Several legislators from the State of Pennsylvania are reintroducing a bill that would levy a 10 percent sales tax to all video games that falls under a mature rating. The original proposal to tax mature games was put to the table several months ago by Rep. Christopher B. Quinn but it eventually died in committee. The politician cited that the apparent link between video games and violence, and recent tragedies such as the Parkland Florida school shooting, are the primary drivers to the bill.

Now, House Bill No. 109, which was reintroduced late last month, explains that the additional 10 percent tax that would be collected from the sale of mature video games will be put into a new Digital Protection for School Safety Account. Funds raised will be used to improve security measures in schools all across the state of Pennsylvania.

The bill also proposed that any retailers who fail to collect the additional tax will be held liable for an undisclosed penalty. In the first version of the bill introduced in October 2018, Quinn explained that “over the past few years, acts of violence in schools seem to be occurring more frequently and with more intensity. One factor that may be contributing to the rise in, and intensity of, school violence is the material kids see, and act out, in video games.”

The issue linking violent video games and aggressive behavior has been a long-standing debate for several years now. On one side, a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), claims that people who play video games have a higher tendency to display violent behavior than those who don’t.

On the other side, a study conducted by The University of York concluded that no evidence directly correlates violent video games to aggressive behavior. The study observed that after exposing 3,000 participants to ultra-realistic violent video games, there was no significant increase in violent behavior from the people involved in the experiment.

It is interesting to see whether the proposed House Bill No. 109 will be put to the vote, especially after the original proposal did not see the light of day. However, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) believes that the bill is “a violation of the U.S. Constitution,” pointing out that, “Video games are entitled to the full protection of the constitution, and that efforts, like Pennsylvania’s, to single out video games based on their content will be struck down.”

Source: Variety