These are ideas I thought up to end the next video games moral panic that comes up after a shooting spree or school shooting that has "connections" to video games. I thought these up during the Sandy Hook Moral Panic and think this is a great time to bring these up again and I think someone needs to get at least one of these into the Obama Admin. ASAP. I won't do it. I cannot get signatures no matter how hard I try. But someone else in the Gaming Industry should really consider this, because it will limit the possibility of legislation of video games in the future to a very slim chance.
During the last few video game related moral panics (Columbine, Sandy Hook, etc), hoaxes were spread that seemed to show that school shooters were influenced by video games. Hoaxes such as the "Doom Will Become Reality" Hoax after columbine. These Hoaxes contributed to legislation and were used to attempt sway the supreme court in Brown vs EMA by the Eagle Form Watchdog group. Media then went out and attacked violent games, often times using lies to attack them. Lies such as "Video Games make people violent!" are often cited by people in the media. Both of these contribute to the moral panic and make it spiral out of control. Moral panics can be Proven to cause anti-video games legislation and studies. The industry MUST take steps to prevent the the spread of such lies and hoaxes and the government AND media must be punished for spreading them.
A) Government Limitations
-Government cannot use the Obscenity Clause to judge Violence!
(Obscenity clause has a part that says if the game lacks serious literary, scientific, and educational values, it gets fined. No one in a panel deciding this will say it has these values if they get offended by the violent content!)
-Government forbidden from drafting any bill that by accident or purposely causes the lack of sales of violent games to adults.
(No More laws like the CA bill that started Brown VS EMA. No more crap like this)
-Government forbidden from taxing the "Use", "Storage", or "Consumption" of Violent Games.
(No More making everyone who plays a violent game have to pay a ridiculous tax)
-Government forbidden from Taxing Violent games by a percentage higher than 20%
-Government Video Game Studies are Illegalized
-Government officials should be jailed for making up lies about violent games.
-Government forbidden with tampering with the ESRB and cannot make a new rating system IF it gets abused to rate all games so they cannot be sold in stores at all.
Examples of Lies: (proof it's a lie)
"Studies prove Violent games cause real life violence!"
(No study has ever been done that proves this, EVER! Many prove "Aggression" though)
"Violent games are used to break down the inhibition to kill in the military!"
(A person in the military debunked this. Go here for a debunking. Too long to post here)
"Violent games are training tools!"
(Most violent games are not. Only 1 series "America's Army" is)
"Violent games allow you to rape a woman!"
(Not a single violent game since Custers revenge has this feature. That was released in 1989!)
"Violent Games are marketed to kids"
(The Average age of a gamer is 34 according to a ESRB study)
"Violent Games make kids turn into Child Molesters!"
(Brought up by two different people after sandy hook with NO proof!)
"Violent Game Fans are Terrorists!"
(Posted on a site online attacking a marathon bombing game, no proof whatsoever that this is true)
Example of Hoaxes used to attack games after School Shootings
"Eric Harris said Doom Will Become Reality"
(A fake Harris Site popped up on April 21 1999 that said this. FBI Proved this was a hoax site)
"A Hate Site Tracking Group found a modified version of doom on Harris's Website that allowed him to train for the massacre"
(The version of doom that was modified in the article had features doom could not do in 1999 "Infinite Weapons/New Weapons/A second Shooter with New AI/Running out of ammo killed both the second shooter and the player", therefore the modified version of doom is a hoax)
"Adam Lanza's PC, contained a "gamer Scoresheet" with specifics on 500 murders"
(His PC's HDD was Destroyed WITH A HAMMER, how could they even find the fake spreadsheet?)
-Amicus Briefs that use the above lies to sway a supreme court case about a violent game related legislation must be fact checked by a panel of game industry members who know these are lies, and the person who drafted the amicus brief gets heavily fined and barred from future amicus briefs. (Eagle Forum already tried this tactic with some of the above hoaxes during Brown vs EMA)
B) Media Limitations
This covers Media groups (Tv Stations, Newspapers, Websites of those two, ) and Watchdog Groups (PTC, Eagle Forum, National Institute of the Media and the Family, Common Sense Media, etc.) and Police (Police Stations (They often attack games))
-Any newspaper caught writing an article that makes up facts to "prove" a game caused a school shooting and it can be proven by an industry panel, license revoked, fined 2 million dollars, writer thrown in jail for 10 years.
-Any newspaper trying to stretch the truth on violent games, fined 2 million dollars, thrown in jail for 2 years
-Any Newstation making up nonsense about violent games and it can be proven by the above panel,
the tv station shut down, they get fined million dollars, and they get tried for inciting the populace in a dangerous way, and license revoked of anyone involved.
Media now has to be 100% FACTUAL when talking about violent games
-Any Watchdog group that submits an Amicus Brief that contains the above lies and/or hoaxes, gets jailed for 20 years, their property taken by the government and their website shut down forever)
-Any Watchdog group that makes up nonsense about video games on their site, or elsewhere, gets fined 500,000 dollars, their website shut down for 6 years, and gets jailed for 2 years.
-Anyone who goes on talk shows mentioning the above lies and/or hoaxes gets jailed for 10 years, and the talk show gets fined 500,000 dollars.
C) Frivolous lawsuit protection..
- A panel of video game industry members will filter through any lawsuits filed against a gaming company, and if the plaintiff and/or lawyers use above lies to sway the jury, the plaintiff fined 2 million dollars, the lawyer disbarred, etc.
D) Lawsuits
The Gaming industry is now recommended to sue anyone in the media making up anything about a game, anyone in the government, and anyone legislating video game violence in a way that will make video game not sell able to stores to adults.
E) Stopping the spread of the above lies
- Any forum that is found by the panel of the industry that has above lies being spread, the people get fined 2000 dollars and put in jail for 2 years.
- Anyone who calls video games trash, fined 50 dollars
- Anyone who threatens gamers, or insults gamers online, fined 12000 dollars, and thrown in jail for 5 years.
- Anyone doing the above should have their IP addresses made public to help this
- Anyone caught building a website that contains a new video game violence related hoax that proves a school shooter committed the shooting due to the violent game's influence, gets jailed for 5 years and find 2500 dollars.
Ok... This is my plan. I want someone to send this to "We the People" to petition the Obama Administration to do at least Some of these. I cannot do it. Last time I tried, I could not get enough signatures at all. But someone else can. I think it's time we acted to Prevent the next moral panic rather then attacking it when it happens. Because it will happen someday and the quicker we do these actions the better.
