Senate Bill Proposed To Study And Possibly Crack Down On Video Game Violence

By on December 25, 2012 in News 23

Congressional Republicans poised to censor video games to ensure that a massacre at a school never happens again. In all honesty I thought kids just played Angry Birds nowadays. IGN reports:

A proposed bill could lead to a study of the role of violence in video games. In the wake of the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller has proposed a bill to study “the impact of violent content, including video games and video programming, on children.”

In a statement posted to his site, Rockefeller wrote “I have long expressed concern about the impact of the violent content our kids see and interact with every day. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I have introduced legislation to direct the National Academy of Sciences to investigate the impact of violent video games and other content on children’s well-being.”

Under the bill, the National Academy of Sciences “would be directed to conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of the connection between violent video games and violent video programming and harmful effects on children.” Rockefeller also noted plans to call upon the FCC and FTC to “expand their work in this area.”

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  • http://www.facebook.com/jebediah.morningside.5 Jebediah Morningside

    “would be directed to conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of
    the connection between violent video games and violent video
    programming and harmful effects on children.”

    So I take it they’ve credibly established through scientific research that such a “connection” exists in the first place? I don’t believe one of our wonderful politicians would pull facts like that out of his ass.

  • Haystack

    It’s good to see that the government is not too busy coordinating drone strikes to send the message that violence is not okay.

    • http://twitter.com/RayButlers Ray Butlers

      We never see the pictures or hear the names of the innocents killed by the drone strikes while the rich white Americans are sanctified by the media. Nauseating.

  • “Big” Richard Johnson

    I can’t remember the last time a gamer knelt before the image of a man nailed to a stick, and gave thanks for his brutal murder.

  • Kevin Leonard

    I get the image of a news anchor shuffling papers around on a desk to appear like they are doing something.

  • http://twitter.com/RayButlers Ray Butlers

    If you understand all of this hooey as Puritanism, it’s clear. They pick and choose their sacred artifacts, like all hypocrites. They chose to protect guns (only vaguely protected in the Constitution) and suppress speech (more clearly protected). Just like the Bible in which wicked attitudes are punished by horrific violence but righteous violence is enthusiastically endorsed. Ideas that might possibly challenge the orthodoxy (in this case the sacred firearm) are dealt with bitterly and aggressively. Can’t wait for Christmas dinner today when I tell my NRA dad off. Could end the relationship!

    • http://www.facebook.com/jebediah.morningside.5 Jebediah Morningside

      Both the right to speech and to own guns need to be protected. Any attempt by the state to tell its citizens what they may or may not own, say, watch, ingest, or where they may or may not go needs to be vigorously resisted.

    • echar

      I honestly feel that relationships are far more important than ideologies.

  • echar

    They may find more results if they did a study on religion and violence.

  • djmagnumb

    F*ck this m*&^%$f*cker. I haven’t heard of anyone blaming Need for Speed or Forza or Gran Turismo as the cause of car accidents, or blaming Tetris as the cause of them being obsessive compulsive. The NRA just wants someone to hang instead of themselves committing suicide. Video games are an easy target. If anything video games relieve stress and anger and is a form of therapy for many people. First it was movies that took the flak for violence, then music, now video games. Someone with some internet prowess should be starting a website right now dedicated to starting protests about banning games with violence. Or better yet start a website to stop this bill from taking effect in the first place. We gamers need to riot if this sh*t happens. There is an ESRB for a reason. Parents need to use their heads and pay attention to the MATURE ratings. I’m so sick of this sh*t.

  • Anarchy Pony

    I still maintain that the violent people gravitate to the violent video games, not that the games turn people violent. They’ve got their cause and effect backwards.

  • Apathesis

    As nauseating as the NRA are, they are one of the few things standing in the way of the government attempting to seize weapons or ban the sale of certain weapons to civilians. Mind you, there are about 300,000,000 guns and around 11,000 homicides a year. That means only .036% of guns in this country are involved in homicides (assuming only one gun is used for each murder, and each gun is only used once), and how many of those homicides are committed with legally owned firearms?

    Between 1% & 7% of all gun homicides involve ‘assault weapons.’ At best, 770 murders involve ‘assault weapons.’ 770 homicides committed by assault weapons / guns in this nation = .00025666%. That is the percentage of ‘assault weapons’ that are used in homicides in the USA.

    It’s obvious they are only trying to ban these weapons because they are used in high-profile shootings the media hypes up. Revolvers and other handguns are used FAR MORE OFTEN. Banning weapons based on physical characteristic and not on their operational qualities is RETARDED. Please explain how a collapsible stock, flash suppressor, bayonet lug or pistol grip will magically grant a user more killing power? Never mind that a fully automatic weapon has never been used in any of these massacres. In fact, legally owned ones have only been involved in THREE homicides, and one was committed by a police officer.

    We should be punishing people in possession of illegal guns more severely instead of freeing them after a few years. Ditto for people who commit violent acts with legal and illegal guns.

    Ending the Drug War would be far more effective in reducing gun violence than arbitrarily banning certain guns. Putting cops in schools will increase the power of the police state. Taking our guns away will do the same.

