Donald Trump thinks there has to be a change.
After the Parkland shooting in Florida, the president of the United States held a conference in the White House regarding school safety. Video games and movies were also brought up – Trump thinks if these are violent, they could influence the children. He also brought up that a rating system should be implemented, but he might have forgotten that the ESRB already has something in place…
Trump pointed his finger at video games already in 2012 regarding the Sandy Hook incident, when he wrote the following on Twitter: „Video game violence & glorification must be stopped – it is creating monsters!” Trump’s comments did not clarify whether the new rating method would replace the one ESRB and MPAA (this is the movie association) use, or that it would be controlled by the government or not – the ESRB/MPAA duo is an independent entity. (We’re not going into Trump’s movie comments – in short, he blamed them for being too violent and sexual.)
The president isn’t alone: Robert Nardolillo, the senator of Rhode Island, revealed his plans (which you can read here), which would implement a 10% tax on all M (games sold for ages 17 and above) and AO (adult only, 18 and above – there’s not a lot that got this rating; aside from sexual games, games such as Manhunt 2, Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Director’s Cut, Hatred got it) rated video games. The revenues raised by the taxes would go into a special fund for school districts, which could use the funds to support counseling, mental health programs, as well as „other conflict resolution activities.” Nardolillo thinks that implementing the tax would be necessary, as the First Amendment protection means that the states can’t legally ban violent video games’ sales to minors.
In 2015, the American Psychological Association noted that „all violence, including lethal violence, is aggression, but not all aggression is violence.” In 2016, Whitney DeCamp, associate professor at West Michigan University, told CNN that those players who play violent video games could be more aggressive in real life than those who avoid playing such titles.
Are we in 2007 again all of a sudden? Where’s Jack Thompson?
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