Rhode Island State Representative Wants to Tax Violent Video Games

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 25, 2001
Messages
13,552
A Rhode Island State Representative is proposing a 10% tax on violent video games to fund counselling and mental health services in schools. However, the Secret Service says less than 20% of school shooters played violent video games. So why tax video games if they have no real evidence of them causing school shootings? Just another knee jerk "solution". In my opinion he needs to propose some reallocation of funding in the state budget and take care of those services that way. Taxing video games is stupid.

American states don't have the power to legislate against the sale of M-rated games to minors. Nardolillo's proposal aims to offset this by increasing tax and funnelling that money into mental health provisions.
 
Isn't Rhode Island the same state that had a failed foray into the video games industry with 38 Studios? You think maybe they aren't trying to recoup some losses by riding some tragic coat tails?
 
Fuck you, you piece of shit politician. How about instead of finding a scapegoat in video games, you tax the sales of guns that you're so fond of to fund that? I can't wait for the NRA to use up all their political capital and keep sending out their spokespeople just to make them more reviled than they are.
 
So please explain , Mr Lawmaker why Koreans, Swedes, Germans, Brazilians, Japanese, and Chinese who consume plenty of video games including violent ones don't have school children being killed by semi automatic rifles.

Yes people kill people. That is true. But readily and easily available AR15s sure make it easy.
 
TAP said:
So please explain , Mr Lawmaker why Koreans, Swedes, Germans, Brazilians, Japanese, and Chinese who consume plenty of video games including violent ones don't have school children being killed by semi automatic rifles.

Yes people kill people. That is true. But readily and easily available AR15s sure make it easy.
Click to expand...

They have a less diverse population. Look at how the increase in violent crime in Sweden and Germany is coming from migrants. Brazil isn't a good example as they have a murder rate of 26.74 per 100k compared to a 4.88 per 100k in the U.S.
 
kirbyrj said:
They have a less diverse population. Look at how the increase in violent crime in Sweden and Germany is coming from migrants. Brazil isn't a good example as they have a murder rate of 26.74 per 100k compared to a 4.88 per 100k in the U.S.
Click to expand...

Diversity is causing this? Wait..what??
Research please...
 
Jim Sterling touches on this in his latest video. I thought this all sounded rather familiar from years/decades past. And we all know where all that shit went -- nowhere.
 
TAP said:
So please explain , Mr Lawmaker why Koreans, Swedes, Germans, Brazilians, Japanese, and Chinese who consume plenty of video games including violent ones don't have school children being killed by semi automatic rifles.

Yes people kill people. That is true. But readily and easily available AR15s sure make it easy.
Click to expand...

Readily and easily available handguns sure make it 19 times easier than the AR-15 to murder someone...
 
Anyone with half a brain knows what the causes are: a combination of easy access to semi or fully automatic weapons, mental illness, and most importantly in my opinion a pervading hopelessness brought on by the current social and political climate. When people lose hope, they will eventually begin to lash out violently at everything around them. It is not one of these factors, it is all of them and then some. The only reason to lay the blame on one factor is if you are trying to push an agenda.

This is all just a distraction, to keep us fighting against each other and arguing about what the cause of these problems are. When this current debate fades, Congress will dredge up another one, likely an old classic like abortion, gay marriage, or states rights. We argue, the nation becomes more divided, nothing is accomplished. It's all just a smokescreen so the oligarchy can loot and pillage for their own greed while we fight for ever-diminishing scraps. We should all be concerned about ALL issues, not because they may or may not affect us individually, but because they effect us all as a whole. Eventually no one will be immune from the effects of this widespread hopelessness. The oligarch's greed is insatiable, and when they have squeezed everything they can from the lower and middle classes they will come gunning for the rest. White privilege will be cast down along with all the other protections that isolate the upper classes from the lower. The future of this timeline is not bright.

Don't believe me? Look at the people posting above who are stealthily blaming other races and poor people for the prevalence of gun violence, even though nearly every mass shooter is white and not poor. You are falling into their trap, and trying to make your way out by digging downward.
 
