Cali. senator Leland Yee is telling the gamer community and industry to “quiet down,” Eddie Makuch for Gamespot reports on Jan. 25.
"Gamers have got to just quiet down," Yee said. "Gamers have no credibility in this argument. This is all about their lust for violence and the industry's lust for money. This is a billion-dollar industry. This is about their self-interest."
Yee in the last few years is one of many US senators to take aim against video games: in a highly-publicized violent video game law proposal that was put before the Supreme Court in 2011 by Yee, the proposal “Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association” (formerly “Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association”) made it illegal to sell violent video games to young people; the proposal was shot down as unconstitutional.
But now, in the wake of the Newtown School Shootings on Dec. 14, 2012, Yee is joined by many other politicians in criticizing the supposed role that video games—and media entertainment in general—may have played in the events. President Obama himself recently made an executive order, one of many, to put funds towards a program that will investigate the effects of video game violence in the real world.
But, concerning the 2011 proposal by Yee, Justice Antonin Scalia had this comparison and statement to make, on June 27, 2011:
"Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat," Scalia ruled, "but these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones."
"For better or worse, our society has long regarded many depictions of killing and maiming as suitable features of popular entertainment, including entertainment that is widely available to minors," Justice Samuel Alito concurred.
For more information regarding Yee’s statement, check out Eddie Makuch’s article on Gamespot.
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