Diane Franklin, a representative from Missouri is proposing a sales tax on violent video games. She is proposing a 1% sales tax on the sale of violent games, which would be used to fund mental health programs and pay for law enforcement measures to try to preventing mass shootings.

With all due respect to Ms. Franklin, something tells me her efforts would be better spent proposing a massive sales tax on guns, assault rifles, and ammunition. Oh right, and there's the whole fact that video games are protected under the First Amendment, you know, the one that comes before the Second Amendment that should be the main focus?

Efforts to penalize the sale of games would also be considered unconstitutional. Attempts to tax what has been established as First Amendment speech would actually cost the tax payers of the state of Missouri. Why? Well, the ESA issued a statement essentially saying that they are very good at recouping lawyer costs, and has done so in the past when fighting similar proposals and attempts at taxing video games. One such instance of how the ESA cost a state a considerable sum of money came from a $2 million recouping of fees from the state of California when they attempted to tax video games.

By the way, that is Diane Franklin pictured above. She's the one in the center. Suddenly things make a lot more sense, don't they?

(via AP; Joystiq)