“The Supreme Court ruled Monday that it is unconstitutional to bar children from buying or renting violent video games, saying government doesn’t have the authority to ‘restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed’ despite complaints that the popular and fast-changing technology allows the young to simulate acts of brutality,” Jesse J. Holland reports for The Associated Press.
“On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out California’s ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors,” Holland reports. “The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors’ rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed. ‘No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm,’ said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion. ‘But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.'”
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Holland reports, “An unlikely duo, conservative-leaning Clarence Thomas and liberal-leaning Stephen Breyer, agreed that the California video game ban should have been upheld, but for different reasons.”
“Breyer said the court’s decision creates an insurmountable conflict in the First Amendment, especially considering that justices have upheld bans on the sale of pornography to children,” Holland reports. “‘What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?’ Breyer said. ‘What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman — bound, gagged, tortured and killed — is also topless?'”
“And Thomas said the majority read something into the First Amendment that isn’t there,” Holland reports. “‘The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that ‘the freedom of speech,’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians,’ Thomas wrote.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Cha-ching!
You say this is for the money? You are really clueless, if so.
Everything is about money! I might be clueless but you’re naive.
Absolutely about the money. There’s very little that’s NOT about the money.
Clueless? The mirror is calling… this is absolutely about money. How much potential income is lost if children cannot buy games? Too easy to say “they are just games” and gloss over the actual content.
Hypocrisy, thy name is “Justice”.
The less cynical viewpoint would be that 7 out of the 9 justices exercised reason and common sense in a rare display of lucidity.
(While 2 of the 9 justices remained batshit lunatics looking for any excuse to ban something just so they can get their authoritarian rocks off, keeping nicely in line with the status quo.)
But whether it was arrived at through a fluke moment of clarity or lobbying from the videogame industry, at least it’s the right decision. Finally.
P.S.
I can just hear comic books, rock, and hip hop all snickering at videogames in the background. “Ooooo, they ruled you can be sold directly to minors now! We’re sooooo impressed. You sure had it tough!”
What? There were people trying to ban THAT? Whenever I start thinking about how our politicians are monkeys on suits, I can always rely on the american conservatives to remind me how much worse it can get.
Huh! It’s the conservatives fault?
1. This was a california ban. Calif is Liberal Mecca.
2. The conservatives on the Supreme court overturned it.
Please explain how this ban can be blamed on conservatives?
I’m not talking about parties. I am talking about mentality. If your conservatives have progressive thinking and your liberals are backwards thinking (seriously doubt that), it’s your problem, not mine.
Uhh…. the libs ban toys in Happy Meals. Your “mentality” point seems to insult more than enlighten… The issue is how much power should the government have over each of us and the choices we make? At some point I think some of you on the right and the left could get together on an issue like this.
Sex bad. Violence good.
““Breyer said the court’s decision creates an insurmountable conflict in the First Amendment, especially considering that justices have upheld bans on the sale of pornography to children,” Holland reports. “‘What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?’ Breyer said. ‘What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman — bound, gagged, tortured and killed — is also topless?’”
See, this is the kind of bullshit I was talking about. There are NO games where the player can, must, or is encouraged to do such things. Reminds me of the Faux News “Alien Sideboob” debacle. Google it if you are itching for a good laughter (or to cry).
Uh, the point is that there is nothing to protect a child from that exposure if there WAS such a game. And a quick Google search confirms there has been at least one game about rape.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/02/23/2009-02-23_christine_quinn_rips_horrifying_rape_gam.html
Sure there is, its this old annoying invention called a ‘parent’
Actually maybe we do need laws to ban everything since we are forcing kids to live alone and take care of themselves since their parents work multiple jobs just to make ends meet in the good ole’ USA… YEAH BABY!
Right, so if this law was in effect, the kids could get this game if their parents bought it for them. But with the law struck down, the kids can bypass the parents.
Remember, this law isn’t to protect your own kids, who have decent parental supervision. It is for the brain-impaired reality-show nuts who can’t separate fantasy from fact.
I guess I just fail to understand why we even need a law like this. I have kids and as a father I take responsibility and am active in their lives. Law or no law it won’t matter in my household because I’m aware of what my kids are playing and what they are doing. I’m involved in their lives.