Gweenz said:
Anyone with half a brain knows what the causes are: a combination of easy access to semi or fully automatic weapons, mental illness, and most importantly in my opinion a pervading hopelessness brought on by the current social and political climate. When people lose hope, they will eventually begin to lash out violently at everything around them. It is not one of these factors, it is all of them and then some. The only reason to lay the blame on one factor is if you are trying to push an agenda.

This is all just a distraction, to keep us fighting against each other and arguing about what the cause of these problems are. When this current debate fades, Congress will dredge up another one, likely an old classic like abortion, gay marriage, or states rights. We argue, the nation becomes more divided, nothing is accomplished. It's all just a smokescreen so the oligarchy can loot and pillage for their own greed while we fight for ever-diminishing scraps. We should all be concerned about ALL issues, not because they may or may not affect us individually, but because they effect us all as a whole. Eventually no one will be immune from the effects of this widespread hopelessness. The oligarch's greed is insatiable, and when they have squeezed everything they can from the lower and middle classes they will come gunning for the rest. White privilege will be cast down along with all the other protections that isolate the upper classes from the lower. The future of this timeline is not bright.

Don't believe me? Look at the people posting above who are stealthily blaming other races and poor people for the prevalence of gun violence, even though nearly every mass shooter is white and not poor. You are falling into their trap, and trying to make your way out by digging downward.
Click to expand...

So the "hopelessness" is from where? Leftist nutjobs? Without going overboard politically, "Hope and Change Obama" had a lower approval point at this point in his presidency than Trump. Funny, at my least hopeful point (probably after the passage of Obamacare), I never lashed out once violently. Sounds like you're arguing that it's a liberal problem for people who can't cope. I have far more hope than I had 8 years ago.

This isn't "stealthily blaming other races." Its pointing out that the blessing and curse of America is the diversity. Less diverse populations have less crime whether it be race, religion, etc. The examples cited by TAP were some of the least diverse populations in the world.

Along with that is the blessing and curse of the bill of rights including the 2nd Amendment. If you really wanted to eliminate crime, you shouldn't be looking at the 2nd amendment, you should be looking at the 4th amendment. But liberals don't like picking on the 4th amendment, so they keep jumping on the 2nd. And anyone with half a brain knows there is no easy access to fully automatic weapons.
 
Last edited:
Gigus Fire said:
European countries with low racial mix (Switzerland and Norway as examples) but high proliferation of guns have a low murder rate.

You're turn to explain why.
Click to expand...

Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world if not he most diverse. Explain please why there are no school shootings.

I will not be brought down to the level of blaming ethnic differences for something as tragic as this. Get help.
 
Yay! More taxes to fund things that most users of said taxable items don't use. Here we have a "soda tax" that supposedly funds obesity something something something... meanwhile I drive 5 minutes to a county without it and buy soda there if I want, and while I might be overweight a bit, it's more due to me eating too many calories not drinking them (I don't drink soda like water). However I can still buy candy and all sorts of other super sugar filled foods tax free!... uh oh I may have given them ideas.
 
Such things are never about the people's safety or protection. It is about control. They want control, and they want money to help them obtain more control. They don't really believe that this would help anyone.

Now, there are plenty of political sheep they can fool into believing this would help. We need to make sure and inform as many of those political sheep of the truth of the matter to reduce how many the politicians control, and hopefully stop them from doing it.
 
TAP said:
Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world if not he most diverse. Explain please why there are no school shootings.

I will not be brought down to the level of blaming ethnic differences for something as tragic as this. Get help.
Click to expand...
NYC is one of the most diverse cities in the world if not the most diverse. Explain why there's been no school shootings in NYC?
You're talking about a small portion (city) vs an entire country. There's lots of these examples that don't explain the whole problem.
Also, the US is different than Canada.
Also in Toronto specifically, for 2017 you have the highest number of victims of violent crimes in more than a decade. Could that be because of it's diversity? Who's to say. It's a microcosm.
 
kirbyrj said:
So the "hopelessness" is from where? Leftist nutjobs? Without going overboard politically, "Hope and Change Obama" had a lower approval point at this point in his presidency than Trump. I have far more hope than I had 8 years ago.
Click to expand...

Glad you asked.

First of all, I'm glad that you have hope for the future. I would assume this means you live a comfortable lifestyle and most of your needs are taken care of. This is a good thing, but if the entire scope of your worldview does not go past your own personal satisfaction then you lack human empathy. Many people are not in your comfortable position, and are sinking further.

