New Bill Issueed

[GameKinG]

GameTavern (http://www.gametavern.net/news/EpkpZuplFkBhmIyscb.shtml)

California congress man strikes the subject with a new bill.

EDIT: As a debt to the site which I will forever hold against you people, YOU HAD BETTER CHECK THE FRONT GT PAGE MORE OFTEN.

[BigJustinW]

That link is too an Article on the front page? Ugh, I'm not clicking it then

;)

[GameKinG]

BAHHHHHHH!!!!

:mad2: *destroys everything in room*

[Mushlafa]

I havent been to the front page in like 3 months... :p and i dont plan on clicking that link until someone tells me its worthwhile :D

[BigJustinW]

GKG, you can abuse this feature by making pointless posts :p

[Professor S]

I remember back in the eighties when Tipper Gore and her band of fascist uber-moms tried to accuse the ills of the world on heavy metal. Now it seems bored house-wives have found an easier target in the video-gaming industry to blame their poor parenting skills on.

Video game developers and publishers do not pull anywhere near the weight that rock stars do in the media. Without any celebrity cache I think that this could prove to be a losing battle.

On the freedom of speech front, though, the proponents of the industry really don't have a leg to stand on. In actuality all congress is doing is asking that there are ratings and age prohibitions placed on video games the same way they are placed on movies. There is precedence for what the congress wants to do. Arguing the first amendment will do little good.

Now if the bill is passed, will it hurt the industry? It depends. Nintendo will love this new law if it is passed because it will water all game content down to what they produce, which is basically cartoony adventure/action titles, and we all know that they own that genre.

Meanwhile. Rockstar will be hurting BADLY. Ever notice that there aren't that many R rated movies anymore? Thats because the movie industry realizes that the teen market is where the money really is. Same with video games. While I think mature titles will still be made, especially by PC developers, I think developers and publishers will be concentrating more on their "PG-13" titles.

Of course, this all depends on 1) if the bill is passed, and 2) if law enforcement actually pays attention to it.:D

[GameKinG]

It will be the same as if a ticket stand lets a kid buy an R-rated ticket. Though it rpobably wont be enforced that much.

[Gamer]

haha, o its so funny to see frikkin parents like that make such a huge deal about this that they propose a frikkin bill. Geeze, doesnt the freak know that its not going to be honoured, like kids get their hands on things, anything, and nothing can really change that.:D

[gekko]

Ehh... who cares really? Wait, forgot a lot of you would be affected.

Honestly, I think parents should be able to control what games their kids buy, but to an extent. I mean, look at CDs. They all got that damn label on them, but there is no real law saying you can't buy this thing.

Point #2: By the time a kid is 17, he has probably saw more rated-R movies than a lot of adults (teens tend to do the movie thing, ya know?), and has played a ton of mature video games. So the law really does nothing. I could see not selling it to someone like under 13. But if someone is old enough to drive themself to the store to buy the game, let them. It's kinda like high school, it's basically like they pamper you through school, through your teen years, and when you become on an adult, then throw you into the real world and expect you to adapt. You can't hide the kids from any sort of violence and sex, then when he turns 17, or 18 give it to him all at once. Let the kids grow up. They should be more worried about kids and pornography, considering pretty much every sex offender is a porn addict, and these teens they are trying to keep away from bad movies and games and sitting on their computer whacking it to hardcore porn on a daily basis. These people are trying to protect kids from playing games with blood, when the kids have probably seen more sexual acts than their parents, and that likely includes stuff that society prefers to hide (Bondage, pissing/****ting, beastality, shemales, domination, fisting, etc.). I think our government has better things to do with their time than worry about video games.

Either way, there will be work-arounds. How many of you realize you can walk into Best Buy and legally (and yes, you wil get away with it), but a Playboy or Girls Gone Wild DVD? A lot of that stuff is NR, aka Not Rated. There is no legal age to buy those movies. It's not X, so it's not 18. It's not like Showgirls, which is NC-17. It's NR, meaning anyone can buy it, but it hasn't gone through the rating board.

Games can really go the same way.

[Idiot]

Like all art forms, video games do contain violence. However, art in itself cannot create violent crime, (Although it does contribute to it sometimes.) morover, it is the rabid gun culture of the US that leads to violent crimes. It is as I have stated time after time again, guns should not be used, be liscenced to and carryed by citizens and the police. Guns and other weapons of diliberate violence should only be carried by the armed forces and senior governmont officals.

[Professor S]

Yawn, the voice of idealistic youth.

Eliminating all weapons from citizens and police will do nothing to stop violent crime.

1) There are more violent assaults in the US each year with KNIVES than guns. And as we can all see the most violent weapons of 2001 were the boxcutters used by terrorists to hijack 2 planes.

2) There are too many guns in hands of the general public to make any kind of ban workable. The end result would be a massive influx of guns on the black market, and we all know who would end up with them: Criminals. Most guns used by criminals are gained illegally anyway.

3) Banning all firearms has already been tried in another country: Japan. Gee, that sure got rid of the Yakuza and gang violence over there :rolleyes:

There will always be people trying to take the easy, ineffective way of curbing violence by banning weapons. Guns are a scapegoat. They are tool that can be used for hate or for good. Guns do not think. Guns do not fire by themselves. The same person who shoots someone will use a wrench if need be. I own three guns: 2 rifles and half-snub .357 mag. I have never shot anyone nor thought about shooting anyone. Every confrontation I have ever had has been settled with my own 2 fists.

