Hacking the PSP Blog

Off Topic: States wising up? Video game bills drop like flies

After a streak of futility rivaling that of the Chicago Cubs, state politicos across the country appear to be finally getting the message about the constitutionality of legislation seeking to restrict the sale of violent video games. Already this year, three attempts to pass such legislation have either failed outright or been put on hold, as lawmakers appear to be increasingly cognizant of the constitutional issues.

A tale of three states

Mississippi
Mississippi State Senator Gray Tollison (D) introduced legislation in January calling for fines to be assessed to retailers selling M- and AO-rated games to minors, $100 for a first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses. It was a rerun of a bill introduced during 2006 and like its predecessor, it died in committee.

Utah
In Utah, State Representative Scott Wyatt (R) teamed up with video game violence pundit Jack Thompson to craft HB50. Modeled along the lines of an unconstitutional Louisiana law crafted with Thompson's help, Rep. Wyatt's bill would have modified the Utah Criminal Code to lump "inappropriate violence" in with sexual content in a list of materials harmful to minors, thereby prohibiting the sale of violent games to minors. Just as the Louisiana law did, HB50 drew on the Miller Test for obscenity to describe depictions of violence inappropriate to minors.[...]

Indiana
Most recently, an Indiana bill cosponsored by State Senators Vi Simpson (D) and David Ford (R) was introduced that would result in $1,000 fines for retailers selling violent or sexually-explicit video games to minors. After some choice violent scenes from a couple of video games were shown to the Senate Economic Development and Technology Committee, it voted by a 5-2 margin on Monday to send the bill to the full Senate for consideration.[...]

Read the full article here...

Eric Bangeman
February 23, 2007

Source: Ars Technica