

[192939495969798999]

We all knew the kid growing up who had the porn, whose parents didn't care, and who had the latest violent-est video game. I guarantee that this will not slow down kids' exposure to such games, because they'll all just congregate at ol'johnny's house to play re-bloodening 3. It might slow down individual sales, but if exposure to the game is the problem, then consider it as unsolved as ever. In fact, making the games harder to get usually makes them more attractive to kids, as in "this one must be really bad, lets go to johnny's and see!"

Sad

[mulvane]

I actually at first thought to myself 'Is this for real or an onion piece?', but then it dawned on me that such bad legislation is par for the course. Sure one could say ignorance of the law is no excuse, but come on, ignorance of what someone else may think of as violent or indecent contrary to an already established rating system? I'm in the military, and I value what this country was built upon, but I have serious problems with what it has become and where it is going. The vote of the people doesn't even matter anymore. Content publishers and big money pay wages to the political machine that far outweighs the repercussions of going against popular belief and thinking of the people they are supposed to serve.

Need responsible legislators

[RichMan]

Proposal:

Should a legislator vote for a law/bill later found by a court to be unconstitutional that legistlator shall immediatly be dismissed from their post having been essentially found to be "acting against the constitution". Such shall not apply to direct attempts to modify the constitution.

Classic systems have no parental controls..

[LordJezo]

The NES, SNES, Genesis, Atari, Game Boy, etc.

None of them have parental controls. Does that mean selling classic systems is illegal? Or do the old ones get grandfathered in?

Re:politicians.

[GreyPoopon]

Please remember that, living in the XVIIIth century, the Founding Fathers were obviously out of touch with what is happening (what was will happen? what would happen? I hate tenses) in the XXIst.

In some respects, yes, but certainly not in the right to bear arms. It was a direct response to oppression by a government that had no respect for their individual freedoms and that tried to take away their ability to defend themselves. Case in point: because of the unrest among the colonies and the reaction to British attempts to control the situation, Lord Dunmore (governor of Virginia), ordered marines to empty the Magazine in Williamsburg of its power, with the expectation that this would leave the citizens and local militia unable to stage a rebellion against the British government. Up until this point, the vast majority of Virginians were loyal to the Crown and although unsatisfied with the situation, were determined to resolve the issues. Lord Dunmore's actions more or less sparked the Revolution (or was the straw that broke the camel's back). Founding fathers carefully considered this (and other actions) when they drafted the constitution, and it's just as relevant today. Almost all the US citizens here on Slashdot complain about erosion of freedom, and yet we hear people calling for more gun control. While I'm an advocate for peaceful resistance, giving up your ability to contain an errant government by force as a last resort is anything but wise. While probably not the best way of dealing with the federal government, it has been used successfully in the history of the US to deal with a corrupt local government.

Re:Mindset Schmindset

[Chabo]

Not just because of invasion. One of the main purposes of a militia is to keep the government in check. That whole "Enemies, foreign and domestic" thing.

As a free society, a side benefit of having arms is using them for other purposes, including self defense, sustenance (hunting, and I think hunting without taking the meat is extremely wasteful), and any other purpose that does not infringe on the rights of other law-abiding citizens.

You know, I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can we as a society accept that not letting kids into theaters to see R rated movies alone, allowing TV ratings with v-chip blocking, and other such things, be so up in arms about denying M-rated games to kids? Is there something I'm just not understanding here?

If there is some lack of freedom for the rest of us this is causing, then fine, but all I'm seeing is that they're asking retailers to *GASP* follow the guidelines of the rating system just like they do for movies and not let kids get M-rated games on their own.

So what's the deal? What, exactly, is wrong with this?

Given the entire videogame industry seems to disagree, I'll post anonymously to save my karma.

Re:politicians.

[Chabo]

The portions of the Constitution that deal with how the government is to be run are debatable, IMO. If you want to change the manner in which Senators are elected, that's fine by me (17th Amendment).

However, if you honestly want to change the Bill of Rights, I will fight you to the death. Those are the portions that secure individuals our freedom. I would not even think of letting you change the Third Amendment, let alone the Second. The only way in which the Bill of Rights could be improved would be to give freedom, not take it away.

Re:politicians.

[John Betonschaar]

If what you call 'personal freedom' is so aptly represented by the right to bear firearms, I'd say you have a really strange idea of 'freedom'. IMO the most important representatives of personal freedom are freedom of speech, freedom of thought, political preferences, sexual preferences, the right to decide what you do with your own property, the right to proper health care and education, even for the less wealthy, etc. etc. etc. Guns of all things *don't even occur to me* when thinking of personal freedom...

Still, the USA are famous for their bad public health care for large groups of people, their hypocritcal views on sexuality and different sexual preferences, strong commercial lobbies that dictate politics instead of common sense, government censorship, irrational soft drugs (why is smoking a joint not'personal freedom') and alcohol policy and so on. Yet the *one* thing that virtually no 'free people' from other parts of the world (the right to have guns) care about, seems to be the only fucking thing that matters when it comes down to 'freedom'.

You just enjoy your guns... err.. freedom...

Re:A felony?!?

[oGMo]

Just wait, pretty soon pirating a HD DVD will be right up there with rape (if its not there already).

I believe rape gets you 3-5 years, whereas copyright violation can get you 10 and a $250k-per-incident fine. Just goes to show what our politicians really value.

Re:politicians.

[Chabo]

I agree with your first statement in spirit, but not in wording. Certain rights are inalienable, and belong to men regardless of what a government says. However, freedoms are taken away all the time, since people are not willing to do the work necessary to hold on to them. You don't have to look hard to find examples.

To answer your question, it's because they are the cornerstone rights that make up the foundation for a free society. The founding fathers wrote the rest of the Constitution as well, but I could care less about most of the document. As I said, those parts detail the how, not the why. Hell, if you want to take out some of the "enumerated powers" of Congress, I'd be more than happy to let you. Commerce Clause, anyone? ;)