Happy Halloween! Enjoy this spooky update.
To The Edge and Maybe Over: Part 10
"I absolutely agree with Senator Gore on this issue. When you have young people exposed to this culture of death-that's not good for their minds. It desensitizes them and makes them think that these means are a valid one to deal with problems. Gale didn't just kill people because he had a gun, he had a deranged mindset that was encouraged by exposure to violent media. We won't solve violence without addressing these root causes."
-President Joe Lieberman, on January 30, 2005 at the press conference unveiling the SAFETY Act
"In essence, the core premise of the SAFETY Act is that young people who perpetrate violent actions are not responsible for their actions. Instead, Gore, Lieberman and fellow supporters of this legislation place the blame on media they regard as encouraging hostility to human life-namely death metal and violent video games. The legislation strengthens background checks and reinforces the assault weapons ban, while tying that with imposing criminal penalties for not strictly checking IDs of people buying M rated video games or music albums belonging to the heavy metal or death metal genres. The problem with these proposals is twofold: the enforcement of this proposal is highly tricky and these restrictions in my opinion violate First Amendment protections."
-Eugene Volokh, writing for The Volokh Conspiracy, February 3, 2005
"This legislation is in my book long overdue. My only issue with it is I worry it does not go far enough in keeping the kind of violent imagery we see too often in Hollywood and in these kind of games from the eyes of our children. People who are saying this is a threat to free speech-we're not banning these depictions, we're just enforcing already existing rules. If you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre, then kids shouldn't be able to go to a movie theatre and see someone fire into a crowd on the screen."
-Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE), February 4, 2005, after becoming a cosponsor of the SAFETY Act
"Look, I am all for taking measures to combat mass shootings-Lord knows I am no Second Amendment absolutist-but in the process we shouldn't erode basic constitutional freedoms. This legislation would push too far against the First Amendment for my liking and I don't see any path to me voting for it."
-Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), February 4, 2005
"I am absolutely prepared to work with the Lieberman administration to get the SAFETY Act through the House. It's a major piece of common-sense, common-ground legislation-both Speaker Bonior and I agree on it, for instance. We may not get everyone onboard, but we should get the non-crazies to back this legislation."
-House Minority Leader Dennis Hastert, February 2, 2005
FEINGOLD THREATENS FILIBUSTER OF SAFETY ACT AS BILL NEARS PASSAGE
DCCC THREATENS TO WITHHOLD FUNDS FROM REPRESENTATIVES WHO BUCK LIEBERMAN LINE
MARILYN MANSON CRITICIZES SAFETY ACT AS 'ANTI-FREEDOM AND USELESS'
40 CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS SIGN LETTER EXPRESSING FIRST AMENDMENT CONCERNS ABOUT SAFETY ACT, URGE IT WITHDRAWN AND REVISED
-Headlines of The Washington Post, February 2005
"Based on my understanding of the issues the SAFETY Act seeks to address, I do think it provides decent remedies to these issues and I would favor the legislation if I believed it to be constitutional. However, the fact is, my understanding of the Constitution precludes supporting this legislation. The SAFETY Act's penalties for selling certain video games and music albums to young people would violate First Amendment protections for both video game companies and establishments selling such content. In addition, while I think the US infatuation with gun rights is an issue, the Second Amendment is absolutely clear. The gun control provisions are not permitted. On that basis, I would say that constitutional amendments would be a prerequisite to the passage of the SAFETY Act."
-Professor Alan Dershowitz, February 15, 2005
"Ron, of course, was deeply opposed to the legislation. A federal piece of legislation imposing strict criminal penalties for nonviolent activities was antithetical to everything he stood for. If he'd had the chance to filibuster it, I know he would've-hell, when Feingold was railing against it, I could tell he wished he was able to join him in doing that. And when Hutchison voted for the bill, I think that was when he made up his mind. If not then, maybe when Lew pointed out people got elected President from the Senate a lot more often than from the House."
-Carol Paul, writing in
Ron Paul's Revolution: Behind the Scenes, published 2018
"The impact of the SAFETY Act on the video game industry was rather depressive. M-rated games were considerably more risky business decisions after the SAFETY Act passed. From 2006 to 2010, the number of major M-rated games created dropped about 33% compared to the period of 2001 to 2005. Developers more known for family-friendly video game content like Nintendo would perform better than those developers who produced less appropriate games. And even on family-friendly games, certain elements were scrapped to keep them as appropriate as possible-for instance, Blue Fang banned modders from adding gore to their Zoo Tycoon games up until 2009. In the end, of course, the legislation would be scrapped, but it would take a while before M-rated content became as common as it once had been."
-Excerpt from the Kotaku article 'The SAFETY Act: A Decade One', published February 2015
"In the end, of course, it didn't really matter that most constitutional scholars argued its provisions wouldn't be upheld. Lieberman wanted something done, Senator Gore wanted something done and many others in Congress wanted something done. Odds are, most people who voted to pass the SAFETY Act knew it would ultimately face court challenges. But they passed it anyway and attempted to keep it on the books as long as possible. Because doing something, however unconstitutional it might have been, was seen as better than potentially allowing another Marysville. The fact that it didn't prevent future incidents of that sort is obvious to us now, but we speak with the benefit of hindsight the people who voted SAFETY through had no way of having."
-Glenn Greenwald, writing for the Jacobin, October 12, 2010
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