My kids are more than welcome to not consult with me before buying any video game they want. I like to use situations like that as life lessons, like teaching them how the value of goods depreciate as they watch me ‘trade’ their game in at gamestop for a fraction of what they paid and letting them cough up the difference to get a different game.
As for the brain dead parents out there, hey it ain’t my job or the government’s job to raise their kids. Besides the government already has a social program in place for these kids who grow up with no limits and develop into lawless aholes. Its available the day they turn 18. Its called PRISON.
If becoming a ‘nanny state’ is the answer to bad parenting then really we deserve to fail in this country.
See, the law wouldn’t affect people like you.. you are a parent.
I’m kinda mixed on the whole thing, Sadly many parents do NOT parent. Laws like this would make them be more of a parent, but then again.. We don’t need to be a nanny state to impede actual parents.
I know “parents” that would buy anything (games included) for their kids, just so the kids would like them. really no boundaries..
Oh, Rapelay. I should have forseen this from someone who probably never played anything Pong, Tetris and Angry Birds.
That is as much as a game as Plan 9 From Outer Space was a movie. Or Troll 2 for that matter.
Anyway, Rapelay is not available on any retailer, no one plays it, and the gaming community itself was shocked to know of its existence. So it’s not like we are satanists teaching little kids to rape people.
Besides, it’s Japanese. EVERYONE knows the effed-up crap comes from Japan ; )
And as McFarland pointed out, parents are supposed to raise their children.
And I should have seen your response coming from someone who’s probably listed with your local police as a sexual offender.
Hah! You have no idea who I am, so I’ll just take that as a joke.
This vision, however, that anyone who knows games are supposed to be the least of our violence-related problem and dismisses some unknown exception as irrelevant, means they are “probably listed with your local police as a sexual offender.” sure tells a lot about you…
As if I ever played something as sick as Rapelay.
And you have no idea who I am, yet you assumed I have never played any games but “pong, tetris, and angry birds”. I made the same type of unwarranted judgement about you that you had made about me.
You may not be required to do so to finish/progress in a game… But you can.
And before you bash the right… You may want to remember that Lieberman (you know the guy on the left…) is one of the guys that started stuff like this.
LOL its a ‘side mission’….
I remember “Hot Coffee” in GTA San Andreas… no way in hell I could support a law that would deprive a young boy of that kind of awesome game play experience 😉
While Hot Coffee is certainly controversial and rightly criticized, it is also an easter egg.
Agreed. If I remember correctly it was not supposed to be in the final release of the game. In fact I think they removed it from later releases, well at least the code so it couldn’t be re-enabled.
Dunno what you are talking about… but whatever.
“California’s 2005 law would have prohibited anyone under 18 from buying or renting games that give players the option of “killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” Parents would have been able to buy the games for their children, but retailers who sold directly to minors would have faced fines of up to $1,000 for each game sold.”
This was the law, Now explain to me the difference between this, and an R rated Movie? (or purchasing an R rated Movie at a retail store)
Or Porn? can’t walk in and purchase Porn at 13… Or get a ticket to the latest R rated movie by yourself.
Granted I know the Movie tickets are not really enforced… I know i saw some R rated movies before I was 17, and without a Parent.
Ultimately it IS the parents job to decide which games their kids can play. Sadly Parents use the game consoles/PC/TV/ETC in lieu of actual parenting.
And to my point earlier about those that Knee-Jerk bashed the right on this.. Meet Leland Yee, DEMOCRAT in San Francisco. (you know, the Senator that WROTE the bill in question)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Yee
I’m not saying i agree with the SC ruling, or am against it. I think the Law would of had merit, but may have gone a little far.
All that would need to happen, is all retailers decide to implement the “law” themselves.. If the game says “M” then they ask for ID, underage.. no purchase.
umm…Breyer isn’t really considered a member of the conservative block on the Supreme Court, He is a Clinton appointee, and almost always votes with the more liberal members of the court. So, perhaps his vote is a matter of personal conviction and interpretation of the 1st amendment rather than ideology. Just a thought.
