VP Joe Biden Claims "No Restriction" Against Taxing Violent Games

afroebob

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StewShearer said:
In short, you actually can't do that Joe, so you might want to stop telling people you can.
In all honesty, when has the fact that it is illegal/unconstitutional ever stopped the Obama administration from trying (and often succeeding) in passing legislation?
 

LysanderNemoinis

Noble and oppressed Kekistani
Nov 8, 2010
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Silent Protagonist said:
I can't believe all the backwards simpletons defending the first amendment here. Can't you see it is obsolete, the product of a bygone era. Seriously, when the first amendment was written the most effective way of conveying you ideas, beliefs, and opinions was shouting loudly in the streets. But today with the internet, videos, and video games, any idiot can just log on and reach literally millions of people with whatever message they want to convey on a whim. You seriously think something from a time when the newspaper was the highest form of spreading speech holds up today in a world were we have murder simulators available for download instantly at the push of a button. The technology of today has made speech too dangerous for the public to have a right to it.

Sarcasm, or maybe satire if I were to be so bold, for those who didn't pick that up and may believe the above is my actual opinion. Admittedly it felt a little heavy handed, I hope I don't get warned for calling no one in particular a "backwards simpleton"

Bravo, good sir or madam, bravo. Just because the Founding Fathers didn't envision the technological advances of our modern times, it doesn't mean that the Constitution, or more specifically any part of it one group of people doesn't like, is any less valid.
 

00slash00

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damn, i usually like biden. he always seemed like a smart and reasonable guy who stood up for what he believed but seriously lacked any ability to censor himself. but this is just stupid. didnt we just spend millions of dollars studying the effects of violent video games?

well the good news is that im sure republicans will seriously oppose this since they hate taxes so much. oh wait, video games have been their primary scapegoat to protect the nra...damn
 

Sean Renaud

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Of course it does. They were men, not Gods and we shouldn't slave ourselves to their opinions. It doesn't make them wrong on any given subject, nor does it make them right on any subject and we should have a better reason for why we do anything than "well it's written in the Constitution." It's really scary that adults use that logic for justifying things.

As far as a tax on games I'm not really against it as long as it's written so that it automatically ends after a few years. We have no idea how high this tax would be so claiming it would destroy the struggling industry is just fear mongering. We've all seen the profits that Triple A games make and it's nothing to sneeze at. So finding out exactly what we're talking about should really be part of the conversation.

As far as games making people violent,can we all act like adults and admit that they do have some effect. We all know it, always have and constantly defending it starting to get a little silly. Just like we know movies and books have effects and to a large degree that is changed by how "effective" the media in question is. There is a reason why we have ratings for movies and it's because we know good and damn well that whether it's South Park "teaching" children to swear or Ninja Turtles teaching kids to whack each other with sticks or porn teaching people about sodomy that it's true. There is no reason to think games are any different. All Biden is talking about is a study to find out what effect it does have. If you're against a study that's usually because you have something to hide.

If you're worried about censorship that's a legit concern. Right now I'd settle for the ESRB ratings getting tweaked so they make sense. We all know good and damn well that there is no reason, at all, for Smash Brother's to be rated T for Teen. Not in a world where Looney Toons, Ben 10 and Batman are marketed to children with absolutely no second thoughts from anybody. A lot of people are blaming parents, and yes there is blame for parents but really the rating system is so crazy that it's hard for a parent to make an informed decision. A parent with no prior knowledge should be able to pick up a game, read the label, see the rating and make a halfway decent decision about the game. Obviously it won't be perfect but we manage to do pretty well with movies and tv.

As far as guns go there is no way that the Founding Fathers had any clue how powerful our arms would become in two hundred years. They simply couldn't. The question is what weapons should we allow and why. The fact that the 2nd Amendment isn't perfect is so accepted that nobody REALLY debates it. There are weapons in the world that we don't let entire COUNTRIES have. If we have the right to tell Iran it can't have nukes we can sure as fuck police our citizens.

I see a few people are mentioning that there are things that would be worth dying for. I suppose you're right there are but I'm a whole lot more worried about some whack job going crazy and shooting up the mall than I am about the government taking over and making life hell. That's just the world I live in, the one where we have annual shooting massacres while the rest of the world almost never does. Which brings me to another point. Of course you can keep guns away from criminals. You have to keep them from everybody but of course you can, the question is SHOULD you.

People also bring up the Assault Weapons ban and that some of things are a bit silly. Of course there is a reason why each of those "cosmetic" changes are made. People bring up the silly point that it doesn't change the lethality of the weapon. Stop lying. Of course it does which is why people want them. Having sights (and properly aligned ones at that) doesn't change anything about the size of the bullet either but I challenge you to kill someone without them. Now tell me about how scopes and laser sites don't make your weapon more effective. While we're at it lets pretend that the pistol grip doesn't make the weapon easier to use.

