Supreme Court and Video Games: How Far Will It Go?

For a while now, people have wondered if video games are the reason we have more murderers, rapists, and crime in our society. (As if skewed mass media, corruption of power and recession wasn't enough to make that happen.) Apparently, it's bad enough to rope in the Supreme Court.

A Californian law banning minors from buying explict computers games was accepted for appeal to the Supreme Court. Many argued that it may be too restricting to freedom of speech; others, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, think that it's a step in the right direction to protect our kids. "We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultraviolent actions, just as we already do with movies," the governor said.

The hype of "violent video games" has been in debate since their creation. Legit studies show that video games causes kids to become aggressive, anti-social, and dehumanized from violence in real-life. However, as a gamer myself who has definitely played violent games like GTA, I say that is true -- until it wears off. Most of those side effects are only temporary. And it's like that for all games, not just the super violent ones. I've seen my little 9-year old nephew get angry at Wii Play. WII PLAY. Not Halo or Call of Duty, WII PLAY. The most non-violent game on earth. Frustration and concentration = "being aggressive". But when you're done playing, you're done being angry and you MOVE ON.

According to Bill Mears, writer of this article, "The legislation was designed to strengthen the current rating system, and would have placed an outright ban on the sale or rental to those under 18 of games deemed excessively violent." ....Do they not do this already? Games rated M (Mature) and AO (Adult Only) by the ESRB are already restricted to 18 and older. You can't buy them at retail stores without a photo I.D. And nine times out of ten, these are also the games that are "excessively violent." So why is the Supreme Court stating the obvious? It just seems like a waste of legislation. If parents are so worried about their kids being exposed to "bad content", then they should control it. Because ten bucks says Joe isn't buying Dante's Inferno for his thirteenth birthday because he can. It's because mom and dad are buying it for him.

Link to the original article:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/26/scotus.violent.video.games/index.html

Link to a related blog:

http://jamiescurrenteventsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/high-court-accepts-case-over-violent.html?showComment=1272460878296_AIe9_BHxKTNSX2vlnkDhgEj8vpL8MA1ejkYnihon6_porlDFqwy-QB6C0gktNqB5WNSFwnVBz9f5S1oBB3TC_aI8Hs6JqBv30YBwK2IhM6KC5tAo5wCSNUjSGSAc5J0g3DoyNRFrKLd5b2ftdXvpgSy9FyF0cNf8Jx0Jgfn1D6Es0acCO3r-SWe14ZRmEY-Xu4Mu5H9DyVSxkIoX9bqQpzhP7TLPfeinc9B-l6qSHnf8b1sY0ZpQYo0i99DhztKftYQ9n-jxdlug#c3312659066889518567