Missouri Republican Wants Violent Video Game Tax 506
New submitter sHr0oMaN writes with news that Diane Franklin, a Republican member of Missouri's state House of Representatives, has proposed a sales tax on violent video games. The proposal, HB0157I, is one of many responses to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The proceeds from the tax would go toward mental health programs and law enforcement in the hopes that future shootings can be prevented. The total amount taxed would be small — 1% — and would be applied to video games rated Teen, Mature, or Adult-only by the ESRB. Of course, many games earn the "Teen" rating without having violence in them, like Guitar Hero. The Entertainment Software Association responded to Rep. Franklin's bill with a statement: "Taxing First Amendment protected speech based on its content is not only wrong, but will end up costing Missouri taxpayers."
Never let a serious crisis go to waste... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rahm Emanuel
So everyone you see these days flogging one plan or another in wake of Sandy Hook really don't give 2 shits about the kids that were killed, just about using the emotional uproar to advance their agenda and get it passed in a flurry of reflexive emotion.
Religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Religion causes more violence than video games.
Tax churches.
Can't always get what you want (Score:4, Insightful)
Missouri Republican Wants Violent Video Game Tax
And I want idiots like him to shut the fuck up, respect my freedom, and do something useful. Oh well, I guess we can't always get what we want, and I suspect neither of us will in this case.
Re:Misdirection (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, but that doesn't excuse the giant misdirection from the left with its assumption that more bans = safer (look at chicago, and we tried this with alcohol too). If anything, more bans increases the pressure of the conflict. People who shoot up schools/malls/whatever are highly motivated. Making guns harder to get will not stop these people. If the goal is to prevent these events, then the leadership should spend more time fixing the core problems of our society, like the dying economy and civil liberties instead of passing populist kneejerk unsolutions. When most people are doing well, fewer are interested in killing.
Re:Misdirection (Score:2, Insightful)
a crazy end-of-times-preparing mother
Perhaps it's the "speak no ill of the dead" rule, but I hadn't heard anything bad about the mother, almost nothing about her, other than she was trying to get him committed at the time, and even that seems unreliable, given the other early reports that were simply wrong, but repeated more than the truth itself.
The exception proves the exception (Score:4, Insightful)
Outside the USA, gun bans are normal and deaths by weapons are all a tiny fraction of those in the USA. Where guns are allowed (e.g. Switzerland has quite a few) they get a lot more deaths, Swiss being more prone to just killing themselves than gun rampage+suicide.
Gun's don't kill people, people with guns kill people.
People with knives, you can run away from, guns though are designed to give the owner a killing advantage. There's simply no need for a killing advantage unless your intention is to kill.
"like the dying economy and civil liberties instead of passing populist kneejerk unsolutions"
So you're blaming the kid going into school with his moms GUN on the economy?
"Kneejerk", hardly kneejerk, this has been raised again and again and needs to be tackled but Republican gun nuts like Diane Franklin would sacrifice thousands of school children for their few thousand dollars NRA lobby money.
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me crazy but aren't most people educated in public facilities that could theoretically have people in them? Of those theoretical people how many would you say probably have at least one functioning eye and one functioning ear? Now of that subset how many do you figure would have a functioning mouth?
The real problem isn't the lack of observers but the lack of responders to the observations from the observers. The criminal justice system is the only established means of dealing with mental illness in the United States. If a kid has a problem and the parents can't/won't bankroll it themselves, then there are effectively zero treatment options available until the kid gets a criminal record. The government won't pay for it neither will health insurance won't pay for it. Even if they did, there exists no legal framework outside of criminal law to force someone into treatment when justified.
Is there a contest going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Stupidest Proposed Law in Response to a Tragedy" or something? I'm seeing a lot of entries lately.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to ban guns. I'm male, and I think guns are cool. But seriously, sort yourselves out over there.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:2, Insightful)
The factor that you ignore is that these countries with draconian gun controls had fewer per capita gun murders than the US when their people were armed.
LK
It has to be misdirection. (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the fucking industrialized world has violent video games and violent movies, and the vast majority of them do not see the gun deaths we do.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously your not going to blame a corrupted to the core economy which has a billion links and citations to go with it on people loosing their f'ing minds?
I can't get inside this dumb ass kids head, but I imagine he was pretty sure he was going to live a life of servitude to a master he didn't want. He probably didn't ever get a real shitkicking, so didn't learn empathy for pain and suffering. He probably suckled at his mothers teat his whole life. He probably was angry and wanted to end it. He probably was made fun of in school as a kid and blamed other kids for his unhappiness. He was also probably medicated into oblivion so at the time he just had rationalizations based on his anger issues.
The problem is our culture forbids natural selection. From the top down. Politicians and Rich first. We need to bring in a ninja caste to this god-damned country if you ask me.
Fuck banning guns, ban stupidity first. Thats why the fuck the 2cnd amendment was written. But no one wants to put their balls on the line, they stopped doing that when we eliminated militia's and when instead of loosing the war, the god-damned Nazi's just migrated into our country, minus a figurehead or two.
