The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law that prohibits the sale of violent video games to minors today by a 7-2 vote.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion for the majority, saying the law was “unprecedented and mistaken.”
“There is no tradition in this country,” he wrote, “of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence.”
In a forceful opinion, Scalia noted that books given to children have “no shortage of gore.”
“Grimm’s Fairy Tales … are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor.”
He said the California Act is the latest in a “long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors,” and he said the state had not demonstrated any direct causal link between playing violent video games and actual harm to minors.
Scalia said the video-game industry has in place a voluntary rating system designed to inform consumers and store owners about which games contain a high degree of violence. He said that parents “who care about the matter” can readily evaluate the games their children bring home.
The games at issue were defined as depicting “killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” to children. They included games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Postal 2, Duke Nukem 3D, and Mortal Kombat.
PHOTO: The supreme court is expected to decide whether or not violent games can be sold to minors.
Rosie Greenway/Getty Images
The Supreme Court has ruled that violent… View Full Size
PHOTO: The supreme court is expected to decide whether or not violent games can be sold to minors.
Rosie Greenway/Getty Images
The Supreme Court has ruled that violent games can be sold to minors.
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The California law was passed in 2005, but legal challenges have stopped it from ever taking effect. It provides for up to a $1,000 fine to retailers who sell violent video games, although the fine does not apply to sales clerks if they have no ownership interest in the business. Nine other similar laws were passed across the country, but they were all blocked from taking effect.
California had asked the court to carve out a new exception to the First Amendment — much like it has for obscenity — that would cover the sale to minors of the violent games.
California Deputy Attorney General Zackery P. Morazzini asked the court “to adopt a rule of law that permits states to restrict minors’ ability to purchase deviant, violent video games that the legislature has determined can be harmful.”
The state argued that a juvenile’s brain has not fully matured enough to handle behavior control, and that the violence in the games could have a more lasting negative effect than it would for an adult. The California legislature, in passing the law, considered numerous studies that established a link between playing violent video games and an increase in aggressive thoughts, anti-social behavior and desensitization to violence in both minors and adults.
But the industry struck back. Paul Smith,a lawyer representing video game makers, told the court it is up to parents, not the government to protect children from the games.
Smith said the law “is the latest in a long history of overreactions to new expressive media.” A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the industry, reasoning that the state hadn’t established a sufficient link between the violent games and the physical and psychological harm they could cause children.
Smith argued that parents do not need the state’s assistance in “deciding which expression is worthwhile to their children.”
Opponents of censorship believe that there should be no special category for the video games. “Violence has been a category of speech that has always enjoyed full protection,” said Joan Bertin of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
“The courts have always understood that discussions and depictions of violence in art, literature, film, theater have a great deal of value. It would be impossible to draw a line between good violence and bad violence.”
American consumers spend more than $10 billion a year on video games.
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