Ace, the thing with Massachusetts is that it's a much MUCH smaller state than most. Hell, it's smaller than Vancouver Island... So being so small, it takes much less time and effort to stamp out stupidity. Give Ghalifor-nya three hundred more years and they may actually catch up.

ratix2:

and lastly, the vice president does act as the head of the senate last i checked.

I was waiting for this. Might wanna check again:

Section - 3

"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided."

Like I said, it's an understandable mistake. But they don't have a vote unless there is a tie which hasn't happened in ages. No vote means they don't have any influence and their own party or constituents govern how their members are going to vote.

They may be called the head of the senate, but they might as well be called King of the Drink Cart while they're at it.

It's unfortunate but par for the course for this kind of stuff. What Baca proposes to do is to link video gaming to more of a habit akin to smoking, which itself is a tainted industry due to many practices.

The real problem is treating video games as if it is potentially hazardous to health, when it is the exceptions and not the rule that actually falsely portray it in this light. Smoking? That's proven to be potentially hazardous and worth the warning on the box. Video Games? That's another story.

Do we really NEED a label on everything? Stupid people should have a label on them saying 'Do not reproduce, will result in disturbed and messed up child'. Some days I wish we could just FORCE abortions. Then again, people are more retarded about abortions than almost anything else. These days you should not have families with five kids. Worked in the old days because three of them kids were sure to die before they reached adulthood and started spawning their own retarded seed all over the place.

Whle we are at it, we should take alot of modern american cartoons and put a label on them, saying to the effect that watching will make you RETARDED. Then we can take anime and put a label on it saying that watching will make your eyes grow extremely large and glossy. How about a warning on all food that says eating too much will make you FAT?

That's great political logic right there. Rather than saying its maybe the parents fault for getting them the game. I highly doubt a 7 year old works to make enough money to go out and buy him a video game, so you must have either given him the money or bought it for him. Thus the root cause of him getting his hands on an M rated game is that YOU let him. Most places have it that you need a parent get the M rated game for you, and you would think that while getting it for them they might ponder the name or even look at the box. This of course is thrown completely out the window when it comes to renting, because when you rent something (at least where I am from) you get it in the generic looking case with the name printed on the generic label. Oh wait so if you put more labels on the cases, it won't come up when they rent things, great waste of money that is. How can they possibly be shocked or outraged when they find out that a game which the title of is a criminal offence, (grand theft auto) turned out to be intended for a mature audience. If you are that bad of a parent that you don't even know the name of the game you are getting for your child, well I feel sorry for the child, and in no way would blame the video game. As for if the video games actually lead to the already poorly raised child being more violent, it MIGHT, it also might help them deal with it rather than take out there aggression in real life. The real question is what drives a normal non violent and aggressive kid to want to play a game like that? Is it pear pressure, the adverts, human nature, and the lack of a good structured relationship with their parents? I highly doubt that a parent with an aggressive child, who they let play violent video games, would not be also contributing to the aggression in other piss pour parenting ways. Like teaching them the proper way to deal with said aggression, not letting them fight, or pick on other kids, and teaching the proper way to treat people. Of course if a congress person were to try and pass a bill that would charge parents for there bratty kids misbehaving, so that maybe they could get off there butts and do some actual parenting, they would be voted out faster than sonic........ 's downfall of game quality.

Sorry kinda went on a rant there but its what i felt had to be said.

Go ahead put a warning label on it, it won't stop moron parents from buying their 8 year olds Fallout 3 or Gears of War or any other gory ass game. Make it illegal to sell to anyone unless they are the proper age, yeah i know it won't stop everyone, it won't stop most people, but it might stop those who are in the stoor with their kids!

"WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent videogames and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

Apart from, you know, it hasn't. Or if it has, not half as much as being a Californian Congressman, hey Ahnuld?

"Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people."

Citation needed! Or rather, extermination needed.

Oh wait, Health Warnings did so much to influence people not to eat meat, not drink McDonald's coffee straight away, not to go swimming in shark infested water...

And can someone tell me how a Congressman passes a LAW on his own?

The only problem with placing a warning like that is that is isn't nessercarily true.

