14 DAY TRIAL // When will it end? When will lawmakers understand that, just as it's unconstitutional and unfair to try and ban the sale of a newspaper because it prints an opinion or a fact that you don't like, it's also unfair and wrong to try and ban the distribution of videogames solely because you do not like the violence that they portray.
Just as the Governor of New York signed into law a mostly useless bill, that will see more funds squandered on the futile search for a clear and irrefutable link between violent videogames and violent incidents involving teenagers, Republican lawmakers are getting ready to take it all up a notch. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker has introduced a bill that aims to restrict the sale of videogames to certain potential customers and to curb the distribution of violent videogames. At the moment is seems that the full test of the bill is public but the title itself sends a chill down my spine. It reads: "A bill to prohibit the distribution or sale of video games that do not have age-based content rating labels, to prohibit the sale or rental of video games with adult content ratings to minors, and for other purposes."
I can agree with the fact that all games sold should clearly have labels, from the industry's own Entertainment Software Ratings Board, detailing the content of the game. After all, one of the basic preconditions for choice on the part of the customer is that the product offers as much information as possible.
But what the videogames industry cannot agree with is for videogame sales to be prohibited on the basis of vague and often contradictory definitions of what constitutes a "violent" game or a "sexually explicit" game. Until now videogame laws in California and Louisiana have been declared unconstitutional for trying to ban sales of certain categories of videogames. It's very likely that the bill coming from Senator Roger Wicker will have the same faith.