The hopelessness comes from an everyday feeling of nothing they do matters. This is somewhat of a natural progression as we individuals become an ever diminishing percentage of the whole, just another number, but there are other more destructive factors. Wages are not increasing. Costs of living are increasing. People are losing faith in the power of voting, and therefore democracy itself. More and more people are seeing themselves as players in a rigged game. It's not from "leftist nutjobs" or right wing nutjobs for that matter. It is from an agenda pushed on them by a minuscule percentage of our population that controls more wealth than they could ever possibly spend. It's about the rich failing upwards, being above the law, and most of all being obscenely greedy.

kirbyrj said:
This isn't "stealthily blaming other races." Its pointing out that the blessing and curse of America is the diversity. Less diverse populations have less crime whether it be race, religion, etc. The examples cited by TAP were some of the least diverse populations in the world.
Click to expand...

If you say so. I don't know if you're racist or not and I'm not going to accuse you of being one, but this is exactly what they want us to do: argue ourselves into our respective corners where there can be no real debate, no real compromise. Meanwhile, the oligarchs continue their march towards financial and social domination. Like I said before, the issues we face every day are very important, regardless of our race or social standing. But the real underlying problem is that some people have too much, while others too little.
 
You guys have heard people say things like "I don't like saying I told you so but ...."

Yea fuck that, I told you so and I'm more than happy to lay claim to it.

I told you guys about how taxation for the purposes of social engineering was wrong. They did it with smoking, tried with ammunition, and now with video games. Some want to argue that smoking made sense because it was smokers causing these costs, but the tax money didn't go to those costs, it went everywhere else, this will be no different, and it's still fundamentally wrong.
 
Gigus Fire said:
NYC is one of the most diverse cities in the world if not the most diverse. Explain why there's been no school shootings in NYC?
You're talking about a small portion (city) vs an entire country. There's lots of these examples that don't explain the whole problem.
Also, the US is different than Canada.
Also in Toronto specifically, for 2017 you have the highest number of victims of violent crimes in more than a decade. Could that be because of it's diversity? Who's to say. It's a microcosm.
Click to expand...

Hitler blamed immigrants and diversity for a lot of problems as well. Get help.
 
TAP said:
Hitler blamed immigrants and diversity for a lot of problems as well. Get help.
Click to expand...
I'm going to ignore your Hitler statement as a example of how to deride discussions based on facts and statistics and just trying to add in nonsense to shut down debate.
Going back to the original post, explain why sweeden and germany have seen an uptick in crimes since the refugee crisis? Explain why places with less diversity typically (typically is the key word) have less violent crimes than places with lots of diversity? I'm sure there are socio-economic intricacies at play here as well, but from a broad standpoint there seems to be a correlation between the two.
 
LOL.. you guys make me chuckle.

This guy is smart. He knows the bill doesnt stand a chance of passing, but it will get his name out and show he is "trying to help". There will be a bunch of people who will be quite willing to spread the news of this because they either believe in it, or more like here, are so butt hurt over it they will share it with the world.

Thus furthering his exposure to those who will see his message and vote for him.


plus.. "news" stories like this are always good for sites and their ad views.. so its win win
 
These politicians make the citizens angry and combative and makes them justify a right to bear arms.

Time to remove them. :D
 
Back in the 70's or maybe it was the 80's, Dungeons and Dragons was the evil kid on the block. Everyone that played it were Satanists and sacrificed kittens apparently. It led to all kinds of crime. When they cracked down on it, all crime went away.
I remember watching the D&D cartoon on Saturday mornings - it was awesome. It got canceled. My friend's mom also took all of his D&D books and actually burnt them. Ridiculous.
Video games are not the problem here people. Taxing them is not going to do anything except pad a few pocket books. I'd love to see how much of the money would actually got to "helping" people - more likely, it will go to cover something else that was underfunded like a pension program.
 
katanaD said:
LOL.. you guys make me chuckle.

This guy is smart. He knows the bill doesnt stand a chance of passing, but it will get his name out and show he is "trying to help". There will be a bunch of people who will be quite willing to spread the news of this because they either believe in it, or more like here, are so butt hurt over it they will share it with the world.

