Vice President Biden wants to levy tax on makers of violent media

We’ve heard a lot of about lawmakers wanting to levy a tax on violent video games and such, but today’s news is a bit different. Vice President Biden (yes, the second most powerful person in the US) wants to levy a tax on media companies who make and distribute violent content, and the money from those taxes as proceeds for victims of violent crimes.

During a closed-doors gun legislation meeting with 20 religious representatives from around the US, Vice President Biden said that “there’s no legal reason why” the government couldn’t tax media companies for making and distributing violent content, such as video games, movies, etc. It’s said that a majority of reps at the meeting agreed with Biden, and that the government should tax such media companies.

The vice president also said that there needs to be a comprehensive scientific study to research the impact that violent media have on kids. Of course, many studies have been done in the past that attempt to find a correlation between playing violent video games and acting violent in real life, some of which have said that there is no impact, and other studies claiming that there is, in fact, a correlation. We honestly may never come to an agreed upon solution in this case.

Biden wants the tax to go towards a fund that would help the victims of violent crimes, as well as their families. Whether a tax like this will eventually be make it’s way to being a law is still yet to be seen. There’s been a recent influx in the number of lawmakers urging to put an excise tax on violent media, but we’ve yet to hear how much progress these proposed bills have made.

Ever since the Sandy Hook school shooting, Vice President Biden has been focusing more and more on gun violence, and he even recently held a Google+ Hangout to answer questions and state his concerns on the state of gun control and gun violence in the US. However, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the few politicians that is defending violent video games, saying that the research just isn’t there yet to prove that such media cause violence. However, the fingers will undoubtedly still be pointed at violent video games for years to come, and whether or not steps will be taken to control violent video games is still in question.

VIA: Gamespot

SOURCE: Politico

IMAGE CREDIT: Marc Nozell