If you want to keep your guns, by all means do so. I'm more or less comfortable with the level of restrictions that we have now. However the next time there is a massacre remember that this is the price we pay, that blood is on your hands and ignoring it doesn't change the fact. Your freedom is more important than the lives of whoever dies next.
 

BabySinclair

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The Vice President is correct. Under the power of the Commerce Clause, congress can regulate Commerce between states or with foreign powers. The sales of videogames are a form of commerce. Therefore Congress has the legal authority to tax them. Now the content of games fall under the First Amendment so game producers can put whatever they want in them and if distributed for free then the government would have no legal action but as a sellable product, it is taxable. It already has a sales tax when purchased in person, it is not free from taxation. Nor is it prohibiting people from buying videogames, just making them cost more.

He also said in the same breath that there is no reason why they would barring actual scientific studies that showed a direct correlation. He was with a bunch of religious conservatives, his phrasing may have been bad but it was truthful, regardless of whether people want to hear it or not. Anything that is sold is a form of commerce and if done across state borders it can Constitutionally be taxed.
 

Mycroft Holmes

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Easton Dark said:
Government can't discriminate based on content.
Are you joking? They can discriminate based on content on practically anything. They decide what a religion is and what a cult is based on the content. We censor media based on not only it's content but also on how powerful the media corporation is. We don't let people in front of the president if the content of their message is that they disagree with said president.

The government does this all the time. This isn't new.

Stryc9 said:
If there is "no legal reason" why they can't tax violent video games then there should be "no legal reason" why we can't tax other forms of violent or offensive media, I vote for the Bible it has plenty of violence and a pretty fair amount of fucking in it.
Videogames aren't protected speech under the first amendment of the constitution. "Should be" and "isn't" aren't the same things.

DVS BSTrD said:
OT: You wanna make a difference? Tax REAL guns. But we can't do that because guns are a right in this country.
Guns are taxed...

In fact not only will you get pegged on sales tax for buying one. But manufacturers of guns have to pay a special tax under the NFA and the amended CGA for simply making them.
 

Fappy

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grigjd3 said:
Joe Biden doesn't just make flubs, he is a flub.
Pretty much this. I'm still scratching my head at this administration. I mean, really? It didn't take long for them to realize Biden was a complete moron, so why do they keep letting him say such retarded shit on a consistent basis? If Dick Cheney's the Penguin than Biden is Bebop from TMNT.
 

EvolutionKills

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TiberiusEsuriens said:
VMK said:
Meanwhile, in New Orleans another shooting happened. Three guys gunned Mother day parade participants...With real world guns... that shoot real world bullets... at real world people.

Americans, question: what percentage of American citizens are against gun restriction? I just want to understand whether your politicians are idiots (or pretending to be ones), or they just don't want to lose votes?
VMK, the gun control split is about 50/50, thus why it's such a big issue and will never be resolved. If it favored one or the other legislation would have been passed. The recent filibuster on the gun control amendment was an example of politicians pretending to care to save public face, but they and their constituents never actually thought it was needed and had to back out at the last minute to avoid losing the next election.
Yeah, except universal background checks were supported by 90% of voters, and by strong majorities (70-80%) of registered Republicans and NRA members. Keep in mind that the voted on legislation wasn't even that strong, it didn't actually have universal background checks, the bill had many loop holes to get around them. The legislation was not blocked to appease the will of constituents, it was blocked because of the lobbying power of the NRA; and the NRA represents gun manufactures, not gun owners. It was the combination of legal bribery from the NRA, and the implicit threat that they would run adds against you at reelection if you voted against their will. This is what our democracy has become, it is a fucking sham. Our politician's votes are sold to the highest bidder, they are beholden to moneyed interest, not the people they're sworn to serve.

There is a reason we no longer call them 'public servants'.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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so he went about taxing games in gun control meeting? how is he smart enough to tie his shoes?

Maybe we should tax stupidity, im sure after this being applied no other taxes would be needed.


FargoDog said:
This whole 'violent video game effects on developing brains' thing is getting God damn ridiculous.

Here's a thought - maybe kids shouldn't be playing M-rated games without the observation and, if necessary, intervention of their parents? But I guess its easier to blame the content then the poor fucking parents of your country. 'Cause those guys vote!
or maybe we shouldnt treat kids as brainless idiots who cant udnerstand anything and then cry when they do something wrong because they were never told it was wrong due to sheltering?

Stryc9 said:
If there is "no legal reason" why they can't tax violent video games then there should be "no legal reason" why we can't tax other forms of violent or offensive media, I vote for the Bible it has plenty of violence and a pretty fair amount of fucking in it.
well, technically he did say "Games and other media".

VMK said:
Meanwhile, in New Orleans another shooting happened. Three guys gunned Mother day parade participants...With real world guns... that shoot real world bullets... at real world people.

