Utah Senate, House Pass Jack Thompson's Game Sales Bill 200
Ars Technica reports that the Utah State Senate and House have both passed Jack Thompson's proposed legislation that would stiffen penalties for the sale of M-rated games to minors. Oddly, on its trip through the state legislature, amendments rendered it largely ineffective; retailers are in the clear if the employee who sold the game goes through a training program, or if the minor misrepresents his age. It's also possible that the bill could cause some retailers to simply take down their ESRB-related advertising. Thompson's statements about the bill put the focus on advertising, but discussion on the Utah Senate floor had a familiar ring, touching on the story of a Grand Theft Auto player who killed two policemen in 2003. The ESRB wrote an open letter in opposition of the bill, saying it could undo the efforts they've made to popularize their rating system. The bill's sponsors fired back, questioning the industry's overall commitment to ratings, and now it awaits only the governor's signature before becoming law.
Wow.... legislators in Utah (Score:2, Insightful)
must be required to at least pass the 3rd grade?
Even if one video game player killed a cop, that doesn't begin to make things equal to cops who kill with tasers, or cops who accidentally kill innocent civilians because they are too fucking ignorant to make sure they are doing the no-knock raid on the right house.
More fairness in legislation! Yes, the Utah legislators are right on the money for this one. God forbid terrorist game players ever leave the grip of their game consoles.... fucking idiots
The gist (Score:5, Insightful)
Good use of public money (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how state after state try to pass this exact same bad law, only to have it shot down in the courts and they have to pay legal fines.
Great to know they're doing something productive.
Training programs? (Score:5, Insightful)
'Training programs' sound like a money-maker for the videogame censorship movement.
Re:why are people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, this is Utah.
Re:Wow.... legislators in Utah (Score:5, Insightful)
This is no different than the war waged by the religious fanatics (and yes, folks, Utah is filled with them) against fantasy roleplaying games. They latched on to something of an urban myth surrounding James Dallas Egbert III [wikipedia.org]. Religious fanaticism, ignorance and intense dishonesty go hand in hand with these types.
Re:Come Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Come Again? (Score:1, Insightful)
Breathing bad.
Amendment:
LOL j/k, breathing is okey-dokey.
Man hours spent drafting: 10,000-15,000
Because that's what this is boiling down to, and you were just dumb enough to admit that you're perfectly fine with it on the intarwebs for all to see. Seriously, you're JUST FINE with how much time was wasted on this in lieu of, well, everything else?
Re:Amendment 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Come Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the people ragging against video games can point out that retailers don't even follow the ESRB ratings, and claim that the self-regulation clearly is not working, and try to get even more harsh, government backed regulations in place to fully replace the ESRB.
As far as the bills official intent, it seems pretty fail. But it has potential to encourage, and perhaps even achieve, the bills proponents' eventual goals.
Re:Come Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that a law is unenforceable doesn't mean that it should be there on the books just for shits and giggles.
Re:Friggin' Utah. (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess Utah Mormon is a bit of a different breed than Mormons from almost everywhere else. It must be the effect of any one group having a majority.
Interesting you should say that. As a Mormon who was born and raised in the Seattle area, spent 4 years living in Utah while going to school, and who has since moved back to the Seattle area to start my career, I have some of the same feelings.
Just yesterday I was in the car with a good friend (also a Mormon who has lived in and out of Utah) and we came the similar conclusion that whenever you have a group that homogeneous, it is human tendency for certain "quirks" to emerge which do not necessarily reflect the identity of the group abroad. You could expect some of the same culturalisms to emerge (some good, some bad) for any other homogenous group.
That said, I do differ from you in that I could see myself living there (though you would have to pay me to leave Seattle). After living there for a year or two, you learn to ignore the parts of the culture you don't like and embrace the ones that you do.
