A Chicago lawmaker introduced a new bill that aims to completely ban the sale or rental of violent video games. This project, HB3531, aims to amend the Violent Video Games Act in the 2012 Criminal Code of the State of Illinois to make it much more extreme.
The code currently states that violent video games cannot be sold or rented to minors, but the new project aims to prohibit the sale of video games to Worldwide. In addition, the bill aims to change the definition of “violent video game” to the following:
“A video game that allows a user or player to control a character within the video game who is encouraged to perpetuate human violence against human in which the player kills or causes serious physical or psychological damage to another human or animal.”
The bill also wants to change the definition of “serious physical harm” to include “psychological harm and child abuse, sexual abuse, animal abuse, domestic violence, violence against women or theft of a motor vehicle with a driver or passenger present inside the vehicle. when the theft starts. “
The bill was presented this week at the 102nd General Assembly by Illinois State Representative Marcus C. Evans, a Democrat who represents parts of Chicago and its suburbs.
HB3531 was referred to the Illinois General Assembly Rules Committee, which is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans. The hearing date has not been set for HB3531, according to the Illinois General Assembly website.
Evans told the Chicago Sun Times that he is presenting the project in response to the increase in car thefts in Chicago. “The bill would prohibit the sale of some of these games that promote the activities that we are experiencing in our communities,” he said.
A campaign called Operation Safe Bomb led by philanthropist Early Walker was formed in an attempt to prevent car thefts by sending security personnel where they can occur. Walker said he contacted lawmakers in Chicago after noting similarities between car thefts in video games and what’s happening in the real world. “When you compare the two, you see severe similarities in terms of these car thefts,” Walker told the Times.
Chicago had 218 car thefts in January alone. We will make a report with more details on this project as it progresses through the state legislature.