Connecticut Considers Violent Videogame Tax Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 | |
It'd be unconstitutional, it could still pass as a law. | |
That's all well and good, so long as they do this to all other forms of media as well. And they judge each for of media by the same standards. And make it legal and enforceable. And then maybe they could start a snow-shovelling business in hell. | |
What is the context of this photo... because Fascism and Communism are like black and white. Many nazi states went and executed their communists before gypsies, gays, etc. Regardless, although I wouldn't say video games are a direct source of blame, I can attest to their ability to make people anti-social and depressed as an addiction that wires the brain for non-stop endorphins/adrenaline. If your kid plays 1-2 hours in their room then comes outside to talk about their day/do homework/go play sports/practice piano whatever, I'm pretty sure they are not at risk of going off the deep end. | |
what next? plain packaging and pictures of horrific violence on the packaging? like they did here with cigarettes | |
But that would be all of them, all of the time. We may as well just charge them for every word they say and give them a financial reward if they come up with a good idea. Would never happen, but still. | |
Exactly. Certainly solve the economic crisis, wouldn't it? | |
It doesn't concern me much; taxing an entertainment medium is close enough to the line of suppression of speech that the matter would quickly be overturned by superior courts. And given the precedent for considering games worthy of First Amendment protection, the odds of any such law standing for long are slim. | |
The catch, it should be noted, is that there is no protection against such a law being passed. A law can only be struck down in cases where a case is made against someone (i.e. some would have to be charged this tax), and then the case would be routed through the court system. It would stand for a time is passed but would inevitably be struck down in the end. | |
At this point, I'm just going to be glad that I don't live in the US. You'd think time after time when people say "YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW THAT TO BE TRUE", it'd eventually get through, but nope, let's start legislating and educating about it and forget that WE DON'T FUCKING KNOW IT TO BE TRUE. It'd be like me saying "You know what? Onions make you less intelligent. So I'm going to tax onions and use the money to fund an awareness campaign about the effects on onions on intelligence, without having done any research". Except that I would feel stupid saying that, and aren't in a position to suggest it anyway. God forbid there could be tax on firearms...you know, actual weapons. | |
Can I sum this up in a few words? Politicians. (you can put that in quotation marks if you like, just imagine them) "solving". "problems". | |
*Sigh* First world problems... This won't go anywhere. I know because I - unlike they who propose this shit - learn from history. And history tells me that this country rules in favor OF the games, not against it. For years, all the research on these games - INTERNATIONALLY, EVEN! - has produced lackluster and completely useless results. They've got nothing. Every time, since when I first heard about this sort of thing when I was a child, they have tried to link real violence and video games...and failed. They've tried to do that and television, that and music, and so on. No conclusive results, and the results will never come. Don't Panic!
No, it won't. Jack Thompson effect. People in high places who shout loudly about a product they don't understand will instead draw more attention to it. It has happened, it still happens, it will keep on happening. | |
Is it me, or are these politicians getting stupider by the minute? Everyone knows this has fuck all to do with "education" and is just another way to try and squeeze as many cash out of people as they can. also, just for the sake of argument that this does pass, the ONLY thing it will make happen is some retail stores will go out of business. People will just get it via online retailers, get it from another state if they have to and is probably cheaper then. Plus that one online retailer that makes money from adds, not game 'sales'. | |
So you know that America had it worst in the past yet you say american culture is getting worse in terms of harshness of attitudes? Then why did you make that claim?
Mentally competent to stand trial is a low bar to reach. Courts tend to not like people "getting away with murder", they set the definition very narrow usually just enough to prove guilt by the court's definition. I know what is rational and what is not. I can tell, as well as you can, that these killers are using totally deranged logic, beyond any sort of reasoning or normal attitudes.
Quite a different circumstance as they are fighting what is close enough to a de-facto war, with factions and competing control of territory by violence and a strange kind of diplomacy. Gangland murders are habitually covered up by complicity of witnesses in compliant areas combined with overstretched police resources. It's these casualties in what Nixon coined as a "War on Drugs" that make up the bulk of Homicide statistics in the United States. It's not exactly a war, but there are such divisions and the violence is so unlimited and within their groups sanctioned as "moral" that it fits many of the vital definitions of a war. Police may often make outreach attempts, but far too often in areas they are like an occupying army in a civil war. They don't have any conventional political cause, unless you can call unrestricted and unregulated narcotics dealing a political cause.
