The Constitution Still Doesn't Let States Stop Kids From Buying Video Games
from the for-those-who-weren't-paying-attention-the-first-dozen-times dept
Again? State after state after state has passed laws that ban the sale of certain video games to children, and time after time after time those laws are struck down as unconstitutional. Not a single one has passed muster, and yet court time and taxpayer money is wasted over and over again on these same issues, with at least 10 states having gone through the same process with the same results. States cannot ban the sale of video games to children. It's a violation of the First Amendment. This does not mean that stores themselves can't make such a policy, just as movie theaters have voluntarily (not based on a law) agreed not to let kids see movies of certain ratings. But to pass a law is unconstitutional. A lower court in Minnesota made that clear in 2006 -- but it didn't stop the politicians from appealing... and losing. Yes, a federal appeals court has agreed with the lower court that banning the sale of video games is not constitutional. While the lower court had noted:"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."The appeals court was a little less direct:
"Whatever our intuitive (dare we say commonsense) feelings regarding the effect of violent video games, precedent requires undeniable proof that such violence causes psychological dysfunction...."Despite claims to the contrary by some activists, there still is no evidence linking violent video games to violent behavior. In fact, as has been pointed out repeatedly, violent crime has continued to drop as violent video games have become more and more popular. At most, studies have shown that violent video games make people emotional, but that doesn't lead to increased violent activity outside of the game itself. Of course, that won't stop grandstand politicians from pushing for such violent video game bans, despite the knowledge that they're clearly wasting taxpayer money every time they do so.
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Filed Under: constitution, first amendment, minnesota, video games, violent video games
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lol
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Re:
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This is why I don't Vote Hillary Clinton
As usual, the problem in America can be traced back to Responsibility and the lack thereof.
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Don't Know About You, But...
[Full disclosure: I always regarded this as a very poor substitute for going down the hall and stabbing all my dorm-mates in the eye with a pencil for blasting out mediocre hip-hop until well into the early hours of the morning, but seriously, no jury in the land...]
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Duh
Duh.
Disarming LAW ABIDING citizens, just makes it easier for criminals and nut cases to do what ever they want.
Duh.
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Re: Duh
Duh.
Countries that prohibit personal firearms have significantly lower gun-related crime rates than countries that don't (particularly the United States).
Duh.
Dividing the world into "law abiding citizens" and "criminals and nut cases" instead of addressing the underlying issues that cause crime can't ever help said people not become criminals (and don't get me started on your ridiculous bigotry against the mentally ill).
Duh.
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Re: Re: Duh
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Re: Re: Duh
They just have more knife related crime. I can bet you that their overall crime rates are the same or higher. Or the crimes are state sanctioned by dictators, so they are not noted as crimes in their records.
Dividing the world into "law abiding citizens" and "criminals and nut cases" instead of addressing the underlying issues that cause crime can't ever help said people not become criminals (and don't get me started on your ridiculous bigotry against the mentally ill).
Why are those that run into a mall killing 15 people the true victims according to you liberals? They aren't responsible! It was G.W. Bush's fault!
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Re: Re: Re: Duh
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Re: Duh
Sure, pencils don't cause misspellings, but family murder-suicides are harder to accomplish with one.
Duh.
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You have it all wrong
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i wonder
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porn for Kids yeah!!
We don't sell porn to kids. but is ok to sell a game that lets them simulate killing a hooker...
And people think that is the place to take a stand for free speech..
Sad. very very sad spoiled brat children... on the Internet.
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Re: porn for Kids yeah!!
Of course. Society has made a distinction between sex and violence. Violence is OK for kids but sex isn't.
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Re: porn for Kids yeah!!
Why should the U.S. government be doing a parent's job, exactly? I have yet to hear a convincing argument.
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Re: porn for Kids yeah!!
Your thinking is mistaken. Kids can not buy or rent rated 'R' movies because it is the stores' policy to not sell that type of material to kids. The government has no laws saying you can be fined for doing it, but society has dictated it.
This article is saying the same thing. Rather than waste time a legislation on making the sale "illegal" why not just let society dictate what kinds of games kids can buy or rent (and personally I have never been in a store that doesn't card me when I try to buy a rated 'M' game or guidebook). I do think video games should be rated and the sale of 'M' games be restricted to adults only, but I do NOT think the government needs to go around making morality laws and wasting my tax paying money.
