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Fighting Back: Protecting Children from Violent Video Games 5/21/2003 Lawmakers take action after game makers' self-regulation fails
Across the country, state and federal lawmakers are turning their regulatory guns on the video game industry, in an attempt to lessen the violence committed by imitators of the games.
In Washington state, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle) has successfully passed legislation that makes employees of businesses who knowingly sell or rent violent video games to minors civilly liable. Police officers would be able to fine retail clerks $500. Signing of that bill into law is scheduled for this month.
Federal lawmakers have mimicked that bill. On May 14 Rep. Joe Baca (D-California) introduced the Protect Children From Video Game Sex and Violence Act of 2003. That bill, HR 669, would fine video game retailers $1,000 for the first offense of renting or selling an adult-rated game to anyone 17 or under. A second offense would carry a $1,000 to $5,000 fine and subsequent offenses would incur a fine of not less than $5,000.
Michigan is working on similar legislation, and activists in Wisconsin and Arkansas plan to introduce bills next session.
“What we are seeing is a sea change in how the American public views video game violence,” attorney Jack Thompson told Culture & Family Report. Thompson is representing a Medina, Ohio, couple in a lawsuit against Rockstar Games, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video game series. The couple’s son, an avid player, is accused of beating his 15-year-old girlfriend to death.
The trade association for video game makers say such legislation “intrudes” on parental responsibility and has suggested instead that retail clerks and parents be educated about the rating system for video games.
“It shouldn’t be the state or government that censors and controls content," Jason Della Rocca, program director for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) told CNS News following a press conference announcing the federal bill.
“Having parents rely on retailers to enforce that … is actually abdicating responsibility for the parents even more so than [it is abdicated] today,” he said.
But efforts to enact some sort of self-regulation in the industry have failed. In Washington state, Rep. Dickerson announced her bill only after various video game makers walked away from a deal to educate retail clerks and institute self-monitoring.
“I gave them that chance,” Dickerson told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “And they blew it.”
Thompson says video game makers have hidden behind the parental responsibility issue long enough.
“I have an 11-year-old nephew,” Thompson said. “One day shortly after Christmas he went to a neighbor’s house to play. When he returned, he said ‘Mom, we just had sex with a hooker and beat her to death.’
"The question the entertainment industry has yet to answer is, what did that mom do wrong?” he added. “It’s not enough for parents to keep their own children away from this material, it is polluting the culture. It’s at the neighbors, it’s in the schoolhouse and it’s in the playground. There is no escape.
“The reason video game makers don’t want their own rating system enforced by retail establishments is because they don’t want parents or concerned adults interrupting the sale,” he added.
“Unless retail establishments enforce those ratings at the check-out counter,” Thompson added, “the rating serves only as a sales tool to lure young buyers.”
Thompson notes that violent video games have been linked to an ever-growing list of violence committed by teens, including every major mass school shooting on record.
“The Columbine High School shooters, Kleibold and Harris, were Doomheads,” said Thompson. “They even modified the game so that the faces of the game’s targets were replaced with pictures of their classmates taken from the yearbook.
“In January, Oakland, California, police made several arrests in the case of the ‘Nutcase Gang,’ a group of teens causing mayhem,” he said. “The gang trained on the game Grand Theft Auto III, and one gang member even said ‘we played the game by day, we lived the game by night.’
“The deadliest school shooting in history occurred in Hartford, Germany, on April 26, 2002,” he continued. “There a student, mimicking the shooter from the game Counterstrike, went to school dressed in special ops clothing, opened fire and killed 13 teachers, two students and himself. Police later found 52 sniper-style video games at his home.”
Thompson listed a half dozen other instances that linked teen violence to violent video games. But he insists that the clearest case of how dangerous those games can be in the hands of a disturbed youth is the December 1997 school shooting. Thompson was counsel of record in that case.
“David Carneal, the gunman in the Paducah, Kentucky, school shooting, was a fan of Doom,” said Thompson. “Doom was the first video game to make the player a first-person shooter; in other words, the first to have the player track potential victims with a weapon, and earn points by developing sniper skills.
“Carneal never picked up a weapon before, yet he killed three people and seriously wounded five others, all head and chest shots on moving targets from a distance of 25 feet,” said Thompson. “Furthermore, he employed a rapid-fire shooting technique, firing at one victim and moving instantly to the next, a technique that is counter-intuitive to novice shooters. Where did he learn that? He learned it by playing Doom.”
Yet despite the evidence, the video game industry scoffs at the idea such games are “sniper training.”
“I don’t think there is any clear idea or proof of harm or damage or anything of this nature,” Della Rocca said. “There’s never, ever, ever, ever been an example of a video game actually causing harm to anyone.”
Thompson said Della Rocca is right only in the strictest interpretation of “cause.”
“Of course, video games don’t cause this kind of behavior in and of themselves,” Thompson said, “and some kids are more at risk than others. However, these games can be the final link in a twisted path to violence because the games impart both the skill and the appetite to kill.”
Video games are so good at imparting that appetite and skill, the military uses them to train riflemen. The U.S. Marine Corps has created a modification of Doom for use as a fire-team tactical simulation.
Under the scenario of Marine Doom, four Marines in foxholes must repel an aggressive enemy infantry assault and then counter-attack through a barbed wire-strewn battlefield. They must negotiate blockhouses, buildings, trees, and machine-gun nests, and eliminate enemies. This remarkable simulation teaches teamwork and is now available on the civilian market.
The U.S. Army also has a recruiting website and a free downloadable video game at America’s Army.com.
DoD has also signed contractual agreements with video game programmers, for the creation of newer, higher-tech training tools. The video game makers get tax dollars for the research and development, then can later use the technology for profit on the civilian market.
Thompson adds that a growing body of science is proving why such training is effective, and dangerous to children.
“A study out of Harvard showed that adults and teens process highly emotional images in different parts of the brain,” Thompson said. “Adults process those images in the area of the brain known for reasoning skills. Teens, however, process the images in the emotional regions.”
“Indiana University researchers did a study of the brain waves of particularly troubled kids and found their brain waves were different from those of their peers,” Thompson said. “Troubled kids actually had physical changes in their brains.”
The University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana released a 1999 study on the formation of neural pathways.
“That research found that a repeated physical act in reaction to a stimulus actually causes a neural pathway to form in the brain,” Thompson said. “Repeated acts hardwire a brain to perform that act flawlessly. That’s why concert pianists can play a very complicated piece before an audience and rarely if ever mess up.
“That’s why we pay for piano lessons and haul our kids off to football and soccer practice, because we know that repeating an act develops proficiency,” he added. “So why are we allowing our kids to become proficient killers?”
More Information:
To reach Jack Thompson:
John B. Thompson, Attorney
1172 South Dixie Highway, Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146-2750
Another good resource is Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, president of the Killology Research Group.
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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