Almost all research in the past that has been done into the link between violence and media influence has either turned up inconclusive or has had enough theoretical and practical issues that their results should be considered invalid (Bandura's study with children and the Bobo the clown doll being a good example).

scarbunny:

L.B. Jeffries:
Do people even have to read the Constitution before they take public office anymore? I know Sarah Palin thought the Vice President was in charge of the Senate but that's a basic misunderstanding compared to this stuff.

It's real easy. It's the very First Amendment on the list.

Im not too sure how this impeads freedom of speech, it just means if you make a game that is violent you need to put a sticker on the box. Sure it could be better phrased "this game is so violent itll fuck you up for life" then not only is it a warning but also a huge selling point.

You mean that the big fat "M" isn't enough? If people put a single minute of thought into purchasing violent games for their kids, the Industry would be respected, and gamers wouldn't be looked down upon as people on the verge of murdering their co-workers.

Skrapt:
Can I please change this one bit for more comic effect:

"Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between being human and increased aggression"

We'll have to tattoo it to every new baby's head.

I believe they're committing a fallacy, and confusing correlation with causation.

Besides, isn't it entirely possible that violent behavior is not a result of playing violent video games, but rather, an indicator of the sort of game such people like to play?

For the simplistic people that have difficulty understanding that: violent people like to play violent games. But that doesn't mean the game caused them to become violent.

Not to mention, the possibility that playing violent video games could actually serve to release anger, or consume the time of violent people so that they aren't out in the real world committing real acts of violence.

Does a politician honestly have nothing better to do than condemn video games? (and make them seem worse to the horribly uninformed public) "Baca's website describes him as a leading advocate in Congress against sex and violence in the media, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON VIDEO GAMES." Why don't you go save our country from something worthwhile?

If you don't want your tiny 10 year old playing something past his age, just don't get him anything rated above E (or if you're somewhat smarter, you can read the T label in the back and try to guess if your kid is mature enough) The parents that SOMEHOW let their kids play GTA just need to stop talking. They are either negligent, or just honestly stupid. The parents that have the SENSE to not let their kids play something based on what the ESRB label describes it as ON THE FREAKING BOX are to be applauded and all be called geniuses for actually using their brains for 10 seconds. You don't buy games for kids when it says "Extreme amounts of gore" and you don't buy movie tickets for your kids when it is widely known to be extremely violent and feature nudity. And I thought WE were the ones who were still in school. If school makes us dumber (I highly doubt that) then the world is going to hell. If not, then the world has already gone to hell because the still-learning have to teach the "already-been-taught-I-have-a-diploma-to-prove-it-see-see?" people. I'm sorry, but our parents are trying to protect us from violence while we've already lost them to idiocy.

The fuck? Video-games have no effect on me! *cocks shotgun* Anyway, I'll see you all later, I'm gonna go visit California for a bit...

wait, everything is dangerous to peoples health; perhaps we should put a warning label on everything.

Perhaps we should even put warning labels on other people they're dangerous too, especially idiotic politicians.

Wow this years shortlist for most retarded idea ever keeps expanding. First sea kittens now this.

Khell_Sennet:
Ace, the thing with Massachusetts is that it's a much MUCH smaller state than most. Hell, it's smaller than Vancouver Island... So being so small, it takes much less time and effort to stamp out stupidity. Give Ghalifor-nya three hundred more years and they may actually catch up.

Fair enough. I just kinda wanted to randomly relate the story to the whole "real state" weirdness someone mentioned to me once. Don't get me wrong, California seems nice apart from the earthquakes and wildfires and stupid people (although they exist everywhere) and phoniness.

DamienHell:
I would like to point out that being a congressman who stands between gamers and their games is dangerous to your health.

Amen. Dude must have a death wish.

Well this guy doesn't sound like too much of an asshole to me, atleast not yet, and I do understand what he's trying to do. But I still don't think that playing videogames makes people any more violent than watching movies, so if movies don't need warning labels I don't think videogames should. And at the very least there should be some more concrete findings on the correlation between violence and videogames before they're forced by law to carry warning labels.

the US Millitary (specificaly the Army) have done some studys that weem to show that the act of using a video game gun to shoot targets on a screen break down mental barriers that most humans have to shooting someone over time. in other words the act of pulling a game trigger can translate into mentaly feeling no different from pulling a real trigger.