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Re: porn for Kids yeah!!
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Re: porn for Kids yeah!!
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Parents... again
I wouldn't want to live in a country where you couldn't buy reasonable adult entertainment, no matter what the form. However, it's the responsibility of adults to ensure these media stay out of the hands of the susceptible.
Once again, the law is failing to look at the real issue. Education in good parenting needs to be the governmental or state move, not bullsh*t legal battles.
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The Constitution in Times of War
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Re: The Constitution in Times of War
While historically some constitutional rights have been suspended during times of war, that hardly means that constitutional rights don't apply.
You do know that the US is at war, don't you?
If you feel like discarding your rights, that's your business. Being at war does not give the federal government carte blanche to do whatever it likes to its citizens.
Please pick up a book on the U.S. government and read it so you can make valid points instead of uneducated nonsense.
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Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of War
There are some people in Gitmo that would certainly be surprised to hear that.
Please pick up a book on the U.S. government and read it so you can make valid points instead of uneducated nonsense.
Are you talking about the fairy-tale "government" books the government uses to indoctrinate school kids? Get real. Pick up a real book on history and do a little reading of your own on things like US "internment" (concentration) camps for people of Japanese descent or the US government's treatment of Native Americans. And then look up news stories on more recent things like Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, material witness detention and so on from recent years. The list is long. All "unconstitutional". Your naivete, if genuine, is pathetic. Or deceitful if it isn't.
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Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of War
And how many of those people are U.S. citizens? Most, if not all of the prisoners at Guantanamo are supposed to be protected by the Geneva Convention, not the U.S. Constitution.
The list is long. All "unconstitutional". Your naivete, if genuine, is pathetic. Or deceitful if it isn't.
However, your statement was that constitutional rights don't matter in times of war. On the contrary, those rights matter more during times of war, because they are prone to governmental abuse. Saying they don't matter is tantamount to approving of that abuse.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of War
I'm looking back over my statement and I don't see that anywhere in it. Please stop making stuff up. It really doesn't help your argument any. Now that we know you make stuff up, why should anyone care what you have to say anyway?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of W
The government can certainly try to restrict Constitutional rights, but it is far from the foregone conclusion it used to be.
Now that we know you make stuff up, why should anyone care what you have to say anyway?
I misquoted. I apologized. Get over it, and stop acting like a child. I personally don't care how you evaluate my posts one way or the other.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times
No, I didn't say that either.
I misquoted. I apologized. Get over it, and stop acting like a child.
Let's see. An apology combined with another false statement and an insult? Apology not accepted. (And your reputation further stained)
I personally don't care how you evaluate my posts one way or the other.
You know, I don't believe that one either. In fact, I find it hard to believe anything you say any more. You don't happen to write those "government" school books or teach the classes do you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Ti
Unless you're a completely different AC than the one who started this particular thread (in which case you should sign your statements), that's your statement saying that Constitutional rights don't apply in times of war.
My response (in reference to constitutional rights):
My apologies. You said they don't apply, not that they don't matter.
I corrected myself. If you aren't the thread's original AC then it isn't my fault you didn't differentiate yourself. Additionally, I considered your response as equally insulting.
You know, I don't believe that one either. In fact, I find it hard to believe anything you say any more
Again, I don't care what you believe one way or the other. Believe what you like. I'm not going to bother entering into what appears to be the beginnings of a flame war with an AC.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution i
Are you really that stupid? Well then, I hate to tell you this Danny boy, but "Anonymous Coward" is the name the system here automatically puts on every post where the poster doesn't give a name. To assume that they are all the same person is just stupid.
I corrected myself. If you aren't the thread's original AC then it isn't my fault you didn't differentiate yourself.
You are entire responsible for your own assumptions and your ignorance is entirely your own fault, no one else's.. It is not my job to educate you.
Again, I don't care what you believe one way or the other. Believe what you like. I'm not going to bother entering into what appears to be the beginnings of a flame war with an AC.
