Yup, The Constitution Still Applies In Minnesota, Too
from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept
How many times does this need to be repeated? How many times will grandstanding, politically motivated state politicians ignore the rulings in every other state and try to push through unconstitutional laws to ban video games? Just as has happened in places like Louisiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, Illinois and a few other states, a law banning the sale of certain video games to minors in the state of Minnesota has been struck down as unconstitutional. The same thing happens absolutely everywhere it's tried -- and any politicians must know that by now. There's simply no reason to put forth more of these laws, as they simply waste the time of the courts and act as a way for politicians to grandstand on an issue that doesn't seem supported by the facts. In this case, the judge noted, again, that there's simply no real proof that video games and violence are linked: "There is a paucity of evidence linking the availability of video games with any harm to Minnesota's children at all.... It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games."Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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How long will it go on?
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Re: How long will it go on?
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Lol
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No connection
The fact is, the cases you hear about where a kid kills himself or another person over a videogame is just that, a case. It doesn't in anyway represent the rest of us. In those cases, the kid is screwed up in the first place, videogames didn't give him any thoughts that he didn't already have.
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Re: No connection
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Re: Re: No connection
Quite easy for me to understand, being 16 myself....
I'm not violent at all...never even had detention in school, over a 4.0 GPA this year....and I've been playing computer games rated teen for violence since I was 6 years old. The games are half the reason I'm so smart. I got into AP Computer Science a year before my school district offers it because as a kid I loved these games, and I loved to play around and try to edit the settings and crap.
But back to the original post by Chris....kinda got sidetracked there....
Violent videogames offer a place for kids to release their anger. Instead of getting a gun and taking it into school and shooting people, they got on their computer or X-Box or something and drive a tank through NYC or something. It's a lot more satisfying :)
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Re: No connection
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Counterpoint
But let's get real here, these games are played all over the world - Iceland, Poland, US, Portugal, etc etc - How many cases of "student rage" are there in each of these countries?
I'm sure there are isolated events in each, but are they blamed on fscking video games?
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Re: Counterpoint
And Chris is right, I highly doubt they blame the video games. Maybe instead of blaming videogames for violence, perhaps look at the world around you. The news is more violent than some of these videogames, and more horrific too, since its real.
Every single day, as an American, I can turn on the news and get violence in areas like the Middle East shoved down my throat. Maybe we should take a look at our REAL actions, that actions that teach our young ones that violence is okay.
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Re:
Ya. Besides I've wanted to shoot people before I played videogames.
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The Solution...
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Re: The Solution...
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Look at it this way...
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its a podium
I can actually eventually seeing these state politicians getting a federal Congressman to start up an amendment making it legal to ban the games from being sold or rented.
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Re:
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What we really need to do is...
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Reality Check
Instead of people trying to point the blame on a type of media (which is all games are) why don't they attempt to look at the world we live in first.
If they (politicians, etc.) would open their friggin eyes they might actually see the problem...
Parents.
Rather than spend an hour or so actually supervising their children, they would instead give them the newest game and have them plop their fat asses in front of the TV.
Try going outside... you might be amazed.
There is an incredible game out there just waiting to be played.
It's called REAL LIFE.
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ive been wathcing violent movies, playing violent video games, listening to so called violent music for years,and as far as i can tell im fine, in fact whenim really angry about soemthing i go play abit of GTA, shoot some people, have some high speed chases etc etc, and it calms me down, also when i used to listen all the rap music that talked about killing people and stuff, that calmed me down when i was in a bad mood, but then again, music calms me down in most situations, no matter what sort of music
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Jesus...
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Stereotype of the Day...
Rap is all about pimps, hoes, and money...
Goth people are always sad and suicidal...
Punk style people are destructive...
and new addinng:
Violent games cause people to be violent.
If thats true then why not ban all religion becuase religion is what caused those suicide cults to go a little to far. Or maybe ban tv and music because they make people do bad things.
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