    We live in a country where the solution to a problem is to treat the symptom rather than the cause.

    • Kevin Leonard

      Nice post, but you saw that this article was about video games, not guns, right?

      • Apathesis

        Yes, which are also being blamed for the recent tragedies. So both are linked. I was in a rush and kept editing my post and apparently left the video game arguments out. It’s really retarded to be blaming either of these things if we aren’t going to address the core issue which is our society is fucked. Parents think it is okay to let four year olds play Manhunt and Resident Evil and they think that pharmaceuticals are the answer to their child’s non-existent mental condition.

    • just drop the guns

      Games don’t kill people but guns sure do. Just because the numbers are not overwhelming yet (thank god or the highest of powers) does not mean the potential is not there. Try using your weapon against the state, they will go wacko texas on your ass and burn you down with not just superior weapons but just raw pig power. Guns have to go, they are too easy to acquire, to me its a spiritual sickness in a way, using magick for gross means. Americans are too paranoid and guns are not the answers. The police state was voted into power because people got out smarted and guns are not going to stop it. Firearms just police ourselves and keep general population in danger. The only weapons that should be legal are the long rifles that require a reload every shot for hunting, pistols are to easily concealed and semi and fully autos are overkill and dangerous, lastly shotguns are just indiscriminate and horrible for home defense.

      • http://www.facebook.com/eric.fischer.73 Eric Fischer

        “…lastly shotguns are just indiscriminate and horrible for home defense.”

        OK, I had disagreements with you before this sentence; but that last bit confirmed that you don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about.
        Have you ever held or fired any type of gun in your life?

      • alizardx

        Shotguns are excellent for home defense. They are less critical in aiming than rifles and pistols are, intelligent choice of shot (#8, not #00 buckshot) means less penetration of walls, i,e, less likely to go into next room or neighbor’s apartment), and most important, intimidation value. People start thinking about personal mortality when staring down the roughly 3/4″ in diameter barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun. Shotguns obviously scare you. That’s the point.

        Best kind of fight with an intruder is one that never happened. But that isn’t part of the top-down talking points you are obviously parroting.

  • JoiquimCouteau

    Video games serve as a relatively harmless sink for aggression (although they do glorify militarism and random violence). If not for video games, those same children would create their own pseud-violent games (like they did in the past), or harm themselves or others. The problem is childrens’ diets, their ‘education’, and the authoritarian nuclear family, which render them aggressive, sadistic, and cognitively-impaired to begin with.

    • http://www.facebook.com/eric.fischer.73 Eric Fischer

      I agree with everything up to the “authoritarian nuclear family” bit. The evidence just doesn’t support that statement.
      During the 35 years or so that “random mass murder just because” has become a semi regular thing, the influence of the traditional nuclear family has been becoming less prevalent and influential.
      That’s not to say that a rise in single parent households and school influence is automatically to blame. But we need to look at influences that have risen in the last half century, at most, to find the root causes.

      • JoiquimCouteau

        I was talking about the sources of aggression which find their outlet in video games.
        The authoritarian nuclear family foments this to the extent that it represses sexuality and autonomy. The nuclear family may have less influence than it did in, say, fascist germany, but it is still a primary agent of repression in most cases.
        What’s changed in the last 35 years is the widespread use of SSRI and similar serotonin-increasing drugs, which produces an effect in humans analogous to the ‘learned helplessness’ they produce in mice. Most if not all such massacres can be linked to the use of these drugs.

  • alizardx

    Many studies have been done in this area. The consensus that there IS no positive correlation between violent video games and violence among young people, some studies suggest a negative correlation.

    ““would be directed to conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of the connection between violent video games and violent video programming and harmful effects on children.”” – IOW, NAS is directed to find one even if it doesn’t exist.

    Science as invented by ignorant politicians. Like Lysenkoism in Soviet Russia, or “Aryan Science” during the Hitler Administration in Germany.

  • zombieslapper

    Copied and pasted my comment to a similar post on The Raw Story

    GTA
    is one of the more notorious violent games out there and even in that
    world killing civilians & police is essentially discouraged as it
    makes it more difficult to complete the missions… Missions which
    usually involve stopping “real” bad guys.

    Much like movies and literature, the bad guy star of the show often
    has a heart of gold and much of the storyline involves the player making
    decisions to help that character find his or her way out of a life of
    crime, etc.

    Take Red Dead Redemption for example: You’re rewarded for showing
    mercy, helping strangers and even donating money to freakin’ nuns. The
    better human being you are, the more helpful you are, the more help you
    receive in completing the game, aka winning.

    These games also show how goddamn hard it would be for someone not
    trained in combat to miss their target, hitting an innocent person, or
    how difficult it could be in determining who the “bad guy” is during a
    crime in progress.

    I’d also like to add, after a particularly rough day, stealing a
    virtual sports car and getting into a high speed chase & shootout
    with computer cops can be a great way to unwind. It’s like watching an
    episode of Breaking Bad or something… only you’re in it.

  • Apathesis

    Republicans and Democrats are so full of shit. Let’s start blaming penises for rape for while we are it.