Rhode Island Representative calls for "special tax" on video games....

[Thony]

Delusional AF. I dont see extra tax on alcohol to pay for rehabs.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Thony said:

Delusional AF. I dont see extra tax on alcohol to pay for rehabs.

Not that I agree with a tax on games (because I really don't), but in Australia we have tax on alcohol and tobacco (heavily taxed) and the money they get helps to prop up the health system which includes free rehab and cancer treatment.

[leadeater]

41 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Not that I agree with a tax on games (because I really don't), but in Australia we have tax on alcohol and tobacco (heavily taxed) and the money they get helps to prop up the health system which includes free rehab and cancer treatment.

And provides funding to the quit line services and other support networks to give up smoking/alcoholism.

[Trik'Stari]

20 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

This is from their press release, source is http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/pressrelease/_layouts/RIL.PressRelease.ListStructure/Forms/DisplayForm.aspx?List=c8baae31-3c10-431c-8dcd-9dbbe21ce3e9&ID=13482&Web=2bab1515-0dcc-4176-a2f8-8d4beebdf488 

So I'm guessing they'll argue that it's for the safety of the children will trump First amendment rights

Didn't you know? "Safety" and "security" trumps all rights. Even the right to question whether or not you have rights.

 

I'd do a /s here but no. This seems to be the path we are headed as a society.

 

I see a government that could have stopped this with the powers and information they already had. They had EVERY reason to intervene and stop that kid, but they did nothing. Why exactly?

 

Somehow giving them far more power over our lives will make them suddenly do their damned jobs? Or hell, giving them more money means they will start spending more intelligently?

 

Not sure how that works. No solution will fix a system that deliberately doesn't work, regardless of party political bullshit.

[Cole5]

What a tool, welp here's hoping he's gone in a few months, 

[Froody129]

Haven’t read the thread but honestly how much is 10% of a $60 game (assuming console prices without sales and stuff)??

 

I don’t see what the point here is

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I see a government that could have stopped this with the powers and information they already had. They had EVERY reason to intervene and stop that kid, but they did nothing. Why exactly?

In the case of the Sherriff's office, it looks like political corruption and cronies instead of honest officers.

[Doobeedoo]

Ahahah ah man, this joke again... 

[Okjoek]

Bad idea.

[Bananasplit_00]

8 hours ago, Memories4K said:

Let me guess, you think banning drugs and alcohol will stop drug addiction as well lmao

Yeah, even if i were of the same opinion that guns should be banned, i don't see it as possible in the US; it's an integral part of our culture as Americans.

I think that if people were never allowed to easily buy alcohol or drugs it would be much less of a problem, alcohol has been in our culture for thousands of years now so that was never happening and the same with drugs, even though most are banned today its still pretty easy to get your hands on them. Today the best option is to educate and have good regulation of the drugs we are fine with, and I think that the same can be said for guns in part at least. Either way something should happen or nothing is going to change, personally I don't think more guns us the solution here tbh

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

I think that if people were never allowed to easily buy alcohol or drugs it would be much less of a problem,

There are a few research papers on prohibition.  It seems that making alcohol illegal did exactly that.  It lowered consumption drastically.   Also contrary top popular belief it was not the driver of organized crime, but I think it would silly to assume it wasn't one of the mechanisms used to help it thrive. 

Now I don't think we should make alcohol illegal (and I'm on the fence about marijuana), but this does evidence the fact that criminalizing something does have an impact on it's use in society.  

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

   Also contrary top popular belief it was not the driver of organized crime, but I think it would silly to assume it wasn't one of the mechanisms used to help it thrive. 

Bull shit. It didn't create organized crime but it sure as hell drove the majority of the expansion of it throughout the 20's and upped the violence tempo immensely. Prior to Prohibition Organized Crime's money makers were gambling, guns, and protection rackets. All of which require a level of stability and long term investment which makes violence or explosive growth detrimental to success. Not so with running alcohol where there was fast, easy, and most importantly fungible money to be made and a stable location was not nearly as important.

