Utah law: Bans "violent" video games for kids. Parents will be felons if

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3541146?source=rss

Violent Games: Adults would be punished as felons for providing them to kids
By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to yank violent video games out of the hands of minors and punish as felons adults who provide such entertainment to children.
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Only in utah. What an utter waste of time for law enforcement/DA. :eyes:

GoArmy.com?

Yeah, thank God this is the biggest 'family' problem
in the great state of Utah!:sarcasm:

Nice priorities there, family man.:eyes:

or sword fight with each other, and the like, each with the kid physically acting out death.

I am sure there are DUers here who disagree with me, but I do not see these games as being anything other than the transfer of that which they have done forever to the medium they now favor. There are some games that go over the line (like the one where they recreate JFK's shooting, which is reprehensible), but for the most part, if the parents pay attention to the game and what its contents are, they are manageable.

There is NO proven causal link between video games and real-world violence.

BOOM!

:smoke:

Go in with their brownshirts and jackboots and kick in every door of their predominately white city/state to purge all homes of violent video games?

Are they actually going to have their jackbooted brownshirts in every video store to watch who purchase these games and see if they have kids in the car or even follow them home to see who actually plays the game.....


Hmmmm....they are going to drown under their own stupidity and lawsuits.....see if this only applied to let's say gays, single parents, non-whites this might sit well with the predominately white citizens but the reality is that they are targeting their own heeple.....bwah....haw....haw.....they are eating their own....:rofl: :popcorn:

You know this is going to be selectively enforced.

:shrug:

Hit A to praise Jesus!

Hit B to enter Rapture mode!

Hit C to get information on joining the Army!

Join the Army and kill (insert racial epithet here) heads

:eyes: :sarcasm:

:eyes:

Xbox is a weapon of mass destruction!

Honestly, it's not my business what parents buy for their kids. I personally may not improve of it but it is not up to me to impose my views on anyone....

Technically all of the early beep beep (can't remember the name of the cartoon),daffy duck, Elmer Fud "Wheres the wabbit, wheres the wabbit...could be seen as violent(I have actually heard people say that)....I grew up on em probably like everyone else here...seems we turned out all right....

They're shouting Kill, Kill, Kill and spreading hate, but we can't label them as felons...

They're just getting started on the bannings of material they don't agree with, "to protect us".

How many violent images have we seen? How much Shock and Awe? How many messages of war rather than peace do we hear every fucking day?

Real violence good, fake violence bad. The lives of pixellated characters are more important than those of real American soldiers
:banghead:

Politicians have fallen in love with these "cultural" issues because it gives them a chance to grandstand while ignoring larger problems which may require funding.

I thought repugs were all about keeping the government out of the living room and off people's backs.

So they'll send parents to jail because they bought GTA for their kids! :wtf:

to guns had a role? These people probably all support spanking and hitting kids for discipline also.

A statement like "Video games probably caused Columbine" is unrealistic. The Columbine killers worshiped "Quake" or "Doom", one of the first-person shooters which focus inordinately on violence with guns. While I recognize that those games are solely about violence- to imply that a video game caused two youths to commit mass murder is a claim I find reaching.

Having grown up in the 1970's and 1980's, before realistically violent video games, every time a child committed a crime or murder something had to be found which turned "that good kid into a killer". As hokey as it may sound now, back then Dungeons and Dragons was the culprit. That's right, before people had video games to blame they blamed board games. And before that, Ouija boards. And always, if you can't find anything of that nature- blame the bands they listen to. Does Judas Priest cause youth the kill?

But there are some of us who have played Doom and Dungeons and Dragons and the Ouija board and, yes, who have maybe listened to a Judas Priest song or two- but who have no desire to kill, hurt or maim after using them. Are those folks, the vast majority, somehow resistant to the not-so-subliminal kill messages sent to us by today's games?

No. I believe the answer is much simpler. Games, video and board. Bands, death metal, goth whatever. None of these cause people to kill. However, persons with pre-existing disorders or predilections for such behavior are drawn, in the same way that "normal" folks are, to games as a means of escape. However, unlike "normal" folks, they lose themselves in the fantasy and augment their already broken reality with them.

Columbine was not about video games- it was about two very angry young men- angry because they were relentlessly ridiculed at both school and home. Unable to find any place to fit in they bound themselves to each others against the world in a sick pact of destruction. Their unusually strong fascination with enacting out violent scenes from those games were merely a warning indicator- but far from the cause in my opinion.

