Over this past month, the debate about whether violent video games promote people to commit crimes, like massacres has been brought back into the spotlight thanks to a proposed bill.
On Jan. 28, Pennsylvania proposed a “Sin Tax” bill (House Bill No. 109) which would give 10 percent on all M-rated games and to help fund school safety measures.
The bill was proposed by Rep. Christopher B. Quinn who believes violent video games influence people. He used the Parkland school shooting as an example.
“One factor that may be contributing to the rise in, and intensity of, school violence is the material kids see, and act out, in video games.” said Quinn.
Almost three weeks after the proposal, Connecticut proposed a similar bill (Bill No. 5735) by Rep. Debralee Hovey. The proceeds would go to the department of mental health and addiction service.
“The purpose of developing informational materials to educate families on the warning signs of video game addiction and antisocial behavior.” said Hovey.
This follows a tradition of debate over whether violence in video games is linked to school shootings, such as the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.
Over the past decade of research by many institutes, there’s no link to video games making people commit violence.
In a report from the Oxford Internet Division, Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein observed a group teenagers playing violent video games to see whether there were any behavioral changes.
“Results from these confirmatory analyses provided evidence that adolescents’ recent violent video game play is not a statistically or practically significant correlate of their aggressive behaviour as judged by carers,” the report said.
Some Delta students agreed with that report, and were skeptical of the idea of a video game tax.
“Not going to work because those types of games don’t affect them mentally. Even if they tax it, they’re still going to buy them,” said student Dereck Jensen.
“No because it can’t do anything, it’s the idea is that the parents should be aware in what there buying for their children,” said student John Luna.