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From the San Francisco Gate:
Committee revives bill to ban violent video games for kids
Please write the Assembly members who voted for this and tell them why you think they should leave games alone.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
I wrote them this...
Assembly Member,
Assemblyman Yee was quoted in the SFGate as saying "For the same reason we don't allow kids to buy pornography, cigarettes or alcohol, we shouldn't allow them to go to stores and buy video games that teach them to do the very things we put people in jail for,"
In that statement he likens Video Games to Pornography, cancerous cigarettes, and liver damaging alcohol. Please name me one pornographic video game released in America, then name me one that destroys your liver, then name me one that gives you CANCER. Video games are works of fantasy, the only kids they 'teach' anything to are kids who have a loose grasp on reality in the first place, to restrict our society to such a small group of people is like banning peanuts because some folks are allergic to them. Peanuts kill more people a year then video games. Would you advocate restricting the sales of peanuts before you restrict the sale of violent video games?
The worst of the worst of video games ever only reach a PG-13/R rating. There is nothing pornographic in any of them. Even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which is admittedly the worst offender) has no nudity. I'd suggest you play some of these games your talking about before you run off to restrict their sales. Putting mature and adult themed games behind the counter of the store justifies the idea that there is something 'dirty' or 'wrong' about them. It will invariably get them pulled from major retailing chains like WalMart and Target who would rather not sell them at all then risk being fined. Soon one might have to go to seedy back ally porno shops to buy a VIDEO GAME. Or worse the industry will stop making them all together and pacify itself right out of the game bizz which could collapse the industry itself putting a lot of over educated homeless on Silicon Valley/San Francisco streets. You walk a dangerous road when restricting something, especially a justifiable art form; you are in danger of retarding the form because of an incorrect assumption that they are for children (when according to an Interactive Software Ratings Board poll the average video game fan is 28). It's a undeserved scarlet letter that says that the state needs to raise children because parents aren't able to. Throughout the 20th century Americans have held misconceptions that we laugh at now. Jazz music drove kids to drugs, Rock and Roll drove them crazy, Heavy Metal made them kill themselves, Rap music made them kill each other, now Video Games are the cause of our reckless youth. Will history judge you as a hero that helped parents ignore their children's interests, or a paranoid, book burning, quack like Dr. Frederick Wertham? Are either what you want your legacy to be?
The Movie & Music industries have self-instituted policies against extreme content and children; can you offer me a reason why this should be any different? You could lean on the retailers to have company policies restricting the sales and have individual stores enforce them. It's my belief that not unlike the movie industry the stores that sell games can set their own policy without the state getting involved. Once it's state mandated it opens the door to further restriction and eventual outright banning of material that isn't that bad to begin with.
It's not the job of retailers to be children's parents, think what an impact you'd have if you spent all the time you will spend on this with your children. Learning what they are interested in, guiding them, teaching them and then encouraging other parents to do the same. It shouldn't be hard to look at what your child is doing and have an interest in it. Games have a rating on them; all you have to do is read the box to see if they are appropriate for your children. If not, take it away, or better yet don't buy it for them in the first place. Video games cost $50 each. I don't know about you but I never had $50 to spend on anything when I was a kid at least not without my folks being there to shell out the cash for it and I would've been laughed at if I had asked them to buy me an adult video.
Thank you for your time.
Mark Hasselberger
Committee revives bill to ban violent video games for kids
With a new member casting the deciding vote, an Assembly committee Thursday revived a bill that would bar the sale or rental of violent video games to children under age 17.
The bill, by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, fell one vote short of passing the Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee on Tuesday with one lawmaker, Assemblyman Jerome Horton, D-Inglewood, not voting.
Yee asked for another vote, and on Thursday, with Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, sitting in for an absent Horton, the committee approved the bill, 6-4 — the bare majority it needed.
"This bill has received overwhelming bipartisan support and deserves a vote on the Assembly floor," Yee said in a statement.
But he told the committee that if the bill got out he would convene a meeting of supporters and opponents to try to reach a compromise. If no deal is reached, he said he would let Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, decide if the bill should be voted on by the full Assembly.
The bill deals with the sale or rental of video games that depict injuries to human beings in a particularly heinous, atrocious or cruel manner. Selling or renting one of those games to a child who was under age 17 could result in a $1,000 fine.
Please write the Assembly members who voted for this and tell them why you think they should leave games alone.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
I wrote them this...
Assembly Member,
Assemblyman Yee was quoted in the SFGate as saying "For the same reason we don't allow kids to buy pornography, cigarettes or alcohol, we shouldn't allow them to go to stores and buy video games that teach them to do the very things we put people in jail for,"
In that statement he likens Video Games to Pornography, cancerous cigarettes, and liver damaging alcohol. Please name me one pornographic video game released in America, then name me one that destroys your liver, then name me one that gives you CANCER. Video games are works of fantasy, the only kids they 'teach' anything to are kids who have a loose grasp on reality in the first place, to restrict our society to such a small group of people is like banning peanuts because some folks are allergic to them. Peanuts kill more people a year then video games. Would you advocate restricting the sales of peanuts before you restrict the sale of violent video games?
The worst of the worst of video games ever only reach a PG-13/R rating. There is nothing pornographic in any of them. Even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which is admittedly the worst offender) has no nudity. I'd suggest you play some of these games your talking about before you run off to restrict their sales. Putting mature and adult themed games behind the counter of the store justifies the idea that there is something 'dirty' or 'wrong' about them. It will invariably get them pulled from major retailing chains like WalMart and Target who would rather not sell them at all then risk being fined. Soon one might have to go to seedy back ally porno shops to buy a VIDEO GAME. Or worse the industry will stop making them all together and pacify itself right out of the game bizz which could collapse the industry itself putting a lot of over educated homeless on Silicon Valley/San Francisco streets. You walk a dangerous road when restricting something, especially a justifiable art form; you are in danger of retarding the form because of an incorrect assumption that they are for children (when according to an Interactive Software Ratings Board poll the average video game fan is 28). It's a undeserved scarlet letter that says that the state needs to raise children because parents aren't able to. Throughout the 20th century Americans have held misconceptions that we laugh at now. Jazz music drove kids to drugs, Rock and Roll drove them crazy, Heavy Metal made them kill themselves, Rap music made them kill each other, now Video Games are the cause of our reckless youth. Will history judge you as a hero that helped parents ignore their children's interests, or a paranoid, book burning, quack like Dr. Frederick Wertham? Are either what you want your legacy to be?
The Movie & Music industries have self-instituted policies against extreme content and children; can you offer me a reason why this should be any different? You could lean on the retailers to have company policies restricting the sales and have individual stores enforce them. It's my belief that not unlike the movie industry the stores that sell games can set their own policy without the state getting involved. Once it's state mandated it opens the door to further restriction and eventual outright banning of material that isn't that bad to begin with.
It's not the job of retailers to be children's parents, think what an impact you'd have if you spent all the time you will spend on this with your children. Learning what they are interested in, guiding them, teaching them and then encouraging other parents to do the same. It shouldn't be hard to look at what your child is doing and have an interest in it. Games have a rating on them; all you have to do is read the box to see if they are appropriate for your children. If not, take it away, or better yet don't buy it for them in the first place. Video games cost $50 each. I don't know about you but I never had $50 to spend on anything when I was a kid at least not without my folks being there to shell out the cash for it and I would've been laughed at if I had asked them to buy me an adult video.
Thank you for your time.
Mark Hasselberger