While I will blame video games (along with a some forms of music) for host of other milder social ills I cannot in good conscience say that they cause murder. Sick people, in pain and with serious personality disorders/deficiencies commit crimes of such a heinous nature. While they may gravitate toward violent things it's a logical fallacy- post hoc ergo propter hoc- to say those things they eventually gravitated toward were the cause of such violence.

PB

And I've never killed anyone, nor had the urge to. Hell, the only fighting I've ever had was wrestling w/ firends in high school and Akido classes. I'd hardly call either 'violent acts'

Maybe that makes me a freak.

When a kid is willing to throw his life away by killing his classmates and then either committing suicide or facing a life sentence, there HAS to be more behind that than a bunch of pixels and a hunk of plastic. The biggest frustration I felt as a student after Columbine was that I continued to be a victim of bullying and it seemed that no one paid any attention to it because they were too distracted by fake problems like videogames. That said, like I've said before, I think those 2 young men had alot in common with people like Coulter and Savage - always ranting about how much they hate and want to kill everyone different from them, love violence and death, and have an "us vs. the rest of the world" mentality.

They know, somewhere inside, that their way is obsolete. Unwanted.

Out of all the things those screwed up young men dealt with every day, video games made 'em do it?

Then I'd better call the police on my boys. After playing video games for 10 years of the kind Hillary Clinton disapproves of, they must be teetering on the brink of taking out a whole school.

and wearing black means you are a bad person too :sarcasm:

The fact that they don't is evidence that video games play no role in causing violence.

So what if some school shooters like the Columbine guys played VVGs? How does that make them different from 99% of male American teenagers?

Though I've not played them in years, never during my time playing those games did I feel the urge to use a "Big Freaking Gun" or an AWP or Chainsaw on anyone who annoyed me in my day to day life.

It gives me something to focus on because it takes skill and total involvement.

those two played in HS. My friend and I played Deathmatches frequently.

I didn't go out and shoot anyone. Neither did the several million others that played Doom.

Those tons of people didn't go shoot up schools.

This is part of the actual headline I wish the poster just used this one instead of making up his/her own.

Since bigamy and polygamy is only a misdemeanor, they have a big job ahead, with families of more than 20 children!!!!
Send all old "V videos" to Utah! The kids need to learn something other than multiple marriages and incest. All those kids are siblings and first cousins and the state is full of them!

and those young teen girls will be the 3rd or perhaps 7th wife of the old geezer...

It could lead to more serious crimes if those children ever got their hands on a Super Soaker! :sarcasm:

Gotta watch those violent water guns! :sarcasm: Seriously, Cops mistake toy guns all the time, they have for years.

From everything I've seen and heard, they're strictly controled by their parents!

it sounds like a skit from SNL.

Before you know it, we will have the fun authorities. Authorizing what is considered fun and what is not.

...Music watch.

PB

comic books! Yes, boyz & gurlz those stories of True Crime, Tales From the Crypt, and superheros of every stripe were going to be the absolute ruination of American Youth!!

Though there may have been something to that one... 8^)

PB

to shoot them. But they will need to advance in straight rows. ;-)

and those wooing bicyclists at the city park, all touching their dates undecent like, kissing wrists and arms, up to uncovered elbows! and in public! pass me the laudanum dear, i'm getting a case of the vapors and need to settle my nerves. mmm, laudanum...
:beer:

In the form of network censors on broadcast TV. I'm trying real hard to recall any episode of Friends or Seinfeld that I've watched that actually made me laugh -- nope, coming up blank there.

Now, I'm thinking of all the George Carlin and Eddie Murphy tapes I've listened to or videos I rented and I'm in stitches just thinking about them!

report to me and it will be prohibited.
I've put my foot down, so shall it be,
this is the land of the free!"

To violate the terms of the legislation, a violent video game would have to be "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community" and lack any serious "literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors."

So does that mean the US Army game is acceptable? How about a violent game based off a violent book, say Fight Club? Is that exempt? How about a video game where you play a lion hunting in the plains of Africa -- that could be a scientific 'simulator'

These lawmakers are stupid. Other posters are right, its a non-issue that the GOP can feel good about and appear to 'git thangs done.'

The message they are sending is that bullying is acceptable and videogames are not. That is a very dangerous message because it will solve nothing and allow more Columbines to happen, which will be blamed on games and not bullying. It's a neverending cycle.

making video games another scape goat...

no longer have the right to decide what is best for their children. How does that qualify as "family values"? :shrug:

Facts do not support their hypothesis.

