What Do The Videogame Industry And Gun Industry Have In Common?

Joe Biden reportedly met with leaders of the videogame industry today, as part of his attempt to find legislative solutions to the gun problem. Some people think that these meetings are a joke. (See Vanity Fair's arch headline and Paul Tassi's imaginary dialogue in Forbes.)

Who knows whether and what to extent Biden is seriously pursuing regulations of violent videogames? I don't, but one thing seems clear: Both the videogame and gun industries are powerful forces that stand to lose a lot of money if the government steps up its regulatory efforts.

I spoke with California Senator Leland Yee, who has introduced bills to tighten regulations over videogames and guns alike, and he told me he doesn't think the government has much hope of reducing videogame violence through legislative efforts. His own videogame bill was overturned by the Supreme Court on First Amendment Grounds. "I'm hopeful that the videogame industry will work with the Vice President and fiercely take responsibility for the impact that violent video games have on violent behavior," he said. "Unfortunately, the videogame industry has challenged every single violent-videogame bill throughout the states and they have won pretty much all the cases."