More child exploitation.

- Julie Benay, associate principal of Mary S. Babcock Elementary School in Swanton, VT., is leading the charge.

I could be wrong but my impression is that these elementry school children don't understand what is really going on. And thaat this really not much diffrent than what the peaceoholics were doing. But that is the impression I got.

- Warren Lewis

Haven't there been bills like this before that would inpose a tax on M and AO games that got shot down because they were deemed unconstitutional. Same thing that will happen with this one and all the other clones of it.

"I could be wrong but my impression is that these elementry school children don’t understand what is really going on. And thaat this really not much diffrent than what the peaceoholics were doing. But that is the impression I got." - Warren Lewis

More than likely not, teachers often do this as well. More than likely this was made a class project and madetory for the children to do, I remeber that I had to do some stupid ass enviromental campaigning when I was in the 4th grade. Teacher was a major hippie made the entire class write letters to our Senetors demanding better enviromental protection. We were given a letter to copy off of and we had to sign our name. And we were graded on it as well....Why are people now using actual children for their bandwaggon "Video Games are Evil" party?

I forgot who said this, but it works...

"To tax more than absolutly necessary is legalized robbery."

I can't believe this. Well guess what teach, since you are oh so focused on this endeavor, as fruitlesss as it may be, you are turning a blind eyes to school bullying. How conveniant, now you don't have to try and get school bullying under control, but odds are you'll just point at it and blame Bully after that gets released.

@Hank the Tank

Many legislators have used that line, because they're trying to elevate such research as "more likely to honk a horn" to the realm of definitive study on the effect games have on youth. The research that correlates a history of video game use to violent behavior is nowhere near as complete as the correlation of cigarette use to lung cancer. Especially since half the research on games is done on adults, and they just "infer" what it's effect would be on youth (most of Anderson's studies were done on 18 year old university students).

Smoking a pack a day makes you 5x as likely to die from most cancers as a "healthy" person. This is a number they got from 30+ years of study. If playing video games did the same, but caused increased agression instead of cancer, we'd see a huge explosion in the rates of school shootings, youth murders, etc. Especially since cancer takes years to show up, but video games are supposed to have you "trained" within a few years (otherwise how could GTA: Vice City cause murders within only a few years after it comes out?)

Two things:
1) Benay does not overwhelm me with her aptitude as a researcher. The original first person shooter was Wolfenstein 3-D, not Doom. If she got this wrong, what else did she get wrong?
2) Would this violate the 14th amendment?

It certainly does seem that way, Drackaer. It's ironic, some of the same liberties that America fought for back in the day are being taken back by the government.

This looks like misinformation at its best, along with using people completely oblivious to the actual problem (children or the democrat senator, your choice) to promote a personal agenda.

Wasn't there something in the constitution to ban unfair taxation of various products? As if that was sorta like a reason the US actually decided to become independent? Oh wait, I must be confusing history with truthiness...

"Does it need to be “grossly” violent? “Realistic” violence? Does there need to be blood? Where do we draw the taxation line?"

Then they coudl still tax GI Joes. I remember that some kids woudl find ways to remove limbs, or use broken figures, and use red ketchup or paint to create some pretty blood scenes.

Never mind that it's human nature to be violent and aggressive. Benay has good intentions, but has she ever heard of term 'rough-housing'? Kids go through this sort of stuff all the time. They also tend to be very emotional and throw tantrums when they don't get what they want.

Taxation as a form of censorship has already been found un-Constitutional.

It's why you cannot specially tax pornography, for example.

I've never had a problem with the violent content in games forcing itsself on my daughter. TV's another matter entirely. In fact, it's coming up to october which means I'll have to have the remote ready for the various cheesy slasher movie ads.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Games aren't the teaching tools that these people think. Case in point, the Madden football series is an exteremly serious take on the game of football and has rightly earned it's namesake as 'simulation football'. As a personal trainer, athletic trainer, and a coach for football, I can tell you that Madden can teach little to nothing for those who want to then go out in the world and play. How can shooters/brawlers/etc. be different? I don't know.

After all, I may see a rival gang in GTA: SA armed to the teeth and take them out bare-knuckled, but I can bet money that it wouldn't work out in real life. Heck, you point a pellet gun at me and I'm liable to scream like a little girl, flail my arms in front of my face, pee a little, and sob until you stop despite my TRAINING.

I guess what I'm saying is we should learn to worry about legislating the norm, not the exception.

The correlational research between assistant principals failing reading comprehension at a young age, who eventually have a bunch of misinformed ideas and say stupid things, is as strong as the correlation between smoking cigarettes and developing lung cancer.

There. Fixed it.

I can't believe we haven't brought this joke back out already:

Bring out the "unconstitutional" stamp.

Uh... how did that get past screening?

