I have no words to say other than this is bullcrap. OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER. It's exploitation of tragity to advance a political agenda and don't think it will stop at Missouri. It will spread unless we stamp out this here and now. http://www.gamespot.com/news/missouri-rep-wants-violent-game-tax-6402471 What do you think? Spread the word around.
This was gonna happen sooner or later. It's gonna keep happening. People keep blaming video games for the violence out in the world, saying outrageous things like, "My child shouldn't play these, they are bad for them." Well . . . don't let your kid play them. You already have to be a certain age to buy them anyway. If you're old enough to buy the games, and still ignorant enough to be influenced by them, you should be ready to accept the consequences. This is a completely outrageous agenda, and I hate this is where the government is headed. This is what they are turning to, trying to "fix" America. Taxing the games like this isn't going to change anything. If I want the game, i'll still buy it. I'll just be mad about the price.
I find it kind of annoying when people blame violent video games as the cause for actual physical violence. My parents do it, and I merely state to them that it is a desensitizing occurrence, and real crime happens when people are genuinely unsound. I in fact find it less favorable to enact in violence when I play a violent game, because I realize how grotesque it is if it were literal.
I think Fareed Zakaria on CNN made a VERY good point when he said how Japan has even more violent games than the U.S., yet the crime rate there isn't as high as the U.S. So violent video games are responsible how??? Anyway, hope this doesn't become law. I'm just glad I don't live in Missouri. But the problem is that other states may start doing the same thing.
Silent Hill has taught me wonderful, psychopathic lessons like using a pillow to get rid of troublesome family members, and how I can't be held accountable if they look like monsters to me. :) ^ This. And it' s not like Japan is the isolated exception that proves the rule, a number of countries play video games as much as Americans do yet they are much less violent. You know what ? Actually there is a difference between Japan and the US when it comes to video games : Japan doesn' t censor sex. I propose you start taxing games that don' t show tits. ^^ I think your politicians would happily ignore this tragedy if it didn' t broke the camel' s back this time, that 's what they usually do. I think they' re either stupid enough to actually believe video games are the right thing to blame or they' re just trying to divert the attention on something that won' t hurt their wallets or require effort, as opposed to more gun control. In my country the medias are regularly misplacing all kinds of lunatic assertions on video games (any time you spend playing those damn video games is time you didn' t spend watching their crappy channels), yet no politician here would dare pushing any kind of political agenda on this given how flimsy the scientific evidence is. But then we don' t have mass murders nor school shootings every Tuesday, if at all, and your politicians seem much more prone to make "if you can' t impress them with knowledge dazzle them with bullshit" their motto. Reminds me of that fake interview that cracked me up a while back :
I don't peg this guy as being particularly intelligent, but I still find his rants at the very least amusing (sometimes.) anyway, I saw this earlier this afternoon and wasn't shocked at all.
"Why take responsibility when we can blame something and make a little cash from it?" is the vibe I'm getting from here. It's ridiculous and bothers me so much that people still blame video games for things even when there's proof showing how foolish it is.
Speaking of flimsy scientific data, I came across this article on Kotaku. It's kinda tl;dr, so I won't post the whole thing and it's still fairly biased (because lol kotaku), but it does try to present both sides of the issue. http://kotaku.com/5976733/do-video-...-an-in+depth-look-at-everything-we-know-today
Almost every good game in this gen is violent, yet games could be taxed as they are a "luxury iten" and not something essential, is like alchool or tabaco. it sucks for us... but then again I am used to pay almost 50% of taxes in video games ;( About violence in Japan X US. Japaneses can't buy weapons, so even whe a crime occours there are a minimal of victims, whereas in US a kid can buy army weapons, so even someone that isn't that strong can make a lot of casualitys... I can't say that having weapons is bad, but is a choice when you chose to make them available there are some good things, and bad things that comes with this choice.
The gun control debate is neither here nor there, but this is one of the most ignorant things I've read in a long ass time. Not only do you have to be 18 to buy a gun, you have to submit to a background check (granted, one that could probably be tighter), have a license as well as other restrictions, depending on your state, but there is a HUGE difference between military issue and civilian issue. First and foremost: Civilians have NO access to fully automatic weapons. This is the biggest reason why the VAST majority of gun crime is done with semi-automatic weapons. There is a lot more to the gun control debate than weapon availability, because if that's all there was to it, then the gun nuts who cite Switzerland (which has the third highest rate of gun ownership in the world) would actually have a point (which they do not because of the MANY other factors in why Switzerland has such a low gun crime rate (IE, smaller population, more rural, higher average wealth, everyone is actually TRAINED with guns due to compulsory military service and other factors)). EDIT: I forgot about Class 3 licenses, which DO allow civilians to own fully automatic weapons... but they are EXTREMELY expensive, the weapons are EXTREMELY expensive, you have to extra taxes just for owning that license AND your house can be searched by the police at any time to make sure that you aren't just leaving your fully automatic M16 laying on the coffee table.
It's different for countries that you are used to being with guns, and other that arent.. in my perspective for an instance, in Brazil you have to be 25 years old, to wield a weapon and pass so much trouble to getting in legal ways that almost none common citizen has one, sure our violence exists, and there are illegal weapons, but events where teenagers appear with weapons and kill many people are so rare that I only heard of one in my entire life. So I am arguing that wheres in Japan It's highly more difficult to come around with weapons, so EVEN when freak people apear they will kill less than if they had guns, even revolvers (with 6 bullets) makes childs able to kill full grown mans that they would not be capable in normal situations. I saw that documentary of Moore's "Bowling for columbine" and, even though i found it a bit exagerated, it showed that it was possible to buy weapons at a grossery shop, so Yes it is easier to get weapons in U.S. than most countries. Sure I am not blaming the weapons per se if you read all my previous comment, you will see that I was just making a point that a gun makes more casualities , but it is a choice.. and it's not so closely binded to violence, as other countries like Canada also have weapons available for the common people , but they don't have the same violent rates, as U.S. . The culture background, bias, etc .. have their influence, I am just saying that having weapons available makes the potential deaths bigger than whithout it, so sure in Japan they can't have weapons, but is not like there isn't their own share of mental ilness that could trigger massacres in there, is just that these "outcast people" normaly can't kill, or overpower a huge number of people with the only help of knives or whatever... they do have a high rate of suicides, so they have somewhat of a violent intent, even if only towards themselves.