While some kids who play "violent" games may be desensitized to violence enough to commit crimes; I'd bet that there are probably an equal number of kids who find these games to be of therapeutic advantage...a fantasy place to let out their aggressions. Still more kids probably just play without any sort of effect on the psyche.

This law, and the people who supported it are in my opinion stupid, and harmful to society. Can we ban them?

American pols are the dumbest mutherfockers on planet Earth.

Gotta control everything! Everything.... heh, heh, heh...

dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb...

for taking their children to see an R-rated movie?

sounds like a good conservative plan.

I'm jinxed!

Because that's exactly what these Fundie-Control-Freaks are doing!

won't be able to afford those games anyway.

to enter their home if they suspect the parents are allowing the kids to play "violent" video games.

Be careful what you wish for, Utah.

that this nation is addicted to...I say go for it. Why do you think we are a renegade nation with no respect for international law to begin with? This is a culture of violence.

Personally I think the directors and actors that give us the Freddie Kreugers of the world should be serving time.

So flame away. Jeezus.

because of people like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and George Bush, NOT because of Mario or Sonic or Duke Nukem. Don't you think their REAL LIFE words and actions are a worse influence on our kids than a bunch of pixels on a TV screen? I believe the latter 3 should be doing time for inciting violence, because there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between trying to provide harmless entertainment and actually telling people to go out and kill people they don't like.

but I've seen enough to believe that we've all been more or less desensitized to violence through TV and movies, etc. The Criminals in Charge use that fact to supply the army ranks with cannon fodder.

I would just argue that it isn't all harmless entertainment. Not trying to rewrite biology here, but nobody needs to see a lot of that shit. As long as Americans are readily supplied with their next fix the civized world can expect more of the same...Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, etc. Cause and effect.

I just find it ironic that the Pukes are the ones trying to limit it in this case. Dems cry about the war but get their panties in a knot the minute somebody tries to limit what their kids can see. Did any child (or adult for that matter) ever need to see the Freddie Kreuger movies (sorry, old fart here)? Cause and effect. We've been swilling the poison too long to even recognize it.

It's none of your damn business what another adult watches or thinks about. Stop advocating controlling people, it's most distressing to hear that kind of acquiescence to fascism on this site.

My point was that satisfying the addiction isn't doing anyone any good. And I do believe that a society does have certain rights and at times the responsibility to place legal limitations on the behavior of the individual.

It's a case of perceived harm. If it can be demonstrated that children are directly or indirectly being harmed mentally, emotionally or physically then it behooves the state to take action.

I also don't side with the fundies who won't let their kids be treated for medical illnesses.

So far, there's very little causative data. Correlative, yes, but not causative.

If that evidence is ever found, talk to me about this again.

(And please, without the snarky "maybe you need to feed your addiction" crap. That's useless in an honest discussion.)

My outburst wasn't directed at any individual.

Couple things. I don't subscribe to the philosophy that the opposition is ALWAYS wrong or ALWAYS acts without principle. I'm not saying you do, I just don't. And my initial reaction was due to what certainly seemed like a total dismissal (from all previous posts) of violence as an American cultural problem.

I, of course, don't dismiss that violence in the United States is a problem - just the silly notion that "video games cause violence", and the worse notion that content should be banned based on no real evidence of same.

Are you saying we should go back to having film boards and now video game boards -- and let the GOVERNMENT decide what we all can watch/play in the privacy of our own homes?

Canada passed some of these "hate-crime" type laws. The first case in the new law was against a lesbian bookstore.

The last thing we need is a bunch of totalitarian nuts telling us what entertainment choices we can have.

I've got ZERO problem with adult entertainment. I'd suggest that it's indicative of the sickness of this society that sex and violence are fused together the way they have been...with violence "cleansing away" the (supposed) immorality of the participants.

Nobody can tell me that washing one's retinas in the blood of 10,000 killings by the time he or she is 18 isn't going to have a major effect on a child's psyche. It's delusional to think otherwise, IMO.

I just find it bizarre that 99% of the DU response is so vehemently against this one attempt to even approach the problem. I personally trust the U.S. court system to defend to the death Americans' God-given :sarcasm: rights to view whatever violent perversities they wish to view. Christ, we're talking about the national psyche here...I mean, look at what it takes to get the Christian droves out to the movie theaters (Passion of Christ). So, no, I'm not worried about that.

I personally subscribe to the Bonobo line of reasoning where the females are in charge and the males are kept too busy to ever form paramilitary troops...but that's just some fascist pie-in-the-sky daydreaming, I'll admit.

