Pennsylvania Proposes Tax on Mature Video Games Due to Violence, School Shootings

Megalith

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Four members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives are supporting a 10% tax on mature-rated video games: House Bill 2705 proposes a tax that is “imposed on each separate sale at retail of video games which have an adults-only rating or mature rating according to the rating system established by the [ESRB].” A memo submitted by the bill’s top sponsor suggests that recent school shootings (e.g., Parkland, FL) played a part in the tax’s inception.

“Over the past few years, acts of violence in schools seem to be occurring more frequently and with more intensity. From Colorado to Connecticut to most recently in Parkland, Florida, students have experienced unthinkable actions by peers in a place that should promote learning and enrichment, safety and protection.”
 
As the article says, video games are protected speech, they were granted free speech protections by the Supreme Court. This is going to cost tax payers in the state a fuck load of money for something that will ultimately be ruled as unconstitutional.
 
man, as soon as you vote them in they become throwed off... jesus you cant tax every thing.. take a break.. steal less for bit.. give em a break..
 
There is always the ultimate reality, People will blame everything except themselves, Homer's Illiad is a classic and one would think taught in schools as mandatory reading, yet is 1000% more violent and sexual than any game I have played to date, the point is without context anything can be excessive or a negative infulence on an impressionable mind, that includes adults as well as younger children and young adults.

The fact leaders are entirely stupid enough taxing and somehow thinking this will make parents care, or stop games like these getting into impressionable young peoples hands is naive at best.

Tax everything for the sake of taxing it, because people can't balance a budget, and would rather alienate a group of individuals versus taxing everyone properly....and fairly.....
 
Well this moeny got towards fixing the issues or is it just a case grab pretende to do good ?

Like that question has to be asked? Remember when lotteries were "for the children"? Except they didn't plus up the funding like they implied they would - they just decreased the "normal" budgets by whatever they got from the lotteries, and magically the normal budget that didn't get spent on schools stayed in the general funds so it could be spent on other stuff.

So it didn't help the schools at all. Surprise! Anyone that thinks that giving governments more money is going to solve anything is an idiot at this point. If there were some accountability for how funds were spent that were tied to measurable results, maybe. Even better how about if the stated goals aren't met the government has to refund everyone for not meeting the stated objectives? People can sue over a phone "missing" a few pixels but no one ever thinks to hold governments accountable for actually delivering crap? Give me a break...
 
“Over the past few years, acts of violence in schools seem to be occurring more frequently and with more intensity. From Colorado to Connecticut to most recently in Parkland, Florida, students have experienced unthinkable actions by peers in a place that should promote learning and enrichment, safety and protection.”


From Columbine wikipedia page:

As a result, both attended mandatory classes such as anger management and talked with diversion officers.[n 6] Harris also began attending therapy with a psychologist, and was prescribed antidepressants by a psychiatrist.

From Parkland wikipedia page:
He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.[71]

We aren't told details of the treatment, but I'd wager a small fortune psychotropic drugs were involved. Because drugs solve problems, mkay?

Go back and look since the 70's when mass shootings spiked. It has nothing to do with the prevalence of guns - guns have always been extremely prevalent in America since it's founding (for good reason!). What did change in the 70's was a sharp uptake are the introduction and use of psychotropic drugs in mainstream psychiatric treatment.

But since when is a politician actually interested really solving an issue? If there aren't issues then they can't exploit them for power and personal gain. I mean this tells you all you need to know about what's really going on:

“The secretary of the department shall deposit the money remitted under this subsection into the General Fund. Section 2203. Digital Protection for School Safety Account.” The aforementioned account is used for “the purpose of enhancing school safety measures implemented by school districts as provided by the laws of this Commonwealth.”

Well doesn't that sound nice? Except if you really scrutinize it they haven't told you a damn thing about what they are really going to do with the money - except "tag" it with a warm fuzzy name composed of vauge hopes and platitudes. But it still goes in the general fund. Right.....

Authoritarian pricks.
 
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Lets start by cutting the politicians pay down to a reasonable level, say what the average person makes. Next cut their ridiculous retirement packages and force them to use obamacare. Next lets require them to have at least a bachelors degree in business or economics. Now lets get rid of 9 out of the 10 agencies that perform the same/similar tasks. Force people who use food stamps to buy only nutritious foods. And finally mandatory birth control to qualify for welfare assistance, until they can financially support themselves.
 
What does video games have to do with terrible parenting and mental illness?


Easier to demonize.
poiting fginer at faield parents mean alianitng some parents
potingin finger at mntal illness you are aliniating the child

Pointin finger at a non animate objecte. no personla accusation = easy to get away with . lots of backing up
easy eay easy.

nothing gets solved though.
 