Re:GTA prevents cop kills (Score:5, Insightful)
Catharsis is a myth; no research supports it. All we've ever learned from psychology research about violence is that it is largely a learned behavior. Kids will learn it mainly from family and friends but they also learn violence from strangers, TV, movies, music, and games. Now, violent media may not explain a lot of the variance in violent behaviors but it is completely naive to say that it does not have an affect. There are some people who can drink alcohol and never become alcoholic; there are others who try alcohol once and become alcoholic very quickly. It's the same with violence. Just because violent games may not generally lead to increased rates of violence in a society, does not mean that they don't for some people.
I'm not calling for a censorship of violent games. I'm not even sure I like this legislation (I'd have to read the full bill to form a good opinion) and I'm certainly not in favor of a government doing the parenting that parents should do but kids don't need to be playing some of the games that they play.
Re:Good use of public money (Score:3, Insightful)
This, of course, only means that it's toothless as well as being unconstitutional.
Re:Friggin' Utah. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why are people... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:GTA prevents cop kills (Score:2, Insightful)
Violence is a learned behavior? I cant think of a more natural action then violence. Really irritates me when people forget that humans are still animals, driven by the same urges as animals, with only sentience to quell it. When one animal kills another we ascribe no malice to it, but when a human does it all of a sudden its a crime against god....
Re:GTA prevents cop kills (Score:2, Insightful)
This troubles me. I can definitely deduce a sense of inverted logocentrism in your post. Human beings are not animals. Even "animals" are not animals - at least not in the sense you advocate. What you refer to (if I read your post correctly) is the paranoic human ecology. A radical separation of self from world, such that self *becomes* world.
I think it important to stand against human/human crime on the very assertion you make in your original post.
but when a human does it all of a sudden its a crime against god....
As Martin Niemoller said "We must go on believing there is a god, even though we know there is none." And I think, given the horrors MN experienced in Nazi concentration camps, an intense focus on some thirteen-year-old playing GTA is silly.
Re:GTA prevents cop kills (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Tell me what you don't understand. I'll explicate, if you're polite.
2) Yeah, I guess I could have just said "be nice," "make love, not war." They do make good sound-bites, don't they...? But were I do go about preaching like that I'd run the risk of being a hippie. I find the idea of humans killing other human beings under the auspices of "we are all animals, right?" completely irrational and utterly repugnant AND has nothing to do with neither "being nice" nor "making war."
3) Please don't conflate yourself with the rest of humanity; in my opinion, it's highly paranoic and unbecoming. Just because you can't take the time to process my post does not necessitate the highly aliening comment:
please make sure to post in a language we can understand.
You are "we" now...? What incredible powers you must possess!!
and 4) I'm going to write howsoever I choose. Bite me.
Hope that's "English" enough for you.
Re:why are people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful?
It's getting as bad as Digg around here.
How about this: Politicians (UT or otherwise) are idiots who will do anything they *think* will make them popular. Right now fighting the evil scourge of video games is a popular choice.
The fact that they're doing this all over the nation should teach us several things -- none of which is "Um, this is Utah."
Re:GTA prevents cop kills (Score:3, Insightful)
We are as wired for violence as we are for sex. Natural hormones drive both agression and mating.
Re:why are people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's safer for you to just stay at home bubble boy.
Your right to smoke stops at the bubble boy's lungs.
If you think you can force your poison into his body, maybe he'll think he can force his blade or bullet into yours. So be civil, because you won't like an escalation of violence. You really won't.
Re:why are people... (Score:3, Insightful)
First. I do not smoke cigarettes.
Second. In a small confined space I can see that smoking should be curtailed. Really though. A lot of place have laws now that you cant smoke outside. This is not about where someones rights end. This is truly about those who believe they are smarter than everyone else deciding what they think others should and should not be able to do.
Third. Sir you show your true extreme left wing colors when you think that escalating from smoking in a bus to shooting someone is anywhere near the ability to even be mentioned.
Training (Score:3, Insightful)
"Retailers are in the clear if the employee who sold the game goes through a training program."
I wonder which politicians friend will be given the no-bid contract on administering the "training program"? Should bring in a nice fee... 50% of which can be funneled into back into a campaign fund.