The only true way to curb violence is through education, instilling morals and pride, and socio-economic reform. I became a productive, law abiding member of society because of the way I was raised, not because I didn't have access to a gun. I had access to all kinds of guns as a kid. They were hanging on our basement walls for me to grab if I wanted to. I didn't want to. Why? Because I was taught better.

Banning guns only treats the symptom while ignoring the cure.

Oh, and blaming the US for violent crime? Yeah, its been done before and I still don't buy it. But I guess you'll follow every other country's mantra when it comes to their problems: "When in doubt, blame the US. Our citizens will buy it and won't see what the REAL problem is"

[DeathsHand]

Originally posted by The Strangler
The same person who shoots someone will use a wrench if need be [/B]

yeah cuz anybody can walk into work, school, or any other public place or whatever and kill about a dozen people or more with a wrench... :rolleyes:

you do have a point on some other things though... in some cases people COULD just use something else as a weapon... but guns are still easier to use (better range, and less of a chance of some victim overpowering you), more powerful, etc etc... and yes it would be hard to get ALL guns off of the street...

And yes even when you do, big gangs and stuff could still have access to them... but what about like the common criminal? Or crazy teenagers?

There's no way to get rid of violence completely, but there are ways to lower it, and getting guns off the streets (even if it's not all of them) WOULD help out... how could it not?

I like that part on chatterbox in GTA3 where they have some stereotypical southern gun lover who's all like "If more people had guns there'd be less shootings in this country!" or something :D

[Professor S]

And yet another anti-gun argument that comepletely ignores the real issue with violence, which are the attitudes and society behind it.

Through your statements you basically proved my point. All you care about is making it a little better, instead of preventing violence all together.

I do believe that up until the 1960's and 1970's pretty much any gun was available to anyone in the US, correct? Then guns laws started being put in place, but yet the gun related violence statistics still kept on rising. Hmmmmm, makes you wonder don't it?

At the turn of the century (20th century, not this last one) gun ownership was common and almost expected, and I also believe that statistically gun related violence was very low. Now there are many gun laws on the books and gun violence is still rising?

So what is really to blame here, guns or the people and society who uses them?

This only goes to prove my point that while gun laws are like AIDS medications, they'll extend your life but in the long run you're still going to die. We should concentrate on the cure instead of the symptoms.

Teen shootings in schools are a perfect example of this. You sit there and blame the guns for horrors committed by sick kids and apathetic parents. The reason why they committed that crime wasn't because they got guns, it was because they had no emotional ties to the real world. they had no empathy for others. How else do you expalin a teenager laughing while shooting someone at point blank range. This is a result of a piss poor upbringing. And yet we blame the guns and sympathize with the poor messed up kids and parents. Thats rediculous.

I completely expect school shootings to keep happening as long as we continue to throw our children into child care with kids 30 deep. How much attention and effection do you think they get there? Enough to make them heartless killers is my guess. And to anyone who says that thats not true, it has been proven in many psychological studies that emotions and empathy are learned, not genetic. It has even been proven that if a infant does not receive enough physical touch/effection it will become mentally retarded. The way we raise children today has become a little too Aldous Huxleyan for me.

But I know a lot of you won't listen to a word I'm saying. You'll keep on spitting out everything you've heard on the news and feel that it makes sense because someone on TV told you so and its an easy target that is politically correct to hate.

Meanwhile, more gun laws will be passed and gun related violence will continue to grow.

Its kind of funny in a very sad way.

[gekko]

Originally posted by Idiot
Guns and other weapons of diliberate violence should only be carried by the armed forces and senior governmont officals.

But you fail to understand the concept of self-defense, don't come unarmed!

There are some BIG people in this world (like Justin), and quite honestly, most people aren't going to be able to hold him off if he attacked you. Now if you put a gun to his head, you take control, don't ya?

Also, look at situations like Columbine. You think if other kids there carried a gun that all those kids would've died? Hell no. If someone came into my classroom holding a gun they would be the first to fall, plain and simple. At the same time, those kids could've easily taken the kids with their bare hands, but when it's a gun vs. fists, you're at a disadvantage.

What the media doesn't report is all the instances where guns actually save people, and prevent crime. They don't report the thousands of times every year where law-biding citizens who carry guns end up stopping a murder, rape, robbery. If these people didn't have a gun, innocent people would be dead right now.

If you outlaw guns, only criminals and cops will have them. If you want to see how well non-violence works in today's world, go talk to Ghandi. Oh wait, he dead. In the process of preaching non-violence, he got hundreds of his followers killed, and got himself shot. You can take guns away from law-biding citizens, but in the end, all you have is defenseless victims, and overpowering criminals.

I guess you guys must not know, more guns are used to save people, than to kill people.

[Professor S]

The Rodney King LA Riots were a perfect of how gun ownership actually helped save lives and businesses. There were many business and lives saved because shop owners owned firearms. They protected themselves and others who hid in their stores with them.

But I guess many of you never heard about it did you?

Big surprise:rolleyes:

But for the record, I don't think all kids should bring guns to school. Thats going a little too far Gekko.:D