Well this moeny got towards fixing the issues or is it just a case grab pretende to do good ?

at some point we have to realize that the us system is a whole is just built to produce criminals and psychopathic behavior.

Well regardless, the problem stems from taxing items to cover costs that no one is accountable for. Meaning taxes in general should go up or down as a whole not on selective situational items, otherwise one could simply say why am I paying for schools when I don't have children or plan on doing so, it's simply selective bargaining, because you buy this we need to cover costs, but yet only when we deem it, and that as a whole is why state soveriegnty is a crock at best, when you have states like NY, NJ, PA, CA that are considered the most corrupt with the highest taxes yet have the least benefit.
 
Four members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives are supporting a 10% tax on mature-rated video games: House Bill 2705 proposes a tax that is “imposed on each separate sale at retail of video games which have an adults-only rating or mature rating according to the rating system established by the [ESRB].” A memo submitted by the bill’s top sponsor suggests that recent school shootings (e.g., Parkland, FL) played a part in the tax’s inception.

“Over the past few years, acts of violence in schools seem to be occurring more frequently and with more intensity. From Colorado to Connecticut to most recently in Parkland, Florida, students have experienced unthinkable actions by peers in a place that should promote learning and enrichment, safety and protection.”

I thought video game purchases were already taxed. Did I miss some loophole to buy games tax free?
 
one state below me a pack of cigs is 4.38 here its 10.25 for same pack so lets say 6 and some change for the 'cig' tax but then the regular sales tax hits..

so for the games its violence tax then sales tax so 10% then 8%..

at what point have you gone too far?
 
Taxation is theft.

Taxation is required in order for governments to function and provide the services you take advantage of every single day of your life. Humans being humans, that money is wasted on crap and used to line the pockets of the politicians.
 
Remember when the British taxed & took away card games? Yeah that didn't work out well for them.
 
Unless they are banking on people paying this tax and then not being able to afford guns/knives I'm not sure how this even works.

Also, would like to see 1 actual peer reviewed study that connects violent video games to violent acts.
 
Then they have to tax all TV sitcoms, cop shows and anything with a gun where somebody gets blown up. What a bunch of village idiots. We can all can watch Winnie the Poo.

Sounds like something CA would do, after all they are now going after all you text messages with a tax, no,no a fee, excuse me.
 
Then they have to tax all TV sitcoms, cop shows and anything with a gun where somebody gets blown up. What a bunch of village idiots. We can all can watch Winnie the Poo.

Sounds like something CA would do, after all they are now going after all you text messages with a tax, no,no a fee, excuse me.

Convicted arms trafficker Leland Yee tried, multiple times, to regulate video games in California.
 
Then they have to tax all TV sitcoms, cop shows and anything with a gun where somebody gets blown up. What a bunch of village idiots. We can all can watch Winnie the Poo

Sounds like something CA would do, after all they are now going after all you text messages with a tax, no,no a fee, excuse me.

Leland Yee (Democrat) tried to regulate violent video games in CA some years ago but it never went anywhere. He did successfully push some gun laws. Ironically, he now sits in prison for being involved with illegal weapon smuggling to terrorists in the Philippines if I recall.
 
I don't agree with this, but I can understand why they would come to this conclusion. Video games, especially violent ones along with the rise of increasingly violent and gory television follow almost exactly to the rise of this type of violence. I honestly think it has more to do with the degradation of the american family than either of those things, but to actually prove it scientifically would take decades.
 
I don't agree with this, but I can understand why they would come to this conclusion. Video games, especially violent ones along with the rise of increasingly violent and gory television follow almost exactly to the rise of this type of violence. I honestly think it has more to do with the degradation of the american family than either of those things, but to actually prove it scientifically would take decades.

You should take a look at US crime statistics. Violent crime is on a downward trend and has been for a long time. The only violent crime on the uptick right now (and massively so) is mass shootings and there are definitely a hell of a lot more complex things going on with that rise than violent media. Things like how piss poor mental health help is in the US.
 
You should take a look at US crime statistics. Violent crime is on a downward trend and has been for a long time. The only violent crime on the uptick right now (and massively so) is mass shootings and there are definitely a hell of a lot more complex things going on with that rise than violent media. Things like how piss poor mental health help is in the US.

Actually the homicide rate has risen these past few years. We were down to 3.8 and it was going further down until the BLM movement started. Various PDs in major cities around the nation curbed policing as a result of the protests in Missouri. In turn, the homicide rate went further up. This was predicted to happen around the time the famous "give them room to destroy" quote came about and I can't say I am surprised.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u....016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls

Sounds like 2017 saw a slight decrease, but we're still way up from 2014.
 
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