Americans, question: what percentage of American citizens are against gun restriction? I just want to understand whether your politicians are idiots (or pretending to be ones), or they just don't want to lose votes?
noone cares. such things happen every 2 weeks in america, we are already used to that being the norm.

mxfox408 said:
A fool elected by fools.
noone elected. hes like that slug you catch as a sad consequence of going to a beach. noone wants it, but accepts it as fair risk when getting something good.

VMK said:
Jokes aside, how many people are against possible future gun control policy in USA? I just want to understand this little thing I wrote about previously.
there was heated discussion on escapist about gun control when the last big news massacre happened. apperently a vast majority thinks its their magical right to own guns and they are going to tip over the government with it in the future. a lot of people are agasint gun control for a lot of stupid reasons.

amaranth_dru said:
Joe Biden. This is the guy who takes over if something happens to Obama. This guy. And people, you voted for him if you voted Obama. Pray nothing happens to Obama.
No. They voted for obama, and this leech just got stuck along. That is [part of the bigger problem, how voting for president also elects VP.
 

Mister K

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Apr 25, 2011
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Sorry for not answering to your replies sooner. I had to sleep and then go to the University.
Schadrach said:
You really *REALLY* don't want to argue that the 2nd doesn't apply today because the people who penned it could not know what technology would be developed in the future and as such it shouldn't apply to that technology. That's an UNBELIEVABLY BAD line of logic to use, because precisely the same logic will then get applied to the 1st, and the lack of film, video games, or internet in the late 18th century.

Yeah, yeah, first ammendment... Written during printing press and wax cylinders era... I bet Washington & Co knew that in the future we'll have machines that can literally communicate any insane message without restriction worldwide in seconds.
Hmm... What can words possibly do? Take away your dignity,etc., etc.
What can guns do? Probably take your life away? Yeah I think it is so.
I do like your sense of humour though.
tehpiemaker said:
Oh yeah, sorry, you are correct, immoral, my mistake.
UNHchabo said:
Wow, you must know some real sociopaths then.
No, I am just scared. I see news where people kill those of their own kind without any reason. I am afraid. Take Lybia for example: people had revolution. After it, many (if not most) revolutionaries did not give away their firearms. And, as far as I am aware this led to serious increase in crime rate (forgive me if I am incorrect). I am afraid for Lybians and I am afraid that if (God forbid) my country will be in the same situation, our people will not give away weapons too. Call me a wuss if you wish.
Spartanmk1 said:
Someone doesn't know about the Puckle gun [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puckle_gun], on top of cannons. Cannons that could be loaded with canister shot. Cannons which at the time, were privately owned and leased to the fledgling United States government.

You know, the same thing could be said about 1A too. At the time all they had to communicate with was a meeting or the printing press. They could not even begin to imagine the world we live in today, where you can coordinate attacks from around the world in an instant.
True, I did NOT know that. I apologies, American history is not my specialty.
cursedseishi said:
Well, Europeans don't have such an easy access to firearms, and Norwegian incident was a tragedy. Meanwhile in USA mass murder slowly becomes (it is repulsive to write such things, but I can not to) a tradition.
And please, do not be so aggresive. I did not mean to offend you or anyone else (maybe exept for your politicians).
JoesshittyOs said:
Hmmm, I do think that Shamus Young knows the reason for violence rate drop... Videogames!

And, once again, I'd like to apologise if you think that I sounded aggresive. I was not. I was, however a bit not serious and forgot to ad obligatory "jokingly" comment in the end.
I realise, that it is a really sensitive topic for you, citizens of USA, but, as I said to UNHchabo, I am afraid. I really don't want any country to have such rate of murder by firearms as America had in recent time.
 

hazydawn

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VMK said:
Yeah, yeah, second ammendment... Written during muskets era... I bet Washington & Co knew that in the future we'll have firearms that can literally slaughter about 50 people in about 15 seconds.
Now you're exaggerating :p
To kill 50 people in 15 seconds with a semi-automatic rifle(the fully automatic ones are already prohibited for the public) you'd literally need to take aim and pull the trigger in 3/10 of a second. That seems a bit unrealistic... and don't forget that you'd have to releoad at some point too.
 

90sgamer

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TIL the Escapist can't reading comprehension. USING ONLY THE PURPORTED QUOTES AS REFERENCE, Biden was not supporting the idea of taxing violent media. He was only making a statement of fact. Biden essentially said, "The government CAN tax things." Wow! If anything, he's resisting a knee jerk reaction by insisting that scientific research should support the notion that violent media has an effect on developing brains before taking action to limit exposure to violent media. What other response do you guys want from him?
 

Tsaba

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Oct 6, 2009
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Is it me or has this administration gone to war with about all of our (US Citizens) our original constitutional rights within the past 6 months?
 