People aren't as stupid as you seem to think - they aren't swayed by fiction to commit real crimes.

This is giving the state control over parental decisions. That's fucking fascist, and it does not belong in a country so allegedly free.

You open that door, and the government will rip it right off the hinges.

Especially now, but even as far back as the 80s it was true. Most video games are products of not only American but Japanese and European culture as well. Yet I don't see them killing thousands in murders every year, or wage wars of agression without reason, or many other things that we claim these products of our culture seem to promote. The problem is deeper than what is used for entertainment.

:sarcasm:

This is one that'll probably end up in file 13. It's a violation of the parents' First Amendment rights.

It doesn't matter if it contributes to violent behavior (studies are mixed... in some people it does, in others it doesn't). They have tried tis stuff with rock music and porn and just about every other form of expression, and it's always struck down under the First Amendment.

Nowdays it's considered too violent. :eyes:

We can call it Assimilation Mormon. A first person shooter where you can either be the Mormon repuglibot who ferrets out radical teens and their families who allow them to play violent vids or you can be the rebel youth and his friends as they escape and fight their way across state lines to sanity.

:rofl:

ya better be careful which fucking State ya go to!:yoiks:

are the ones that the Army uses as recruitment tools and the ones on the Internet that individuals make that attempt to recreate things like the JFK assassination or the Columbine shootings. No licenced, respectable game manufacturer would make games like that.

With all the blood, guts and massacres prominently displayed.

Prestige is gained by accumulating wives, beating children to death, murdering unarmed wagon trains for their horses, cattle and children, and demanding payment for kidnapping children.

It has historical and literary merit.... and it could be the bloodiest game in history.

and even better luck trying to define 'violent' lol

some business-owning freeps will fight against this soon enough when they realize how badly this 'law' affects the profit margins of the local Best Buy, GameStop, Blockbuster, etc etc...

And anyone who knows ANYTHING about gaming knows the utter absurdity of that claim - there are Disney movies that have more violence than FF. So by the defenitions of some, Super Mario 64 could be considered violent.

Any links? I'd love to read that..

They just took every single game the kid owned and assumed it influenced him, without even looking at the content, and sued every company that had even the slightest connection to the making of those games. So if he had played Super Mario 64, they would've sued Nintendo (and in fact Nintendo was included in the suit, which makes no sense since the most violent game Nintendo ever made was Super Metroid). Later, some Columbine family copied the suit exactly except with much greater damages. So in other words, Final Fantasy was blamed for Columbine as well. Fortunately, both lawsuits lost because they represented an attack on free speech and the concept of personal responsibility.

This country is populated by the stupidest MFers on the planet

They're looking to put the blame everywhere but themselves...

This is fucking fascist.

What's next? Making parents felons for feeding their kids a steady diet of fast food (which has actually been proven to harm children, unlike video games)?

Anyone who supports this is an utter fool.

Amen to that.

As a parent I think this is something that is up to us and not the City, County, State or National government.

...there's no turning back.

Dangerous, insane precedent. This MUST be struck down!

putting the offending parents in jail; way to get into content restriction you POS'

Quick lets ban...

Pac Man: Because it make you obese from constantly chasing and eating ghosts!
Minesweeper: Teaching children the best places to put bombs!
Wizardry: Teaching children about the occult!
Space invaders: Next thing you know, they'll join Al-Quaida and shoot down planes!
Solitaire: Gambling addictions, no no no. Ban it!
Donkey Kong: Torturing animals by forcing them to lift heavy barrels for your amusement!
Civilization:Now we're teaching children how to invade other countries!
Oh wait, thats OK. Scrub that one from the list.

"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

Thats my favorite strategy game. :evilgrin:

Mario - encourages you to jump on poor innocent turtles
Sonic - encourages you to run as fast as you can and somersault into people
Flight sims - probably influenced the 9/11 hijackers
Racing games - encourages speeding and reckless driving
Mario Kart - encourages road rage
Clue - encourages you to beat anyone named Col. Mustard over the head with a candlestick in the kitchen

I'm sure there are people right now attempting to get arrested under this law just so it can be challenged.

old farts that "marry" young girls and banish all of the young boys out to fend for themselves!
Kick THEM out on their asses instead!:argh:
Sick Fuckwads!:freak::freak::freak::freak:

This disease of Psycho-Fundamentalist-Over-Zealotry
is getting way too out of control in this country.:mad:

I do believe Hellory Clinton is of the same mindset.