You should have never opened your ignorant mouth in the first place.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of War
Yasser Hamdi was a US citizen held in Gitmo in violation of his constitutional rights.
Here's another link of interest: Bill Lets U.S. Citizens Be Held as Enemy Combatants.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times of W
The bill you linked to is currently before the Supreme Court to decide its constitutionality, and a decision is expected sometime this summer. Our system is far from perfect, but to make a blanket statement that constitutional rights don't apply in times of war is misleading and overbroad.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Constitution in Times
And I never said you did.
I also qualified my statement by saying "most" of the prisoners should be protected by the Geneva Convention instead of the Constitution.
Actually, you qualified it by saying "most, if not all". But yes, you did include a "weasel clause". Did someone claim otherwise?
Our system is far from perfect, but to make a blanket statement that constitutional rights don't apply in times of war is misleading and overbroad.
That wasn't my statement, but now that you mention it, one either has rights or one doesn't. If they are somehow optional then they aren't really rights but revocable privileges.
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Yet again the Federal government oversteps it's bo
States have laws regarding cigarettes, amongst a myriad of other things. They could just as well have a law against purple toilet paper. It doesn't matter. They don't need to justify their own laws to the USA, provided that the laws in question don't conflict with their agreement with the USA.
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Re: Yet again the Federal government oversteps it'
Actually, according to the 1st and 14th amendment of the US constitution, no one was over-stepping anything.
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When I was real little
Needless to say, it did not play out as funny for everyone as I had expected it to. My care taker gave me crap about violence and, yada, yada. But, watching that little girl crying, what really struck me then was how different things were in reality from inside that comic.
I don't hit people with frying pans anymore, but still enjoy violent interaction via games or playfully with friends.
I could argue that the simple early violent exposure allowed me the opportunity to learn of my environment and didn't turn me into a violent criminal.
Our society needs more understanding of the human condition.
And less of the habit of attempting to narrow human perception/experience.
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States that have more relaxed right to carry laws have a lower rate of violent crime than states with more restrictive laws. Washington D.C. banned the possession of handguns and had one of the highest crime rates in the country.
Perhaps if guns had never been allowed in this country at all, they wouldn't be a problem now. However guns were allowed and now crime is a problem.
Since by definition, criminals don't follow the law, they're not going to follow any laws that say they can't own or carry guns. Only law abiding people will give up their guns, which leaves them unarmed against possibly armed criminals.
Schools are supposedly "gun-free" zones. Psychos ignore those rules when they decide to go on a killing spree. Anyone who does obey the rules becomes a sitting duck for said psycho.
Look up Suzanne Hupp. She lost her parents when a maniac drove through the window of the caferteria where they were having lunch and started shooting people. Suzanne was licensed to carry a gun, but because she was also a law-abiding citizen, her gun was locked in her car, in the parking lot. Strangely the laws did nothing but assure the psycho that the 23 people he killed would be unarmed.
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Re:
Not quite. At that time in Texas a regular citizen couldn't get a license to carry a gun so Ms. Hupp did not have such a license. The law did however allow citizens to carry handguns in their vehicles when "travelling". This is how Ms. was allowed to have a handgun in her car.
As a result of what came to be called the Luby's Massacre, the Texas Legislature finally passed a law so that citizens could get concealed carry permits. Signing that bill into law was one of the few good things Bush did while governor of Texas.
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They must have all played too many video games as children.
The only sure way to eliminate crime in the world is to eradicate all human life on earth.
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To everyone fighting over the "Times of War" thread... you people do realize that the United States hasn't actually been in a declared war since World War II, right?
It doesn't matter what rights we may or may not lose "in a time of war" because, as far as the constitution is concerned we aren't in one.
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Re:
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It doesn't matter what rights we may or may not lose "in a time of war" because, as far as the constitution is concerned we aren't in one.
So, you're saying that when the President of the United States says the the US is at war, he's lying? And all those brave US military people fighting in Iraq are lying when they say they're at war over there? Wow.
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Why is it that my father, a man who owned several guns and legally carried one up to the day he died (of a bloodclot) never shot anyone? Why is it that in the three years since his death, I've owned all of his guns, along with at least enough ammo to load each one twice, and never killed anyone?
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idk
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