[mr moose]

28 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Bull shit. It didn't create organized crime but it sure as hell drove the majority of the expansion of it throughout the 20's and upped the violence tempo immensely. Prior to Prohibition Organized Crime's money makers were gambling, guns, and protection rackets. All of which require a level of stability and long term investment which makes violence or explosive growth detrimental to success. Not so with running alcohol where there was fast, easy, and most importantly fungible money to be made and a stable location was not nearly as important.

I'm glad you read the evidence I linked.   

 

EDIT: I shall elaborate on what the article addresses and how it is relevant to this discussion:

 

1. The article does not make absolute claims in and off itself about the finer points of prohibition,  because the articles chief points address claims made about prohibition as both arguments for other prohibitions (namely drugs and guns) and how a lack of context makes it erroneous evidence. 

 

2. The article claims:

 

Quote

Today, it is easy to say that the goal of total prohibition was impossible and the means therefore were unnecessarily severe—that, for example, National Prohibition could have survived had the drys been willing to compromise by permitting beer and light wine63—but from the perspective of 1913 the rejection of alternate modes of liquor control makes more sense. Furthermore, American voters continued to support Prohibition politically even in its stringent form.

 

Observing that that this is the conclusion people draw, It does not align with Prohibition being politically supported until the economy crashed.  It seems  people rejected half measures, much like they are today with gun control, making the situation an either or and not a graded solution. 

 

3. Proof of social effects of prohibition that in some cases lasted right upto the 70's, which included reduction in liver disease (cirrhosis) that scaled with prohibition and it's decline. and trends in total alcohol consumption and place of consumption.

 

4. from the article:

Quote

Perhaps the most powerful legacy of National Prohibition is the widely held belief that it did not work. I agree with other historians who have argued that this belief is false: Prohibition did work in lowering per capita consumption. The lowered level of consumption during the quarter century following Repeal, together with the large minority of abstainers, suggests that Prohibition did socialize or maintain a significant portion of the population in temperate or abstemious habits.62 That is, it was partly successful as a public health innovation. Its political failure is attributable more to a changing context than to characteristics of the innovation itself.

People confuse it's political failure in the end with the idea that it failed at a social level.  Having outlined the evidence showing it's goal to improve public health was partly successful (reduction in death from cirrhosis) and majority successful in abstemious habits (total consumption per capita). The above quote encapsulates the reasons why many falsely assume it was a failure.  Particularly by those who try to use it as a lobbying tool to dissuade from other forms of prohibition in political discourse (i.e context has changed and that requires a different approach).

 

What this all means is that success is very context dependent, It can't be used as a blanket lobbying tool, but it can be used to show cause and effect so long as people are cautious to only promote the measurable parts that can be evidenced.  (hence why I said it would be silly to dismiss it's role in organised crime, but stopped short at trying to apply a value to it).

 

[Monkey Dust]

The trend for violent crime in the west is downwards, games, movies & TV are getting more violent, or at least more graphic. On that basis I'm calling bollocks on video games causing violence. It smacks of an old man not understanding something, and on the basis of his confusion declaring it bad.

 

Massive media coverage of such shootings may however encourage them. Many of these shooting seem to have an element of desire to get noticed, and the media serves it up in buckets.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

[Razor01]

On 2/23/2018 at 10:47 AM, dalekphalm said:

So, as noted, the very slim association between aggression and violent video games is correlative, not causative.

 

Furthermore, M-Rated games are not to be sold to people under the age of 17. If a store is selling a game to someone under 17, they are breaking the rating system. I don't know if the rating system is legally binding in the US, but it should be.

 

If a parent decides to buy their kid a rated-M game? That's alright - it's totally up to the parent to decide what kind of mature themes their child may play.

 

But this is ridiculous. If they're gonna tax violent things, they should tax all violent things, including movies, TV, books, the news, etc. But no, don't do this either. Both are a bad idea and won't solve the problem.

 

 

The rating system isn't legally binding but a retailer in good conscience shouldn't be selling to under age people.

 

And yeah crazy people are crazy people, its the saying guns don't kill people, people kill people.  If a person is mentally unstable to begin with other things can influence him to act on that instability, but there needs to be a predilection towards that behavior to begin with.

