Senator plans to reintroduce bill within a month
A bill that called on Congress to demand a study of the effects of violent video games on children died when the 112th session of Congress disbanded on January 2nd.
The bill was introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia on December 17th - three days after the Sandy Hook school shootings.
According to US law, a bill must be voted on by the same session of Congress to which it was introduced.
A staffer at the Senator's office told Polygon that Rockefeller plans to reintroduce the bill, possibly within the month.
If passed, the measure would call for a study by the National Academy of Sciences on the effects of violent video games and video programming on children.
Advertisement
The study would have to begin within thirty days of the passing of the bill, and would be due for a report to Congress, the FTC and the FCC within 18 months.
"At times like this, we need to take a comprehensive look at all the ways we can keep our kids safe," Sen. Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said when first revealing the measure.
"I have long expressed concern about the impact of the violent content our kids see and interact with every day."
This bill would be the eigth such study since the 1999 Columbine High School shootings.
None of these studies found a link between exposure to violent media and violent acts.
In related news, Vice President Joe Biden will meet with representatives from the NRA and the game and entertainment industries to discuss possible solutions to the Nation's gun violence.
In response, several industry bodies wrote open letters to the Vice President urging him not to blame games for the events in Connecticut.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
1. The state of being seriously mentally ill; madness.
2. Extreme foolishness or irrationality.
I'm not trying to disagree with you, as I see what you're saying about their research and studies on violence in games affecting kids. But the quote you have made there was originally made by Einstein (supposedly), therefore a quote not a definition.
Studies have already been done on this and no conclusive study has shown a relation between the two. If people drive while intoxicated should we do a study on how many people are having financial issues which led them to drinking in the first place? Even if you find that video games are the problem, what are you going to do about it? Ban them? Good luck with that -- ever heard of the First Amendment? Any bill passed by Congress remotely related to that will get sued by dozens of lawyers in a class action suit and the bill will then be overturned by the US Supreme Court. So yeah, let's just waste millions on a study that's already been done and put ourselves MORE in debt. God I wish these idiots were held responsible for overdrafts.