This Blonde "Bimbo" has more balls then any man I know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis [youtube.com]
And to my knowledge she didn't kill anybody yet, she's just grounded the fuck in reality.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:3, Insightful)
P.S. our medical system is 500% more fucking corrupt then our economic system. Pharmaceuticals, corrupt ass doctors, pushing drugs that destroy peoples sex drives and wreck their lives. Just for control and more money. Ignoring the real socia-political-cultural problems. We stopped dealing with it as a society when we stopped being politically incorrect and rallying, forcibly if necessary.
Re:Video Game Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Misdirection (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Video Game Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
small government really means 'go light on the social services'. that's the code word translation from republican-speak to normal english.
note that 'social services' includes our sewers, roads, infrastructure; you know, what us commoners rely on.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:4, Insightful)
You can sanitize the environment all you like, but if someone wants to kill, they will.
There is a huge difference between someone killing someone they hate and someone mowing down 30 people to kill someone they hate because he has an ak-47.
Re:Religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Flamebait? Hes spot on. If we were actually interested in reducing violence we would tax religion to death. Nothing better demonstrates government's vested interest in violence then the tax free status of religion.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:4, Insightful)
The factor that you ignore is that these countries with draconian gun controls had fewer per capita gun murders than the US when their people were armed.
Even before the "draconian gun controls", no other country in the world has ever had as many people with guns as the USA now. While other countries have tried to reduce the risks, Americans have only gotten more and more heavily armed and suffer the consequences.
How about the 1% tax be placed on GUNS ? Dur... (Score:4, Insightful)
You could use the funds for the very purpose described.
But of course not, because then that might acknowledge that guns are part of the problem with gun violence (shocker!). The fact she was endorsed by the NRA in 2012 has nothing to do with it either obviously...
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:1, Insightful)
Such as the murder rate going down.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
If you make anthrax illegal, only criminals will have anthrax!
Try government (Score:5, Insightful)
Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. Governments have murdered far more people than religion has. In fact, that's exactly why we have the second amendment. The government has a much harder time killing innocent people when they are armed.
The governments of the world have murdered far more children than citizens ever have.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Since this gun regulation conversation is overwhelmingly about firearms - as in, projectile weapons - I think it's fairly safe to assume that that's what the GP was talking about, rather than nuclear....
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:2, Insightful)
The factor you're ignoring is that when a person is assaulted with a gun, they are 7.5 times more likely to die. Banning guns or at least taking steps to keep them out of the hands of people who are likely to use them to assault other people is harm reduction.
Or worker safety for criminals.
Shockingly, criminals won't be rushing to turn their guns in if there ever were a blanket ban. On the other hand you will be taking them out of the hands of the people getting assaulted so at least it'll be safer for the people doing the assaulting.
Re:The exception proves the exception (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, as a non-gun owner, you say, "well, I must too have a gun." After such an event, everyone's risk of being shot with a gun doubles given that there are now two guns in the community. The original owner of a gun went from a 0% chance to a non-zero percent chance as well. The risk to the community has increased greatly, but yet, two members feel more secure, even though their actual risk increased. Continue that throughout and it's easy to understand the gun nut philosophy.
Those who profess that the problem isn't too many guns but rather too few completely fail at the prisoners dilema. Be sure to avoid doing anything significant with them; they apparently have already proven they will chose their own self interest over the greater good.
Re:Religion (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no mod points, and you're already at +5, but I just wanted to add my +1, Insightful to your comment.
Religion has caused, and is causing, more hate and violence than any political ideology that I can think of in recent times. The tax-free status of religions needs to be revoked immediately.
As a former Christian, I've abandoned the "faith" and I'm currently trying to stop my wife from giving away my hard earned salary to an organisation that cannot prove anything it stands for.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
A missle is a projectile, and can be used to launch bio, chemical, and nuclear weapons. The fact is most "pro-gun" fanatics are quite willing to limit the type of arms people may bear.
Hooray for more DOA laws. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Entertainment Software Association responded to Rep. Franklin's bill with a statement: "Taxing First Amendment protected speech based on its content is not only wrong, but will end up costing Missouri taxpayers."
Not only would this cost Missouri taxpayers extra if implemented (assuming they didn't simply purchase out of state through Amazon), but it'd also cost them a significant amount to defend in court. The government passing laws that disproportionately impact specific speech content is a pretty clear no-no under the First Amendment. If it were ever to pass, it'd be ripped apart by the courts in seconds.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all got to do with living in fear and what do Americans have to fear, why all those gun nuts surrounding them. Why do they need a gun, obviously to protect yourself from other people with guns. Hence the NRA as the lobbyists of gun manufacturers keep promoting more guns as the cure to too many guns. It's all about selling guns and ammunition and has nothing to do with creating safe neighbourhoods, safe work environments or safe schools. Nothing more than cynical psychopathic greed at work in all it's stars and stripes glory.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
has nothing to do with creating safe neighbourhoods, safe work environments or safe schools
Except when it comes to our political and media elites who have armed guards patrolling their gated communities, armed guards at their government and network offices, armed bodyguards when they happen to move around, and armed guards at their schools (at the latest count Obama's children's school hires 11, in addition to the Secret Service detail). But of course when it comes to the children of ordinary citizens, they should rely on the magic of gun-free zones and to repel the criminals and the psychos, and of course the police to arrive 20 minutes after the event and make a body count.