 

If games had the power to turn people into psychopaths, serial killers, or spree killers, everyone that plays any type of FPS would be one of those three by now.  Just watching the news today would do that lol.

[Razor01]

On 2/23/2018 at 2:51 PM, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Wow a Republican wants to blame games for violence, shocked to see this. Look how violent games have made Japan.

Japan has other avenues lol, hmm hentai, manga....... so weird shit going on there.  Strippers dressed up like teen school girls.....

[Jito463]

On 2/23/2018 at 11:10 AM, Bananasplit_00 said:

how about taxing the gunns more? no?

No.

On 2/24/2018 at 1:00 AM, mr moose said:

Just so you know, it does work in other nations. very well.

Yes, it worked great in China, where 20 people got killed by a guy with a knife.  Good thing they banned guns.

On 2/24/2018 at 1:32 AM, mr moose said:

Unless your a student with mental health issues who walks into a school and just ups and kills 17 people.  In which case it looks very easy to do.

I personally like the Australian laws.

The problem with this psycho was due to the failures of law enforcement.  The county had a deal setup (made possible by an EO from Obama) to prevent minors from going to jail.  Robberies, threats, violence, it didn't matter.  They were sent to "counseling", instead of jail.  Looks like it worked real well for him.

 

And that's without mentioning the 4 LEOs who stood outside the school while the shooter ran rampant inside, killing students and teachers at will.  Meanwhile, at least one ROTC member (a student) in the school, gave his life trying to protect his fellow students.

 

Guns are not the problem, video games are not the problem, people are the problem.  Losing that distinction is focusing on symptoms instead of the root of the disease.  It's confusing correlation with causation.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

No.

Yes, it worked great in China, where 20 people got killed by a guy with a knife.  Good thing they banned guns.

One case of one bloke going nuts with a knife doesn't undermine the overwhelming statistics.   Even if you had several examples you still are not even coming close the disparity between gun related crime per capita in coutnries like the UK, Aus and germany and the US.

Quote

The problem with this psycho was due to the failures of law enforcement. 

And the fact he had access to a gun.

 

Quote

The county had a deal setup (made possible by an EO from Obama) to prevent minors from going to jail.  Robberies, threats, violence, it didn't matter.  They were sent to "counseling", instead of jail.  Looks like it worked real well for him.

 

And that's without mentioning the 4 LEOs who stood outside the school while the shooter ran rampant inside, killing students and teachers at will.  Meanwhile, at least one ROTC member (a student) in the school, gave his life trying to protect his fellow students.

 

Guns are not the problem, video games are not the problem, people are the problem.  Losing that distinction is focusing on symptoms instead of the root of the disease.  It's confusing correlation with causation.

Yep, people keep arguing this and people are still dying.    Like it or not if your system is not going to do something about those with mental illness then it has to do something about their access to guns.   Alas it seems no one over their wants to do anything except laugh off gun death like the victims mean nothing.

[Daegun]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

No.

Yes, it worked great in China, where 20 people got killed by a guy with a knife.  Good thing they banned guns.

The problem with this psycho was due to the failures of law enforcement.  The county had a deal setup (made possible by an EO from Obama) to prevent minors from going to jail.  Robberies, threats, violence, it didn't matter.  They were sent to "counseling", instead of jail.  Looks like it worked real well for him.

 

And that's without mentioning the 4 LEOs who stood outside the school while the shooter ran rampant inside, killing students and teachers at will.  Meanwhile, at least one ROTC member (a student) in the school, gave his life trying to protect his fellow students.

 

Guns are not the problem, video games are not the problem, people are the problem.  Losing that distinction is focusing on symptoms instead of the root of the disease.  It's confusing correlation with causation.

Before the whole 'but if we outlaw guns, people will find other ways to kill people, like knifing,' starts up: Gun related deaths in the US last year (excluding suicides) was over 15,000. Total murders for Japan, the UK, France, Germany, and Spain barely exceeded 3000, and those countries combined have about the population of the US. If you want to keep it on just China, they had a little over 18,000 murders despite having more than 3 times the population of the US.