Thus furthering his exposure to those who will see his message and vote for him.


plus.. "news" stories like this are always good for sites and their ad views.. so its win win
Click to expand...

Correct. It's a diversion, and our politicians love to use these to score a few points with the voters while the issue is fresh in our minds, without ever accomplishing anything. No way does this bill pass. Next week they will score points on a different issue.
 
katanaD said:
LOL.. you guys make me chuckle.

This guy is smart. He knows the bill doesnt stand a chance of passing, but it will get his name out and show he is "trying to help". There will be a bunch of people who will be quite willing to spread the news of this because they either believe in it, or more like here, are so butt hurt over it they will share it with the world.

Thus furthering his exposure to those who will see his message and vote for him.


plus.. "news" stories like this are always good for sites and their ad views.. so its win win
Click to expand...

I wonder how much the NRA is "donating" to him for this diversion.
 
And there is an uncanny correlation between your "statistics" and Hitler's ride to power by "correlating" growing diversity and Germany's loss of influence in the world.

For everyone else reading this, this guy is a perfect example of someone trying to legitimize bigotry and hate by using a so called data point that according to him "seems" to support his argument. This in the research world is called fishing and in the non-research world is the same argument that white supremacists would use to recruit new members. Don't let hate get a hold of you.
 
kirbyrj said:
So the "hopelessness" is from where? Leftist nutjobs? Without going overboard politically, "Hope and Change Obama" had a lower approval point at this point in his presidency than Trump. Funny, at my least hopeful point (probably after the passage of Obamacare), I never lashed out once violently. Sounds like you're arguing that it's a liberal problem for people who can't cope. I have far more hope than I had 8 years ago.

This isn't "stealthily blaming other races." Its pointing out that the blessing and curse of America is the diversity. Less diverse populations have less crime whether it be race, religion, etc. The examples cited by TAP were some of the least diverse populations in the world.

Along with that is the blessing and curse of the bill of rights including the 2nd Amendment. If you really wanted to eliminate crime, you shouldn't be looking at the 2nd amendment, you should be looking at the 4th amendment. But liberals don't like picking on the 4th amendment, so they keep jumping on the 2nd. And anyone with half a brain knows there is no easy access to fully automatic weapons.
Click to expand...

Obama -
2009 Feb 16-22 62% approval

Trump
2018 Feb 16-22 37% approval

Both from Gallup poll so no Obama did not and has not ever had a lower approval rating than Trump - Not sure what point you are talking about but

2010 Feb 15-21 49
2011 Feb 14-20 48
2012 Feb 13-19 45
2013 Feb 18-24 51
2014 Feb 17-23 45
2015 Feb 16-22 46
 
Jehuty said:
Fuck you, you piece of shit politician. How about instead of finding a scapegoat in video games, you tax the sales of guns that you're so fond of to fund that? I can't wait for the NRA to use up all their political capital and keep sending out their spokespeople just to make them more reviled than they are.
Click to expand...


You need to get some perspective mate.

You talk about the NRA being reviled, reviled by whom?

Over half of the country are gun owners, means less than half of the country might have a beef with the NRA.

I love it when people who are actually part of a minority start believing their own bullshit and think that they represent a majority of the population.

this is why you guys are always surprised when elections and votes don't go your way.
 
lcpiper said:
You need to get some perspective mate.

You talk about the NRA being reviled, reviled by whom?

Over half of the country are gun owners, means less than half of the country might have a beef with the NRA.

I love it when people who are actually part of a minority start believing their own bullshit and think that they represent a majority of the population.

this is why you guys are always surprised when elections and votes don't go your way.
Click to expand...

I support gun owners rights but the NRA can go fuck itself.
 
Gigus Fire said:
The NRA is made up of gun owners. It's a club that anyone can join that pushes rights for gun owners.

I'm not too sure how you can separate the two. Not all gun owners are NRA members, but almost all NRA members are gun owners.
Click to expand...

No. The NRA spends 100s of millions of dollars bribing the government to get their own laws passed, force their puppets to attack children that were victims of a school shooting, and create diversionary bullshit like this. The NRA needs to die.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top