Measure targets video-game violence

A bill that would make violent video games comparable to pornography in Utah statute was reborn Tuesday when a substitute of HB227 gained the approval of the House Judiciary Committee.

The new version is narrowly tailored to video games, which alleviated many of the constitutional concerns that initially derailed the bill.

"This is a beginning in my mind," said sponsoring Rep. David Hogue, R-Riverton, who in 2001 attempted unsuccessfully to put the movie-ratings system into Utah code.

The bill would amend the section of the Utah Criminal Code dealing with obscenity to include "inappropriate violence in an interactive video or electronic game" that is "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole."

The major alteration in the substitute bill specifies that the inappropriate violence must be in an interactive video game. The original bill said the offending violence could be "in any form."

Although the committee accepted the change, many opponents of the bill found the substitute to have just as many First Amendment issues as the original.

"This bill will be challenged as unconstitutional," said Scott Sabey, speaking on behalf of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. "(The original statute) is drafted for pornography. (Unlike pornography,) violence is a protected form of speech."

Noting how "minors have First Amendment rights," Margaret Plane of the ACLU of Utah said the Supreme Court has ruled that violence receives the highest protection possible under the First Amendment. In every other state where similar laws were passed, she said, the courts have struck them down.

But the Supreme Court has never heard a case that involves interactive violence, and Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka thinks now is the time to test the nation's highest court.

"If we have to go to the Supreme Court, let's go all the way to the Supreme Court. Let Utah be the one to say enough is enough," she said.

According to Ruzicka, an attorney in St. Louis said HB227 is the best version of this type of bill he had ever seen. The attorney is representing the families of police officers who were murdered by a young man, who had gone on a killing spree targeting police after playing the video game "25 to Life," a game where the player kills police officers.

Hogue says this isn't a completely uncommon occurrence.