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The pointless crusade against violent video games has been going on for some time now. Politicians, lawyers, and the media have all been a part of this growing trend, and blaming video games for real-life acts of violence has become the easy way out of any situation. As if that wasnt ludicrous enough, currently in Massachusetts, a bill is pending in state legislature that would outlaw the sale of violent video games altogether.

Luckily, gamers like you and I are not the only ones to recognize the ridiculousness of all of this. Stephen King, master horror writer and self-proclaimed non-gamer, has written an article in Entertainment Weekly sharing his views on the bill and the issue of video game violence in general. Part of his column can be found below, I felt that it was worth a read.

...if there's violence to be had, the kids are gonna find a way to get it, just as they'll find a way to get all-day shooters like No Country for Old Men from cable if they want. Or Girls Gone Wild, for that matter. Can parents block that stuff? You bet. But most never do. The most effective bar against what was called ''the seduction of the innocent'' when this hot-button issue centered on violent comic books 60 years ago is still parents who know and care not just about what their kids are watching and reading, but what they're doing and who they're hanging with. Parents need to have the guts to forbid material they find objectionable...and then explain why it's being forbidden. They also need to monitor their children's lives in the pop culture — which means a lot more than seeing what games they're renting down the street.

If HB 1423 becomes law, will it remain law? Doubtful. Similar legislation has been declared unconstitutional in several states. Could Massachusetts legislators find better ways to watch out for the kiddies? Man, I sure hope so, because there's a lot more to America's culture of violence than Resident Evil 4.

What really makes me insane is how eager politicians are to use the pop culture — not just videogames but TV, movies, even Harry Potter — as a whipping boy. It's easy for them, even sort of fun, because the pop-cult always hollers nice and loud. Also, it allows legislators to ignore the elephants in the living room. Elephant One is the ever-deepening divide between the haves and have-nots in this country, a situation guys like Fiddy and Snoop have been indirectly rapping about for years. Elephant Two is America's almost pathological love of guns. It was too easy for critics to claim — falsely, it turned out — that Cho Seung-Hui (the Virginia Tech killer) was a fan of Counter-Strike; I just wish to God that legislators were as eager to point out that this nutball had no problem obtaining a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Cho used it in a rampage that resulted in the murder of 32 people. If he'd been stuck with nothing but a plastic videogame gun, he wouldn't even have been able to kill himself.

Case closed.

Going on the same rant about the violence in games issue gets a little tiring on my end, so I'm glad that someone else is there to speak up when things get ridiculous. The points that King makes are none that haven't been made before, but they're still good points: Resident Evil 4, or any game for that matter, is not what is making people violent. It's a shame that politicians don't spend as much time trying to put a stop to actual violence as they do proposing pointless bills.

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