CA Senator: 'NRA's response response is pathetic and completely unacceptable'

California Senator Leland Yee sent out a personal response from his website expressing his opinion about how the NRA responded to violent video games and placed a fair portion of the blame of why violence occurs nowadays on the gaming industry.

[Godmars290]

So basically he's saying that if the NRA had gone after video games earlier, he'd support their stance on them now?

[RuleNumber5]

Touche. That's a fair point to a degree.

[sarshelyam]

That's not at all what he's saying. What he's saying is that instead of targeting Video Games, why don't they look to the bigger problem of accessibility of firearms...to anyone...even those who shouldn't have them. He simply cites his case from years ago as a counter-point to shed light on the fact that only now when the NRA is under scrutiny, do they take decisive action. THAT is passing the buck!

At the end of the day it really has nothing to do with Video Games, Lee said it himself in what can only be defined as "accountability", something the NRA simply doesn't wish to recognize.

[Godmars290]

Does have something to do with politics. And by the NRA so obviously trying to scapegoat games on their behalf they could make his ongoing issues with them into the comical thing they are.

Still have to ask though if they had given him support would he be standing with them. And with this being about politics that seems like an automatic yes.

[rainslacker]

@sarshelyam

While that's what he's saying, he's also implying that his stance on the issue is completely right, and that video games are a problem. Only now it's not just games, but also guns. I don't recall guns ever being mentioned before when he brought this to the supreme court.

To be fair, his original ban only called for prevention of violent games for sale to minors, something which many retailers already did, and still do. It also wanted the rating system to be more accurate, with pretty much all games with anything violent being rated M. This case did help usher in the more descriptive ratings on the boxes. However his reaction to the original supreme court decision was rather grand standish.

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed...

To paraphrase he says "First amendment rights which extend to all forms of media, shouldn't apply to video games", blaming of course corporate America, and not the fact that the 1st amendment is probably the most sacred of them all to Americans.

For anyone more interested in the original case, here's a link which summarizes it, and Yee's reaction pretty well.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsf...

[tachy0n]

if the second amendment gets touched, expect an american civil war.

[Kurylo3d]

Yup.. same type of people that fought for slavery in the civil war will fight for guns in a new civil war... all the rednecks.. North vs south all over again

[tachy0n]

kids on this site dont know crap,

a civil war doesnt mean it has to be north vs south...
thomas jefferson said the day the second amendment gets touched is the day it will come in effect, the second amendment is there so people can defend from the government,

the US government is doing everything possible to mess with that part of the constitution because the government fears an american revolution.

weapons are severely banned in countries like in mexico and look how many people die over there and how their goverment treats them like crap.

[NewVegasTroop]

I am from Guadalajara, Mexico and i completely agree with you, the situation here is horrible. one can not defend itself from criminals who have weapons because than the police (their allies) will come against you. there is no law to protect you if you kill someone (a criminal) in self defense and since there is no such thing as a "fair trial" you are sent straight to jail with no way to prove your innocence.

If the second amendment existed in Mexico I bet my life that this would be a better country since there are more good people than those bad ones which if they had the right to bear arms they wouldn't live in fear. Myself and many others feel this way but since we are a minority among a society where the media controls the public opinion, we would only be categorize as narcos (Mexican version of terrorist) and our sacrifice would have been in vine.

Mexico is the perfect utopia the US government wants your country to be. Where the media controls what people think, where the rich get richer and the poor poorer, and where the government can sell your country's resources to the highest bitter (China, or in our case USA) without any opposition. Mexico IS the perfect capitalist state, if it wasn't for the second amendment you guys would sadly be like us.

[omi25p]

Im from the uk and weapons are banned.

Yet we aren't anything like Mexico.

[omegaoftime]

Kids in general don't know anything at all about their own country. In GENERAL without all the standard arguments of guns kill people, guns should be banned, etc, the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) are natural rights derived from God which cannot be touched. The issue with regulating any of these mean that if you touch one, then the other will be affected as well. This is well documented in 'The Federalist Papers.' The founders/framers were very proud with the second amendment that the amendment itself reads "shall not be infringed." I had to study the constitution in my graduate program (mainly the 1st amendment). I'm well aware of the implications of government solutions.

[NavydAd]

My son works at Target and he says yesterday alone he had 10 different parents buying their kids BO2! They would ask him his opinion on what game to get and he would say "BOPS 2 is really popular, but how old are your kids?" majority of the parents said their kids age ranged from 8-15 years old. My son replied "well just to let you know its more of an adult game" The parents still took the game.

That being said guns are not the problem. As parents lets take responsibility for our parenting. two years ago my oldest son got in a fight at school and kicked a boy in the face. Did I blame UFC, No as a parent I realized letting him watch UFC might have been a bad idea. I just started letting him watch it again because he misses out being with me and his older brothers on fight nights.

I just think its dumb to place the blame on one certain product. Theres a reason that kids cant make decisions till their 18 because we are responsible as parents to guide them!

