Connecticut proposes "sin tax" on violent video games

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/newtown-lawmaker-calls-sin-tax-violent-video-games-1B8262821

Guns don't kill people videogames kill people. I thought this was gonna be an onion article at first but nope.

[buttplug]

"The U.S. government did irreparable damage to the comic book industry in the 1950s by using faulty research to falsely blame juvenile delinquency and illiteracy on comic books," he wrote. "Censoring violent comic books did not reduce juvenile delinquency or increase literacy, it decimated the production of one of the few kinds of literature that at-risk youths read for pleasure. Censoring video games could have similar unintended consequences that we cannot currently foresee."

It's the same shit all over again. But I don't see this coming to fruition.

This is the bullshit book that made people flip out over comics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent

The writer also thought Batman made kids gay.

Not all m-rated games are even rated that because of violence.

[TropicanaClock]

Games and Media make more people more passive rather than violent. Rather than someone being alone with their thoughts and thinking about situations they are being absorbed into a digital world.

People are gonna kill people.

[PhantomCatClock]

That's nothing, Mississippi is trying to ban animal-human hybrids

[patriotclock]

i hope video games get banned in the near future, all they do is turn impressionable kids into killing machines

[Thor]

Sin tax has always been an idiotic idea. I thought America was supposed to be a free country? I guess the people that get upset about freedom being stomped on are more worried about fictional FEMA concentration camps and listening to Glen Beck to actually do something reasonable, like abolish sin tax.

[pop-tart]

They also need to tax Star Wars figures. Han shot first, yo.

[PhantomCatClock]

I would put a tax... on all people... who stand... in water.

[AbsintheClock]

I wish they'd make a hypocrite sin tax so Joe Lieberman would stop being so rich.

[d u m p y]

if they pass it i'm gonna go down there and kill a bunch of people and then boy will they have egg on their faces

[Thor]

if they pass it i'm gonna go down there and kill a bunch of people and then boy will they have egg on their faces

they would have to put a tax on sin taxes, because they obviously cause violence

[AbsintheClock]

I avoid taxes by having 5000 kids.

[Marlin Clock]

Sin tax has always been an idiotic idea. I thought America was supposed to be a free country? I guess the people that get upset about freedom being stomped on are more worried about fictional FEMA concentration camps and listening to Glen Beck to actually do something reasonable, like abolish sin tax.

It doesn't exist yet, Thor. It's also hilariously stupid so I don't see it passing.

Honestly I imagine if anything like this got serious traction it would be more a dirty ploy to suck more tax money out of families through their children by charging them more for video games rather than an actual moral statement.
E:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/TOB/H/2013HB-05735-R00-HB.htm

to educate families on the warning signs of video game addiction and antisocial behavior.

Here's the scary part. What does the government decide as "signs of video game addiction and antisocial behavior"

[Topcatyo]

There's no way it's passing.
Also, this being America, this is probably the nth time somebody's proposed some sort of "sin tax", and I don't know of any yet, so

[Thor]

There already are sin taxes in America, and they stomp on our rights just as much as this hypothetical videogame tax. There's no good reason for the way we tax gambling, tobacco, marijuana (in legal states), and alcohol.

[Marlin Clock]

There already are sin taxes in America, and they stomp on our rights just as much as this hypothetical videogame tax. There's no good reason for the way we tax gambling, tobacco, marijuana (in legal states), and alcohol.

I'd say the tax on addictive or harmful substances is a way different game than taxing entertainment.
Playing a video game won't give you cancer or cirrhosis or destroy your life savings through addiction.