i know from personel experiance that this is true, i had my first experiance with real guns long before video games were even around and i was ....... not quite scared i guess, more like nervious around guns, this went on for a long time before i became comfortable just pulling the trigger and actualy shooting anything including paper targets. its an in-born thing in most humans. i grew up around guns and hunters and all that i know said more or less the same thing. after playing shooter games forever and a day now i dont feel any different pulling a game trigger than i do pulling a real trigger and i have totaly lost my nerviousness. i can actualy almost FEEL the recoil in game (on some of the more realistic shooters) due to having a mental connection between real life guns and games.

i KNOW there IS a connection on this level atleast, but the point for me isnt a question of whether or not games may provoke agressivness, im willing to admit they DO, the point is that games are no better nor worse than any one of a hundered OTHER things that provoke agression. wathching the 6 o'clock news on the night of 9/11 provoked much more of an agressive responce from me than any game ever COULD do, should we slap warning labels on the evning news?

once again the problem isnt the games , the problem is the shitty parents. just like most other things in life having to do with the 'poor innocent children'

That's like having a warning on things like ice cream saying....

CAUTION: MAY MAKE YOU FAT.

So why are this guy's statements specified to children?

Am I the only one who finds it funny that he wants a health warning on video games that aren't exactly for children?

That's my first thought. Immediately after, I remembered how hypocritical this is, since he, like many other politicians (**cough**MichaelAtkinson**cough**), doesn't seem to want to push the same thing for movies and literature.

Hopefully, these idiots will be out of power in my lifetime. I'd like to see a world where videogames are just another medium of expression.

While we're at it, let's put a warning label on television shows.

Lets make this more light hearted

What do a congressmen and a sperm have in common?

About one in every 450,000,000,000 has the chance to become a human.

How many times do they need to humiliate themslves for us? Even on the U.S. Department of Justice website, it states that violent crimes have gone down since the early 90's, around the time Mortal Kombat came out, the first massivly popular violent video games. Video game consumption has gone up while violence leves go down. Where is the negative link? It is positive if anything.

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/gvc.htm

So he wants to put blatant lies as fact in a warning label.

How on earth did this guy get elected?

This just reinforces my belief that California doesn't know what it wants to be.

ratix2:

Brokkr:
I always hate it when people use the argument that playing video games is related to increased aggression in young people. Maybe aggressive young people like to play violent video games and not the other way around.

hate to break it to ya man but its a fact, exposure to violence DOES make people more aggressive. how much more aggressive is based opn a lot of factors but mostly how much exposure and the particular person, but its not just some researcher blowing crap out of their ass like some politicians.

[citation needed]

ratix2:
and lastly, the vice president does act as the head of the senate last i checked.

It's mostly a ceremonial title. Yes, the Vice President is the President of the Senate. That is not at all the same as saying that he "runs the Senate," as Gov. Palin suggested. If any one Senator runs the Senate, it would be the Majority Leader.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The only game that is actually detrimental to one's health is World of Warcraft. The warning labels should stay off of everything else.

Kind of funny they've yet to give us real evidence of all these claims.

This is a good way to lose a lot of votes (there is an established gaming community in the US) and we do vote. It's not exactly wise to get on the bad side of a gamer. we have connections, ~evil laugh~ oops did I do that out loud...

Skrapt:
Can I please change this one bit for more comic effect:

"Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between being human and increased aggression"

Well said brother.
Health warning for games is pointless, we all know we are gonna get fat if we just sit on our asses and play games.

http://www.videogamevoters.org/

great sight to join, been a member for a year or so now and they dont drive you nuts with spam. i especialy like the part where they follow your local politics and give you contact numbers (as well as form letters, if your too stupid/lazy to write your own) to E-mail your reps with. we in New York State got a bill pulled last fall in our Senate that was much like this one by E-mail bombing our reps office with help from that sight.

polititions often pass feel good bills because they think no one is guna pay attention, but if you show them you ARE paying attention they will generaly back off leaving the true nuts in office standing by themselves without the votes to actualy DO anything.

im not usualy one to advocate a sight like this, lord knows there are enough kooks out in the world that start a 'club' and want everyone to join thinking they will end up with 'ultimate POWA' or some shit, but these guys so far have been legit, meaning they dont spam me with crap i dont want or care about, dont ask me for money, and offer real and useful information about Video games and our legal process.

if you actualy care, join em, who knows your 'voice' might just get heard someplace besides a games forum. someplace that actualy might count in the real world.