[Godmars290]

Question is if you're not going to blame guns, are you going to blame people? Would you require anyone with a diagnosable mentally illness register in a national - public - data base which would preclude them from buying guns, but also likely have an impact on all other aspects of their lives as well.

And while you're at it are you going to pay the millions of dollars such tests are going to cost? And it still mean that some current gun owners will have their guns taken away.

[rainslacker]

I don't think blaming any one thing is going to solve anything really. While in some cases the parents may be to blame to some degree, it isn't the only factor in why these things happen.

As far as testing, no I wouldn't go so far as to say put them all in a national database, however if someone wants to own a gun, then they should be able to prove they are not going to use it in a manner which is unacceptable to society. The purchaser should bear that cost, and not the public. No different than say a driving test. The problem is, there is no real way to test for psychotic or sociopathic tendencies in a person, and usually requires continuous counseling to make that assessment. I imagine it would be very difficult to devise a fool-proof standardized test for such a thing.

[modesign]

dont forget the tobacco industry blames everyone but themselves for lung cancer and chronic respiratory failure, just like the NRA blames everyone but themselves for mass shootings, and the accessibility of guns.

[JD_Shadow]

So now we got Senators trying to barrage people with this shit in the hopes that no one on the other side can possibly combat the strength in numbers?

No wonder they got a piss poor approval rate. And to think that people ELECT these fucking jokes!

[bryam1982]

Why the USA love their guns so much? Too many western movies when kids perhaps? Why they cant b civilized like other countrys where people dont have easy access to guns like canada,norwey,Netherlands,finl and,costa rica and so many whit gun violence on the low?

[tigertron]

Yes, the second amendment is incredibly outdated. It was forged in a time when it was the wild West. Are we still in the 1800s America with cowboys and Indians? I don't think so.

Maybe it's a culture thing as I'm English, but if you look at the amount of gun related deaths in Europe i.e UK), our death rate is TINY. There are far too many innocent lives being ruined by guns. Just today I read on the news that some volunteer firemen were shot dead. It's terrible.

The person using the tools is to blame, of course, but guns make it EASIER to kill. Do you think that psycho would have killed as many school kids and teachers if all he had was a baseball bat? no.

Anyway, if you fight fire with fire, things will only get worse. There is NO need for assault rifles and uzi's etc. Why do you need these sorts of guns? the only people who should be using them are soldiers, police and other government agencies. If you want to weed out violence, introduce tougher gun control laws. It won't solve the problem completely, obviously...but it's a start.

[rainslacker]

The problem is that the pro-second amendment lobbies simply do not want to see a middle ground when it comes to gun control. Quite honestly, most people are not calling for a ban on guns, simply better regulation and control on their sale, particularly in what kinds of guns are available, how many, and to whom.

The NRA itself takes a hard-line approach and does everything it can to prevent these regulations from coming into place.

Any weapon that is fully automatic, such as an Uzi, is illegal. Assault rifles can not be fully automatic, however their modification is quite simple. Modifying these weapons could me made difficult or impossible, yet again the gun lobbies push against that regulation.

While I personally believe the 2nd amendment is outdated, the fact remains that it is part of our bill or rights. While you can modify to a degree, through regulation, because of what the intent of the bill of rights stands for, removing a section of it is a slippery slope. After all, if this particular one can be removed, then why not due process, or protection from unreasonable search and seizure, or why not say that pesky freedom of speech one. While I'd like to think that kind of thing would never happen, I do remember the patriot act, which pretty much allows the government to circumvent many of those inalienable rights granted to us during the founding of our country.

[Seraphim]

your problem in thinking is that these rifles are no different than hunting rifles. Ok so they generally hold more bullets but take these rifles out of the mix and now you just have companies making larger clips for other rifles. These Assault Rifles are semi-automatic rifles. They're not fully automatic. We have the right to bear to arms and that includes hunting rifles, assault rifles, pistols, shotguns.

You can try limiting the size of clips manufactured as they did w/ Pistols years ago banning Glocks larger 18+ shot clips but at the end of the day an assault rifle is nothing more than a rifle w/ a large clip. You're still going to have some out there but outlawing large clips will curb their availability and make it more difficult for these pricks to obtain them since current owners aren't going to give them up. Be it for hunting or personal protection it's still nothing more than a semi-automatic rifle. I will agree there's no need for non military personal to carry an Assault Rifle that's fully automatic. We're not talking about automatic assault rifles though.

there is no way to stop, avoid, prevent, etc. Criminals will always find a way to obtain guns. People who want a gun for whatever reason will always find a way to obtain a gun. A good first step would be to keep this bullshit off the Airwaves & out of the news. airing this stuff and giving these idiots 15 minutes of easy fame is only fueling the fire. you want 15 minutes of fame, you want to be in the History books or papers then find something good to do, something worthy of having your name placed there. Airing this BS time and time again isn't helping anyone....

[bryam1982]

Too many hillbillies in the USA and they are not well educated lol the other day i was playing online and one guy was like: let them come and try to take my guns i'll kill all those goverment fukers, lol ohhh those american hillbillies are the funniest lol