@ Grahamr
I agree, except we don't have to worry about Thompson posting here. Your first attempt to post is screened. It's only after that that you can post freely.
Theoretically, Jack could submit an innocent post where he doesn't reveal who he is, but, quite frankly, I don't think he could refrain himself long enough to do that.

Boffo, if this actually gets legs it will be pushed as a "Sin Tax" on par with the special taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. They'll attempt an end-run around the first amendment block by arguing "health risks". They'll almost certianly fail, but that's what they'll try.

As for the 1993 comment, I -still- haven't heard any of the critics of the video game industry even try to explain why violent crime in general and violent youth crime in particular has been dropping -steadily- since Doom came out. Anderson's "the correlation between video games and violent behaviour is as strong between that of cigarettes and lung cancer" is intellectually dishonest bullshit on many, many levels (read his studies and look at the standards used to measure "violent behaviour" for example, and compare his studies with the studies from other Psychaitrists who -haven't- founded their career on linking media to violence), but even if it were true you still have the striking disparity between the strong growth of the video game industry and its market penetration and the decrease in violence.

Note that I'm not suggesting that there is a relationship between crime rates and video game use, causal, correlational, or otherwise. But if there -was- a relationship you should expect -some- effect on violent crimes perpetrated by children, teenagers and young adults. You don't. And not only do you not see a positive correlation, you see what -appears- to be a negative correlation. I would suggest that when you have a positive correlation (although I would argue that the research there is questionable) in the rather iffy "laboratory" of psychology experiments and a -negative- correlation out in the real world, it's reasonable to look at the lab data with increased levels of skepticism.

@ Beacon and everyone else I suppose ;-)

Another point about what Benay gets wrong is that Doom never has players "beating" other players - its all aliens and weird monsters getting blow to pieces. What the hell what she looking about, reading, playing?

Don't ANY of these people notice an actual increase in violence or is it just easier to get the word out with fun technology like cell phones, wireless, internet, satellites - all these things that can make instant news around the world?

I am no expert, but I do consider myself logical and senseable, and there were plenty of things happening in South Louisiana when I was little, and I hear no more, if not less, horrible news than today and I am 25 now. So we are looking at over a decade and a half of "nothing new". I would consider South Louisiana an ignorant, intolerant, racist, place. I hate that my family still lives there because they are nothing like it. That's why I live in Colorado now. But it happens here too. Violence is everywhere and it was here before ubiquitous technology and games. We had guns and drugs at school when I was in elementary school - so what is Benay complaining about? Games? Try fixing the problem and not blaming something. There is a cause, but blaming still gets zero results. Though, in the case of lawyers, as with any lawyer or legal case, MONEY is too be received when blame can be placed on such an open and easy target. Because violence in games is the SAME as violence in reality - how blatantly ignorrant are these educated lawyers. Didn't they go to our US higher educated schools to learn how to PROBLEM SOLVE and CRITICALLY THINK?

I love that arguments of sh** for brains lawyers create are really only personal opinion used to make a tough, knowledgeable persona of something they know nothing about or very little about. And most opinions seem to be large presumptions about topics unrelated or far fetched from the real problems.

I wish we could find honest people that could argue for solving problems instead of only blaming and "making them pay". So let's just sue everyone and the problem will go away. Let's at taxes and violence will be an idea/action of the past. Let's change government when individuals refuse to take responsibility for their actions and those of their children.

This is a whole other problem with large government trying to regulate the thoughts and actions of hudreds of millions of people. Any system will break down. And this one only has to do with gaming. What happens when it is with war, community awareness, social trust and responsibility...oh yea...that isn't working large scale either.

That's why sites like this are so important, it takes away overuling agencies and puts actual good thinking people together - if not to solve everything - to at least be aware of their place on this planet. Others only tend to blame and disrupt this attempt because their arguements are visceral. Their problems are much more complicated and that is just too darn hard to figure out and fix - so the easy way out is best. Does this sound familiar to such a western society? I think so.

Benay can't even try herself. She heard of a game called Doom, found out wrong information, and can go no further than the blood and guns in the game as the answer to her problem. These types of people can't get past the violence they do see so obviously - which is present - but not for such a simple solution of cause.

I sent a comment in thinking they had a thread system beneath the article. However, I doubt they will "Get back to me".

>deep breath

Back in my NES days the only way I could buy a game was to ask my parents to get it. Things haven't changed for young kids at all. (Of course in my SNES days I had a job, ;) ).

I am really upset...I thought my home state would be smarter than this...ah well...this will never get farther than talk and I am not very afraid of it anyway.

I just can't believe my state would betray me in such a manner.

looks like I know what I will bring up when I see the that crazy republican governor of mine...

Mike

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I am quite sure there were many gamers in Tongues United, and it is truly inevitable that this bill will receive very little support, knowing how unfair this is to gamers and game companies alike. Let's not forget she was talking to a DIVERSITY organization, and that DIVERSITY and ATTEMPT AT CENSORSHIP do not mix.