Last week, the New York State Senate passed a bill that would make the sale of violent video games to minors a criminal offense. And now, the New York Assembly has passed a companion bill increases the penalties for age-inappropriate video games sales to minors a Class E felony. In its new standing, guilty parties could face three o four years in prison for committing an infraction. There's probably some pretty stiff fines too.

Bill A08696 was introduced earlier this week by Assemblyman Joseph Lentol (D). The bill in question not only places those fines and jail times upon offender's, but also mandates that all console gaming systems sold in the state of New York come equipped with parental controls. A V-Chip (Viewer Chip) for your PlayStation, Xbox, or Wii. The New York State Attorney General could even petition the courts to file an injunction prohibiting the further sale of console systems in New York until such time as the parental control system is in place. Modern consoles, like the PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Wii, apparently do come with some measure of parental control. But currently, both the PlayStation 2 and GameCube do not.

Last year, similar legislation had failed in the state of Louisiana. That bill had tried to cite the research that supposedly linked violent video games to real life violent behavior. That link between violent video games and violent acts is still unclear, but some more recent studies have indicated that there is no such link. There are some individuals however that have at-risk personalties that could predispose them to violent tendencies, triggered by violent video games. The vast majority of gamers however are quite unaffected by violent video games.

These two bills will now be presented to a conference committee to have the last wrinkles ironed out before being passed on to final legislation. There is hopes amongst lawmakers that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will sign both into law before the New York Legislature adjourns come June. Spitzer is very supportive in terms of limiting the sales of violent video games to minors, so there great certainty that both bills will pass. If they do, then there is the likely hood that the Entertainment Software Association will file suit against the state, just like they did against Illinois almost a year ago.

All that's left after that is keeping our kids from watching violent movies and television shows. Violent sports like wrestling are bad too. There's violent books, and library's full of them. The new is pretty violent. Any thing else?