The year is so young, yet the rediculous legislation has already begun. As already reported on this site and in a message I received from the ECA’s (Entertainment Consumer’s Association) Facebook page, I was informed that Rep. Joe Baca is attempting to pass a bill requiring the ESRB to place a warning label on all video games, even those not rated Teen and higher.
In case you haven’t seen, the warning label would read:
WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.
Considering there has actually been no casual link found between video games and violent behavior in teens (the U.S. Department of Justice found that since 1993, the year that Doom was released, violence in juveniles has actually gone down 77%), it’s fairly obvious that Congressional members still have no understanding of this form of media and nothing else to pass useless bills on.
The American Sociological Association also uses this graph to conclude that there is no direct link between the two, stating:
“If we want to understand why young people become homicidal, we need to look beyond the games they play,” Sternheimer says.
Placing the blame on video games exonerates the environment that a child lives in that might nurture violence: poverty, instability, family violence, unemployment, and mental illness, Sternheimer argues.
“It is equally likely that more aggressive people seek out violent entertainment,” Sternheimer says. “After adult rampage shootings in the workplace, which happen more often than school shootings, reporters seldom mention if the shooters played video games.”
Like most First Amendment violating bills pertaining to video games that are attempting to be passed, I’m guessing this one will not make it through. Hopefully with a President leading the way that seemingly both understands and is not afraid of video games, these outrageous bills will soon be a thing of the past and parents, not the government, will be responsible for what media their children consume.
Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, American Sociological Association
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