Norix596

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A few things here to be noted - first, Vice President Biden is NOT an enemy of the medium. If you'll recall, during the last big "video game violence" stink where Obama was forced to give some vague statements about wanting "studies" on the mater, Biden went to speak to the big publishers and developers to basically assure them that the President wasn't serious about going on an antivideogame crusade. Also you'll not that Biden said here that there's no reason a tax "couldn't" be levied on games - not that one "should" be levied on games, which in of itself still would be quite short of calling for bans and distributor fines that are common among the "think of the children" crowd. This is a very typical political ambiguous fence straddling statement avoiding being put on the spot by the conservative anti-game forces he was addressing. There's no need to seriously oppose Biden's statement because his statement doesn't seriously oppose anything in the first place.
 

UNHchabo

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VMK said:
I realise, that it is a really sensitive topic for you, citizens of USA, but, as I said to UNHchabo, I am afraid. I really don't want any country to have such rate of murder by firearms as America had in recent time.
Except that's really not the case. We've had some high-profile shootings, but overall both our "gun crime" rate and our overall violent crime rate have been going down since the early 90s, even as the gun control laws in most states have been loosened. Even then, the vast majority of our violent crime is committed by members of organized gangs, in our inner cities. In short, civilian gun owners are not the problem in the US, and there's good evidence that increased gun ownership decreases violent crime.
 

P.Tsunami

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Kalezian said:
I dont use the SKS much, its bulky and better off for when I hunt Feral Pigs,
I could swear you wrote "Federal Pigs" and thought it was rather worrisome that you were hunting FBI agents for sport.
 

mxfox408

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Apr 4, 2010
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Strazdas said:
so he went about taxing games in gun control meeting? how is he smart enough to tie his shoes?

Maybe we should tax stupidity, im sure after this being applied no other taxes would be needed.


FargoDog said:
This whole 'violent video game effects on developing brains' thing is getting God damn ridiculous.

Here's a thought - maybe kids shouldn't be playing M-rated games without the observation and, if necessary, intervention of their parents? But I guess its easier to blame the content then the poor fucking parents of your country. 'Cause those guys vote!
or maybe we shouldnt treat kids as brainless idiots who cant udnerstand anything and then cry when they do something wrong because they were never told it was wrong due to sheltering?

Stryc9 said:
If there is "no legal reason" why they can't tax violent video games then there should be "no legal reason" why we can't tax other forms of violent or offensive media, I vote for the Bible it has plenty of violence and a pretty fair amount of fucking in it.
well, technically he did say "Games and other media".

VMK said:
Meanwhile, in New Orleans another shooting happened. Three guys gunned Mother day parade participants...With real world guns... that shoot real world bullets... at real world people.

Americans, question: what percentage of American citizens are against gun restriction? I just want to understand whether your politicians are idiots (or pretending to be ones), or they just don't want to lose votes?
noone cares. such things happen every 2 weeks in america, we are already used to that being the norm.

mxfox408 said:
A fool elected by fools.
noone elected. hes like that slug you catch as a sad consequence of going to a beach. noone wants it, but accepts it as fair risk when getting something good.

VMK said:
Jokes aside, how many people are against possible future gun control policy in USA? I just want to understand this little thing I wrote about previously.
there was heated discussion on escapist about gun control when the last big news massacre happened. apperently a vast majority thinks its their magical right to own guns and they are going to tip over the government with it in the future. a lot of people are agasint gun control for a lot of stupid reasons.

amaranth_dru said:
Joe Biden. This is the guy who takes over if something happens to Obama. This guy. And people, you voted for him if you voted Obama. Pray nothing happens to Obama.
No. They voted for obama, and this leech just got stuck along. That is [part of the bigger problem, how voting for president also elects VP.
Lol that's assuming we actually have something good, ofcourse thus guy is a dunce but the other one I could hardly call good especially after certain bills he signed regarding our bill of rights.... For example the NDAA and authorizing drone strikes against Us citizens, so to me getting something good means something that isn't these two bozos especially Biden the clown.....Biden is just missing the makeup
 

UsefulPlayer 1

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I think Joe Biden is a pretty stand-up guy. Sure maybe he should not talk sometimes, but that's the very thing that makes him so relatable and trustworthy. I still remember the Same-sex marriage blunder where many political analysis thought he had jeopardized the administration's standing by coming out in support of same sex marriage. Forget standings, the guy came out and defended what he thought was right.

Now imagine a guy with that stance talking to an Evangelical about something like video games. It seemed like he was just trying to, not very well I guess, move the conversation to call for the need for scientific research, which I thought this community would appreciate.

What? Do you think the research would reveal that video games create mass murderers? Maybe thanks to Biden we'd have definitive proof that violent video games are not to blame.

All this belly-aching is pretty painful to read, kind of reminds me of high school.