Reflecting the fact that last year's Supreme Court decision, which reaffirmed videogames qualify for First Amendment protection in the United States, wasn't quite clear enough for everyone, Oklahoma state representative William Fourkiller has introduced a new piece of legislation sure to draw the ire of gamers.

HB #2696, as reported by Gamasutra, would see an excise tax of one percent levied against the sale of any and all violent videogames in the state of Oklahoma. That immediately raises the question of what constitutes a violent videogame -- Call of Duty is undeniably violent, but would a game where bears can punch each other count as violence? Fortunately the proposed bill provides specific criteria: a violent videogame is considered to be any game to have received a Teen, Mature, or Adult Only rating from the ESRB.

This is problematic in that a Teen rating especially is not reflective of the level of violence in a game. Guitar Hero World Tour was rated Teen, as was The Sims 3, though would anyone consider either of those to be violent videogames? In the case of movies it would be like taxing a comedy without a hint of violence that is rated PG-13 or R because it contains nudity and/or profane language. It doesn't make sense.

The money collected from this tax would be going to a good enough cause: half of it would go to the Childhood Outdoor Education Revolving Fund, while the other half would go to the Bullying Prevention Revolving Fund, both of which would be created as a part of the act.

If the bill were to be passed -- and at this point it has not gone anywhere -- it would be put into effect as of July 1, 2012.

The Entertainment Software Association, the same group that was in support of SOPA not long ago but was involved in the fight against the California law that reached the Supreme Court last year, is obviously displeased with the bill.

"Taxing First Amendment protected material based on its content is misguided," said Dan Hewitt in a statement shared with Gamasutra. "We are disappointed that even in the wake of an overwhelming decision in the United States Supreme Court finding proposals such as this to be patently unconstitutional, there are those who still try to attack video games with outdated notions of our industry."

It was, perhaps, wishful thinking to believe these sorts of bills would go away following the Supreme Court's ruling. But if not for that reason, the state of California being ordered last month to pay the ESA's legal fees should have been a wakeup call. California has in total been forced to pay in excess of $1.3 million to the ESA, while other states have paid more than $1.7 million to cover the cost of the ESA's legal fees.

While I can't claim to be intimately familiar with Oklahoma's financial status, the potential for paying out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in legal fees can't be considered a good use of taxpayers' money -- particularly when that money could go directly to groups like the ones this proposed tax would fund.

[Image courtesy of Oklahoma Legislature]