Legislation: Video Games Hazardous to Health
Posted by Dan on January 14, 2009Pending legislation by Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA) and Frank Wolf (R-VA) would require all T or M rated games to carry a health warning label, Gamasutra reports.
The Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2009 (HR 231), will require the Consumer Product Safety Commission to enforce mandatory warning labels on all games rated T for Teen or M for Mature by the ESRB, stating: “WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.”
“The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers – to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products,” said Baca, who boasted in a press release that he is “a lead advocate in Congress” on media content issues. “They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility. Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people. American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products.”
Baca cites studies from the Pediatrics Journal, the University of Indiana, the University of Missouri, and Michigan State University, claiming “a neurological link between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior.”
The claim made by Baca and his proposed label has long been a subject of public contention, frequently leading to game-related legislation, most of which fails to pass or is eventually struck down.
It will be interesting to potentially see a federal law (if the bill passes) come under the scrutiny of the judiciary. I’m sure we’ll have some followups on the constitutionality of this bill and its relative chances of passage.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Joe Baca is one of the biggest morons in Congress and one of the biggest hypocrites(calling a female Congresswoman a “whore”). Proof is in his own name(diferent spelling, but the pronunciation is Japanese for “idiot”).
The so-called research has all been debunked even by the researchers themselves.
This is clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech(as the “bill” requires even non-”violent” games to have this “label”) and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process(equal protection under the law, since this “bill” only applies to video games and not to all other constitutionally protected media such as movies, music, and books).
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