NationStates Jolt Archive

If you live in Massachusetts, and you play video games. Then you should know about HB 1423 (http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:3T4XUMAl3qUJ:www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/185/ht01pdf/ht01423.pdf+HB+1423&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a).

It's a great deal shorter than most half-baked laws out there, but long story short anyway, this law would essentially put violent video games in the same category as pornography.

Clearly, this makes me angrier than Kefka on his BAD days.

The law would make selling these kind of games, as defined by Mumbles (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/04/05/boston-mayor-gives-scary-interview-on-massachusetts-video-game-law/) as anyone under the age of 18, a matter of the law. What infuriates me more than the fact that a 17-year old who can get into an R-rated film legally can no longer be able to buy an M-rated game that is DEFINED as "17+", is that this law would denigrate what most professions consider an art form (okay, I'm just as pissed off with the previous but SERIOUSLY).

I'm hoping that this law will not be passed due to the fact that it is Constitutionally ambiguous and was drafted by a soon-to-be-discredited and disbarred fuckwit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29). This very same law (drafted by the very same fuckwit) was declared unconstitutional in a few other states, including Louisiana...which is...ahem...a bit more conservative than Massachusetts.

Now before anyone accuses me of thinking minors should be playing GTAIV, I want it stated for the record that kids SHOULDN'T be playing those types of games. That is what the ESRB rating system is for. Retailers are getting much more strict in imposing these regulations, and now if only the PARENTS would get in on the act, we wouldn't need Big Brother to do everything for us, now would we?

So...what does NS think?

Does this law make sense? Will it be passed? Will it pass judicial scrutiny? Does Bolol need to take a breather before he has a stroke?

BTW: Stephen King (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20188502,00.html) agrees with me. Who are you to argue with a literary giant like that? :p

Glad I don't live in Massachusetts.

Doubt it will pass, but then, I said the same about Boston undergrad housing restrictions, and those go into effect quite soon.

Doubt it will pass, but then, I said the same about Boston undergrad housing restrictions, and those go into effect quite soon.

It's almost as though Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to make the lives of anyone younger than them miserable.

young people don't vote so there :p

is pornography a big deal in the US or something :confused:

young people don't vote so there :p

is pornography a big deal in the US or something :confused:

Pornography...like everything else in the US...is simultaneously a big deal and an everyday occurrence.

It's a major industry. And yet there are always some backwoods shitheads who feel the need to rattle the cages on the grounds of "moral decency".

Fucking hate the world right now...

It's almost as though Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to make the lives of anyone younger than them miserable.

almost as if? Boston (more specifically, Roxbury and Allston/Brighton) have been trying to alienate student populations for years now. Funny, they don't seem to realize that a) the current financial health rides on the backs of college students and b) the future health of the city relies on some of us staying here.

Does this law make sense? Will it be passed? Will it pass judicial scrutiny? Does Bolol need to take a breather before he has a stroke?


Absolutely. I think porn should be made every bit as legal and accessible as video games. :D

It probably won't pass judicial scrutiny.

Hell no! You just need one of these smilies: http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif

It's a major industry. And yet there are always some backwoods shitheads who feel the need to rattle the cages on the grounds of "moral decency".

I wonder if like pornography when a game becomes classed as nasty and indecent it will only grow in kids playing it?

...wait *looks at porn* Massachusetts is playing us in one big economic game! (involving midgets)

Fucking hate the world right now...

don't be silly, lets not forget that at least Chickens are decent people!

Does this law make sense? Will it be passed? Will it pass judicial scrutiny? Does Bolol need to take a breather before he has a stroke?

1) No

2) Yes

3) No

4) Yes

almost as if? Boston (more specifically, Roxbury and Allston/Brighton) have been trying to alienate student populations for years now. Funny, they don't seem to realize that a) the current financial health rides on the backs of college students and b) the future health of the city relies on some of us staying here.

Speaks to the intelligence of the previous generations don't it?

Absolutely. I think porn should be made every bit as legal and accessible as video games.

It probably won't pass judicial scrutiny.

Hell no! You just need one of these smilies: http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/ranting.gif

Let us pray you are correct.

Oh Lord, do the judges of Massachusetts have the intelligence to see this law for the sham that it is, or are they all as baked as the rest of 'em?

don't be silly, lets not forget that at least Chickens are decent people!


I don't need the sympathy of the chicken race!

1) No

2) Yes

3) No

4) Yes

1) Take a breather

2) Eat some food

3) ???

4) PROFIT!

I live in Massachusetts. I'm over 18 so the law isn't going to hurt me much, but it will increase the social stigma against video games. Gaming is already commonly considered an anti-intellectual pastime for teenage boys who may someday become serial killers/ugly nerds. I don't want things to get even worse.

I think a lot of this moral panic comes from parents who don't want their kids to do anything they disapprove of such as having their own opinions. When people hit puberty, they start thinking for themselves and doing things by themselves, for better or worse. Because of this, some parents, who may have spent their whole lives reading books about how to raise their kids to do everything perfectly, feel like they have failed. They blame the change not on the natural process of becoming an adult, but on new genres of music, video games, or whatever their kid has that they never had as a kid.

When I was 4 years old, I had a toy cap gun. It was a little colorful plastic thing that made a pop noise. It wasn't very scary, and it didn't scare my friend. But when my friend's parents saw it, they were horrified and they severed all ties from my family. My parents never let me play with anything that resembled a gun ever again, not the nerf guns, not even games rated e10 that happened to have guns. I know this is probably an isolated incident, but still I get the feeling that people from any other state would be less likely to act like that. I'm not a gun nut or something, but I resent stupid taboos.

In a gneneral sense what is wrong with preventing minors from accessing graphically violent material?