Christian democrats all over the world are unreasonable, uninformed or outright crazy, but the Germans seems to top the list at the present time.
The most recent idea is to use the penal code against violent games, punishable with up till two years imprisonment, for violent behavior in online games. Now, Germany has already taken censorship of games to a new level, for instance the German version of the popular game Counter-Strike where whenever a player gets killed, it disappears in thin air instead of, as in the original version ending on the ground in a pool of blood.
The reason for the debate is the school tragedy in Nordrhein-Westfalen last month, where an 18 year old went rampaged and shot and hurt 37 people before committing suicide. The individual was later categorized as a loner, with an interest for weapons and violent games. This has led to at least two politicians in Bayern wanting to use the current paragraph 131 to also include violent games.
Personally this reminds me of Eric Arthur Blair's ( George Orwell's) book 1984, in which thought crime is punishable. This is also a phenomenon found in the movie Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. A scary thought.
I've even checked the calendar, but it isn't the first of April as far as I can tell.
Source. Der Spiegel