[Blademaster91]

23 minutes ago, Daegun said:

Before the whole 'but if we outlaw guns, people will find other ways to kill people, like knifing,' starts up: Gun related deaths in the US last year (excluding suicides) was over 15,000. Total murders for Japan, the UK, France, Germany, and Spain barely exceeded 3000, and those countries combined have about the population of the US. If you want to keep it on just China, they had a little over 18,000 murders despite having more than 3 times the population of the US.

If they aren't going to use a gun or knife they're going to use a vehicle,a criminal will use anything that can double as a deadly weapon. Crazy people are still gonna do crazy shit. Does that count all the knife attacks in the UK and France? Not even the regular police there have firearms to stop murderers.

[Daegun]

Just now, Blademaster91 said:

If they aren't going to use a gun or knife they're going to use a vehicle,a criminal will use anything that can double as a deadly weapon. Does that count all the knife attacks in the UK and France? Not even the regular police there have firearms to stop murderers.

Yes, those are included in that number.

 

I see that said a lot, and you are correct in a sense that if someone is that determined to kill someone they will find a way. But as the 80% lower deaths show, not nearly as many people are willing to go that far.

[Jito463]

47 minutes ago, mr moose said:

One case of one bloke going nuts with a knife doesn't undermine the overwhelming statistics.   Even if you had several examples you still are not even coming close the disparity between gun related crime per capita in coutnries like the UK, Aus and germany and the US.

The bulk of the criminal deaths are due to gang violence (in just a handful of cities, no less).  It's a gang problem, not a gun problem.

48 minutes ago, mr moose said:

And the fact he had access to a gun.

Which I addressed in the next line that you conveniently ignored.

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

The problem with this psycho was due to the failures of law enforcement.  The county had a deal setup (made possible by an EO from Obama) to prevent minors from going to jail.  Robberies, threats, violence, it didn't matter.  They were sent to "counseling", instead of jail.  Looks like it worked real well for him.

If he had been treated as a criminal, instead of coddled, those 17 people would still be alive.

49 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Alas it seems no one over their wants to do anything except laugh off gun death like the victims mean nothing.

No one is laughing, and I resent the insinuation.

49 minutes ago, Daegun said:

Gun related deaths in the US last year (excluding suicides) was over 15,000

I'd like to know where you got those numbers, because the last numbers I saw was less than that including suicides.

 

We may need to take this to PM though, as it's going off-topic (and the mods may decide to start purging the thread).

[Blademaster91]

31 minutes ago, Daegun said:

Yes, those are included in that number.

 

I see that said a lot, and you are correct in a sense that if someone is that determined to kill someone they will find a way. But as the 80% lower deaths show, not nearly as many people are willing to go that far.

I agree that gun related deaths in the US are too high. But it isn't due to guns alone, the FBI has been unwilling or incompetent in stopping criminals before the attacks happened, criminals which also shouldn't have had any firearms to begin with if the agencies did their job.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

The bulk of the criminal deaths are due to gang violence (in just a handful of cities, no less).  It's a gang problem, not a gun problem.

It's not a gun problem it's a *insert whatever here* problem.  I've heard them all before,  the only common denominator is guns.  Either address the issues you call problems or address the easy access to guns. Take a pick but do something other than being defensive and allowing the deaths to continue.

19 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Which I addressed in the next line that you conveniently ignored.

Didn't ignore it, heard it all before.

19 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

If he had been treated as a criminal, instead of coddled, those 17 people would still be alive.

If he didn't have access to a gun they would also still be a live.  One does not exclude the other, but seeing as no one is doing anything about mental health or law enforcement, I don't see how one argument carries more weight than the other.

 

19 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

No one is laughing, and I resent the insinuation.

I beg to differ:

On 2/24/2018 at 6:17 PM, Memories4K said:

Oh boo-hoo, somebody's family member died from a mass shooting and now i should feel bad and let somebody's political agenda go by uncontested because if i don't then suddenly i'm a terrible person for not letting somebody's death be used to manipulate people.

 

I hear this response to gun death's all the time. Maybe you should pay more attention before resenting realities.

 

 

The issue is the US seems to revere gun ownership more than conceding the desire to own a gun for the sake off saving lives.