Comments about ‘Letters: Rep. Jim Matheson's bill is redundant’

Far be it for me to defend a left-wing extremist, but Matheson must be commended for putting his ideology aside in order to protect children.

The vast majority of modern video games are full of violence and sexuality. Indeed, these games portray both violence and sexuality as purely recreational activities with no consequences whatsoever. As a result, millions of impressionable young people are imitating what they see portrayed in the games.

If we as a society are serious about protecting innocent schoolchildren from being massacred, we must go even further than Matheson's proposal and must ban these games outright. The minor pleasure obtained from playing these games is not worth the terrible cost.

No doubt the usual liberal posters here will claim this is a free speech issue. This is not true. The Supreme Court has declared that there is no right to engage in speech which incites others to violence. That is exactly what these video games do.

Matheson's bill is a lame effort to convince us that he is doing something about gun violence.

But if he offered real solutions like limits on which firearms are available or background checks, you'd be screaming bloody murder that Matheson was a communist dictator who was trampling your 2nd amendment rights! Soooo darned if you so darned if you don't. Just what solutions does the GOP have other than kick the can down the road and do nothing?

No wonder why nothing gets done in congress. One party offers zero solutions but merely just attacks members of the "other" party. Rather than attack Matheson, why doesn't the letter writer offer solutions?

So it was an arm full of video games the killer used at sandy hook? Funny how you are so against big brother government unless its pushing your "extremist" view point.

JCS -- you have it backwards.

It's not liberals who are opposing control of violent games and movies. We are pushing for it. It's the conservatives who are yowling about the First Amendment -- just as they yowl about the Second.

Sorry my last comment was directed at springs.

Since there is absolutely no reason to believe that video games have any causative role to play in acts of violence, I'm not sure what Matheson hopes to accomplish.

@John Charity Spring: Your characterization of Jim Matheson as a "left-wing extremist" betrays your biases. Your call to ban ALL of what you refer to as amorally violent and sexual videos betrays your ignorance of cause/effect, implying that THESE videos are the SOLE cause of "massacred school children. That's two strikes, JCS. Your assumption that "liberal posters" would call this a "free speech" issue again reduces a complex problem to a simplistic analysis. Sorry. You're out.

@John Charity Spring
"Far be it for me to defend a left-wing extremist, but Matheson"

You think Matheson is a left-wing extremist? He's a moderate. If he were a left-wing extremist I'd like him a lot more (I voted against him twice in 2010, in the primary and then I voted third party in the general). The only thing I like about him is that I'd rather have a moderate in the seat than a tea party candidate.

Quick fact check 55% of games made have an E rating with 5% earning the M rating.

As a reference E games contain the following: Content is generally suitable for all ages. May contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. (mild language are words like poop and stupid)

M games are:Content is generally suitable for ages 17 and up. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

So no the vast minority are games that have the graphic violence and sexual content. Another fun fact according to the ESRB E games secured 48% of sales.

While I agree M games should not go to those that are below 17 and there should be some punishment it does no good to use unsubstantiated claims to support an opinion.