Why can’t state legislatures go back to wasting our time and money arguing over what the official state woodwind instrument should be?
It was announced this week that the state of Minnesota is paying the Entertainment Software Association, who represents developers and publishers of video and computer games, $56,000 to cover the group’s legal fees from fighting an unconstitutional bill the state attempted to pass in 2006.
Now, opinion on whether the government should be involved in rating or otherwise classifying games aside, (Hint: They shouldn’t be), states need to stop pursuing these types of laws.
Why?
Well, taxpayers around America have a little over 1.1 million reasons why. In decisions in several states, including California, Illinois, Louisiana and Michigan, the ESA has been awarded more than $1.1 million dollars to cover its legal costs fighting these unconstitutional bills.
States have tried different methods to prevent the sale of “violent” video games to minors, fining the retailers, fining the purchaser, and in the case of the California bill, making it a felony, but all have been struck down in court.
What makes it even worse is that some states like New York are still working on similar bills. They aren’t even just being over zealous in their pursuit of a scapegoat anymore. Now they’re openly going against legal precedents. There has yet to be a U.S. Supreme Court case on the issue, but that’s only because every on of these bill has been struck down either at the state or federal circuit level, or higher courts have refused to hear the state’s appeals.
I guess it shouldn’t really be surprising to anyone that state legislatures could be talking into passing some of these bills.
Although I’m sure many congressmen and senators are very intelligent people, some of their co-workers give a different impression. Take Connecticut Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) for example. Recently she said that something needs to be done about the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV. Sounds fine. No parent wants their kids seeing a rape scene in the video game they bought their kid to get out of doing any real parenting. There’s just one problem.
There is no rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV.
Although the game does feature some sexual content, such as lap dances and the ability to pick up a hooker, there is no nudity. I guess the kids will have to go elsewhere for their hot polygon-on-polygon action.
Senator Slossberg wants stronger labels for certain games, but even she’s not sure what they should be. In what she thought was an off-the-record discussion, she recently said, “I mean what would it say? ‘This game will make you a sociopath?’”
Really? I wonder what any of the 6 million people who bought the game in its first week would have to say about that.
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