Irrelevant. It only matters their state of mind when they carried out the crime. Not how they were weeks or even years earlier or how they might have changed afterwards. And realise the legal definition of insanity is very narrow and highly open to interpretation of a court generally against the defendant's favour of aquittal by diminished responsibility. And of course most spree killers kill themselves or are killed by first-responders so there is no trial or any detailed explanation of their actions.
Which is exactly my point, they aren't confined to one area of one cultural attitude like racist lynchings in deep south 1910's. Their wide distribution suggests it's randomly appearing dysfunction in singular individuals. It's not a national problem, it's international, it doesn't suddenly stop at the border.
You heard of operation Fast and Furious? Gun shops are usually pretty good at spotting shady customers and they have every incentive to comply as the chance of discovery is high and the penalty is HUGE. They lose all their property and spend decades in prison. But the BATF had been actively ordering gunstore owners to make sales to KNOWN GUNRUNNERS. Without any sort of homing device or ballistic matching or sabotage. Their ridiculous plan was simply to wait for the guns to be used in crimes and not inform any other authorities of this, north or south of the border, and they simply hoped the gunfights would be so fierce that guns would be discarded and they'd trace them by serial numbers. Part of BATF's defence was that this was a drop in the ocean compared to the massive number of weapons from com-bloc arsenals that arm gangs.
It's still a black market. For gang culture, they are already smuggling drugs by the metric ton, they are already smuggling machine guns which are not legally available for unrestricted resale. Gun bans do not disarm gangsters. It didn't work in Brazil nor so many other states. The only places where gun bans have been remotely successful was where there was low gun crime in the first place. It's like shutting the stable after the horse has bolted, if one gang has illegal guns the other side damn well well get them just as easily as they can get drugs and other illegal contraband.
I know you didn't say this but bringing up general mental health problems along with spree killers creates a false equivalency in many minds. Most untreated mental health conditions have nothing to do with a propensity for murder. I know Anders Breivik (or however you spell his name, he doesn't deserve it being looked up) was considered sane and fit to stand trial... that doesn't mean he isn't deranged. Outside the strict legal sanity definitions of "knowing right from wrong", he has utterly dysfunctional mental processes. I mean he thinks he - as a white Christian - murdering so many white Christians, will spur white Christians all over Europe to join him in recognising Arab Muslims as a threat. He was sane in that he knew what he was doing was "wrong" and still did it willingly, but deranged in how he possibly thought doing such a thing could get him what he wanted. Trying to catch such deranged individuals is almost impossible, because they are sane enough to know their plans are wrong so hide them, yet not sane enough to know not to actually do them. I agree with Barack Obama on what is the best way of dealing with such individuals, a strategy he has been using since he took office and by every President for decades: armed and active security. I think the profile of spree murderers fits very much with the lone deranged assassin which have existed for a long time. If they have any political cause it's confused and contradictory and even then entirely personal, their reasoning for trying to kill the President is often the same that spree killers give. They wanted to destroy what people valued to get attention and recognition. The man who assassinated McKinley famously had little to say about why he did except regret he hadn't used a fancier looking gun, that he expected to be framed in a museum with his name. So many are clearly seeking infamy. Presidents and other VIPs responded by having increased security, any attempt on their life is sure to result in failure and punishment in obscurity. The same infamy seeking mindset will move to equally or even higher valued individuals who are less protected. I wonder why people are so accepting of Presidents and politicians having such armed security and limited access, but not for schools. My sister was dead set against the idea till I pointed out armed security doesn't create a threat... it simply acknowledges one we don't want to accept. People seem willing to accept political leaders and other famous people being targets of killers, rather than normal people and children... which is precisely why those seeking infamy will choose such targets. | |
Google him Glen Beck It's a jab a right-wing, freedom hating, Neanderthals. | |
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so..buy buying a violent game in that state you are supporting people to say... violent games are bad?
LOGIC!