SoylentNews

Apparition writes:

Philly.com (the website of Philadelphia's two local newspapers), published an editorial about a little known bill which would impose a 10% tax on the sale of all M for mature and AO for adults only rated video game sales in Pennsylvania.

On Jan. 28, several Pennsylvania members of Congress introduced a bill that would impose a tax of 10 percent on action-oriented video games rated M for mature or AO for adults only. In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that California's efforts to single out action games violated the First Amendment. Beyond standing on similarly questionable grounds, Pennsylvania's own proposed bill is more likely to do harm than good.

The proposal is driven by the popular belief that such games cause acts of violence. In a September memo that previewed the legislation, its sponsor, Republican Rep. Christopher B. Quinn linked violent games to societal violence, including the 2018 Parkland shooting in Florida. He cites a Washington think tank that connects playing videos games to showing aggression in real life. But as researchers in this field, we've found the evidence to be clear: No links exist between video games and violence.

[...] data on school shootings going back to a 2002 Secret Service report find that less than 20 percent of school shooters played violent video games with any amount of regularity. Evidence suggests these individuals are actually less interested in violent games than the typical high school student. Many people continue to believe falsely that some shooters, such as those in the 2012 Sandy Hook and 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, were avid action gamers. Yet official investigations reported that these individuals preferred the nonviolent games Dance, Dance Revolution and Sonic the Hedgehog, respectively.

Original Submission