The New York Times:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down on First Amendment grounds a California law that banned the sale of violent video games to children. The 7-to-2 decision was the latest in a series of rulings protecting free speech, joining ones on funeral protests, videos showing cruelty to animals and political speech by corporations.
Justice Scalia wrote the majority:
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said:
“like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages” that are guarded by the First Amendment.”
“No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”
The Justices were all over the place on this one. According to the Washington Post:
He [Scalia] was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer dissented for separate reasons.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. agreed with the outcome of the case but did not join Scalia’s opinion.
The High Court recessed until October.
What happened to those family values? Do we now have to allow children access to x rated movies or Hustler Magazine? Do children have first amendment rights? Does that mean they get to cuss out their teachers, coaches and parents? This has been a very confusing case that might have long reaching consequences.
All too often parents worry about kids seeing sexual content. I am not saying that is a good thing but I also believe that violence can be just as destructive. Do we really want our children to become desensitized to violence?
Who holds the money and buys most of the video games? Who allows them to be played in the home? Who drives the kid to the store to buy the game?
SCOTUS has already placed porn in an entirely separate category from other forms of speech, so that’s kind of a moot point.
Bambi’s violent, so is the “Lion King.” Most fairytales are ghastly. And thanks to hundreds of cable and satellite channels, the kids will still get a daily barrage of sex and violence from TV.
Unless Mom and Dad bother to do their jobs.
I agree with Emma. The ruling was a great victory for the First Amendment and Liberty.
We are talking kids here. How many parents really know how violent the video games are? Some are life-like and involve very hideous behaviors.
I agree that the Lion King is very violent. But…. is it that kind of violence or something else?
I think they made a mistake. Kids don’t have the same rights as adults.
I want SCOTUS to interpret the Constitution, not to evaluate the degree of violence of videogames.
@Emma, then you need to back up and demand that children have access to all sorts of movies that they currently aren’t allowed into. They should be able to buy whatever they want in the way of books and comics. There were restrictions on minors long before video games were even invented.
So Emma, are you saying that kids with permissive parents should be able to have access to whatever they want? should they be able to own a gun and drive a car also? Let’s let them vote while we are at it.
How are we supposed to raise our children without regulation? It can’t be done!
Slowpoke, I expect you and I will regulate ours. However, there are a whole lot of unregulated kids out there. Somehow your little slows are going to be exposed to those unregulated ones. I don’t see that as a good thing. There are a lot of kids out there in unregulated land.
Saying what parents ought to do doesn’t cut it. There is no way that kids who sit in front of a video game that decapitates people and other grotesque things isn’t influenced and desensitized. I don’t want those kids running lose around my kid.
We aren’t talking Coyote dropping a bomb on Road Runner here. We are talking about horrible violence. Kids get hold of that stuff.
I guess while we’re at it let’s have Rev. Lovejoy burn a few books McCarthy-style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWr4htYp9dM
Language, violence and other warnings apply to the video. Last part of the video has Penn & Teller giving a pre-teen an AR-15 rifle and taking him out to a gun range to see how violent video games have shaped the subjects life.
“There is no way that kids who sit in front of a video game that decapitates people and other grotesque things isn’t influenced and desensitized.”
That’s me. I have over 20 years of experience playing video games and counting. Some of them we’re pretty tame (Mario Brothers) and some we’re pretty twisted (Resident Evil, et al). But they are just video games. Pixels on a screen no different than a choose your own adventure game, dungeons and dragons, or any book you can get at a local library.
Interestingly we don’t have warning labels on books. Someone alert Tipper!
To your point about films I think where it IS regulated by law that the law should fall. I think that a parent should be the final arbiter of what is good for that child. If a parent is OK with them watching Porky’s at age 12 or Star Wars at age 8 (do you know how many people DIED on the Death Star??) then that’s the decision that family has made.
To what extent do you feel comfortable with the government running our lives? Not being critical. I’m curious.
Let’s put it this way…and I am going to have another one of my buffalo talks. How many years after the railroads went through did it take to almost decimate the American buffalo to the brink of extinction? Less than 5? Remember reading about the train loads of people who would do target practice on a herd of buffalo and leave thousands of carcasses on the plains to rot? No one ate the meat or used the hide, bone, sinew for anything. It just rotted.
That was capitalism at its ugliest, not its best. Sometimes the govt has to step in and protect all of from man’s tendency to be greedy. Does that mean I want to give unfeddored control to any govt? NO. There is a balance.
Not all parents should be the final abitrer. Some parents have the wisdom of piss-ants. Some don’t give a damn, some simply don’t have the brains God gave a jackass. Video games really should have the same scrutiny that other adult forms of entertainment have where children are concerned. For that reason, society has a responsibility to protect children from people whose sole purpose is to make money. And yes, there will always be some goof ball who buys something hideous for his/her kid.
@Moon-howler I’m saying that the vast majority of kids are probably buying games with their parents’ money, or parents are buying them and playing them with the kids. The Supreme Court didn’t decide on the ratings systems by the film and music industries–those were voluntary actions taken by the industries because of interest-group pressure. But a kid can turn on the radio in the car and be exposed to the most obnoxiously filthy and violent rap music, too. So why should videogames be any different?
And there have always been rotten kids, videogames or not. That won’t change.
Thanks for clarifying, Emma.
I haven’t seen the really violent games. I hear from s-i-l and son that they are really worse than anything I could imagine. Radio at least has FCC governing the really XXX/violent stuff.
MH, thank you for that.
I of course disagree wholeheartedly and am glad that 7 of the Justices still believe in the First Amendment.
2 seemingly would have no issue burning books, art, films, comic books…or in this case video games.
I would not burn video games but I would stomp them to death.
Clarence Thomas was one of the 2. I forget the other one.
My issue is simply that they are children. You can restrict things for children. I don’t think children have the same rights adults do. I think children are given right, commensurate with age and maturity level, but adults. Some of those adults are parents, teachers and society.