Re:Misdirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns are a thing that exist in this world. Pandora's box has been opened and they're not going away. A good machinist can MAKE a decent gun out of steel bar-stock, and anybody with even a rudimentary understanding of how they work can make a crappy slamfire shotgun out of less than $40 worth of stuff from any hardware store. The recent advances in 3D printing are making home-grown firearms even more simple and capable too.
So yes, if there were no guns then no one would need guns, but since the world if fresh out of genies in order to magically wish them away, then we deal with the situation as best we can: by making sure that as responsible citizens and family members we prepare ourselves to meet a threat to our lives or the lives of our loved ones with equal force. That means carrying a firearm. Police are expected to carry a gun in order to protect themselves from the threats right on our streets - why do you think we should be less armed when we walk down those same streets?
Re:Counterproductive (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of these mass shootings are done by white males who want control, but feel that it is slipping away from them.
Fixed that for you.
We can't have an honest conversation if we aren't talking about who the shooters are,
because the solution(s) to this problem are going to be different than the solutions we've used to reduce urban gun violence by minorities.
We norms just can't understand (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans have a gun fetish, it comes from their culture, their image of themselves, they ALL think they are still frontier cowboys taming the west. They are not. Aussies sipping lattes in Starbucks with a cinnamon bun STILL see themselves as sons of Crocodile Dundee even as their GPS directs them straight into a national park. It is just that the Dundee image never had a gun. Didn't need to, he is a mans man. Americans are girly man with small penises and they need to compensate with big cars and big guns.
For self defense, you want the smallest revolver possible as it is the easiest to handle, the quickest to fire, the easiest to keep near you, doesn't jam, requires the least maintenance and at close range is still highly lethal. An automatic rifle is totally useless, it is the reason any soldier required to operate in crowded areas switches firepower for a smaller weapon.
See the school shooting, he DITCHED the assault rifle and killed with pistols. The whole fascination with the bush-master makes no sense EXCEPT to compensate for personal short-comings AND for a fantasy many Americans have of wishing the apocalypse, the zombie-hord, the civil war, to happen right now so they can stop pretending to be civilized and kill THEM! Doesn't really matter who THEM is, as long as THEM is not US.
The entire NRA is based around the idea that you need a gatling gun to defend against burglars or even would be rapist. If you think about it (the Americans among you, if it starts hurting to much, look away, the scary man is almost finished with his long hurting brain words) this makes no sense. A burglar/rapist/assault happens when you LEAST expect it. A machine gun is like the Maginot Line it only works if you are not dealing with a sneaky scoundrel. Most criminals are sneaky and will strike when you are asleep, unaware, unprepared. The rotters.
What good then is a Gatling gun in the basement? Or an assault rifle, with an over sized magazine not maintained in the last decade in a gun cabinet? What you NEED if you want to live a world with guns is a small revolver you can grasp instantly and is absolutely reliable at short range while still half asleep while you call the police.
The simple fact is that the NRA is the most stupid organization in the world, they could win the debate in a heartbeat just by showing how much safer the US is for law abiding people by linking to the thousands of cases of honest citizens successfully defending themselves against criminals with their legally owned guns...
But the NRA does NOT present these thousands of stories a year... why not? That is after all the reason for civilians to own guns, to defend themselves, so why not link to all these success stories that surely must be there?
oh wait... there aren't. The stories simply don't exist. The entire idea that gun owners can defend themselves just isn't true, it doesn't happen. What does happen is that people get burgled precisly FOR their guns, that innocents get killed while cleaning/playing with guns and when the gun owners inevitably looses their mind, they go on a rampage.
If civilian gun ownership made sense, the US would be the safest place in the world to life in. Is it?
Re:Misdirection (Score:2, Insightful)
No, they only level the playing field. While having a gun will deter the criminal that doesn't want confrontation, it doesn't deter the criminal that is looking to steal guns. It is a simple concept that seems to be lost to the anti gun types.
That's nice. We need more guns to protect ourselves from the gun-toting bad guys who got theirs by stealing our previous stash. Sounds like the only people winning this game are the people selling guns.
Re:Misdirection (Score:3, Insightful)
But you idiots also have police, law and lawyers running the place as well, what the heck do you need millions of guns for as well? Why are you paying for both kinds of security?
Because the police are there to serve the rulers, not protect the people. The courts has ruled that there is no requirement for police to show up if you need them in an emergency. But you can be damn sure they will arrest you if you are hurting the profits of the rich and powerful.