Great news!
Next up, 11 year olds can buy sex magazines, beer, cigarettes, vote, drive, work in factories, go to war…
They can already do that and more in Libya. Perhaps when Gaddafi finally relinquishes power there he can be invited here to sit in the Supreme Court as Chief Justice.
This is utter ridiculous. As far as I know, kids in your country already can’t buy Mature rated games at retail stores. THIS sought to ban teens from buying TEEN RATED games. Scratch that, ANY GAME AT ALL. Guess you’d love to ban underages from buying LEGO, Barbie dolls and sitcom DVDs as well.
Hell, you might as well want them not to leave their homes without a leash tied to their parents!
Then the R movie rating is unconstitutional
Using the SCOTUS’s logic, you’d think so. In fact, any age-discrimination whatsoever flies in the face of this ruling.
We need to send a military detail over the Supreme Court, collar that crowed, stick cattle prods up their ass, and if they even so much as twitch, light em up.
They are a sick bunch of fuc*s, and have perverted any semblance of what speech is. Its time to get rid of them forever.
In case you missed the memo, the nazis lost the great war and are no longer around!
OF COURSE! Kids are playing violent games! They have no brains or self-awareness, so it’s not like they know right from wrong! Let’s torture the ones that let this happen, I bet it’d make a nice example!
With people like you, it’s not a wonder your country is so fucked up.
Yeah, x:
I told you before to get off the glue sniffing. Didn’t I? But your brain is fried and your attention span is gone. What a shame.
Well then…that kind of wraps-up this thread.
The fact is that the parent is the guardian, is the gateway of essentially everything their children are exposed to.
Much as I think this ruling is detrimental, it all comes down to the RESPONSIBILITY of the parent for the child.
Not ‘detrimental’, more like reprehensible. If we as parents know this is wrong, then why the heck can’t those people who run our government institutions?????
… Because there is no such thing as government as ‘father’ and/or ‘mother’. That BS went out with the FAIL of the Soviet Union. Government, TV, etc. are capable of great things. Being surrogate parents has never been one of them.
Nonetheless, this ruling is the dopiest since last year’s approval of boundless corporate funding of elections. I have to think there’s lead in the water in Washington, DC. This has nothing-at-all to do with First Amendment rights, contrary to the bizarro ruling. It again bows to the unethical demands of our Corporate Oligarchy overlords. 😈
And if you think corporations make good surrogate parents… 😯
Everyday I read about US politics , the more I am shocked .
Is this about curtailing freedom?
LOL
Just like Bachmann and other conservatives who are trying to repeal the old bulb law.
Hilarious and yet I am
Shocked and saddened that these are the people whom Americans call politicican from a first world nation.And more shocking who Americans vote for .
How far the mighty has fallen.
America need not police the world anymore , it must care for itself first .
You should read less news, read more history and come visit to see for yourself. If you are truly shocked then you know very little about who we are as a country… that’s ok though – we probably know very little about yours. I have a feeling you are not really shocked…. California attempts to pass lots of laws restricting freedoms in the name of protecting children, like banning toys with high calorie fast food. That has nothing to do with conservatives. The bulb law is another example, which you seem to support. Some of us don’t like being told what we can buy and what we can’t buy. When more people want to leave here than arrive, I guess I will take another look at your position 😉
History is great and all but what is current affect us now.
The bulb law is not one i support, i find it ludicrous that you some one would need to repeal that law due to freedom of expression.
It is laughable.If the repeal is about scientific evidence then i am for it.
Like i say, the US political landscape is SHOCKING to us here in Asia.
It is a joke, much like Sarah Palin.
Or Bachman or bush a whole lots of others.
A joke.
When your leaders are a joke then your nation is a joke.
When that nation is the world superpower whose leaders “reasoning” are laughable at best,then it is more worrisome.
And a bit of history for you , every nation will fragment over time, Rome fell, the British fell, the Spaniard fell, all superpower will fall in time.Even gods fall……
It is history.Thru abuse of power and morality.
The only difference is will we learn from history?
The British intent of keeping supremacy killed 29 million Indian thruout its invasion.
The US now in its last throes , have killed more than a million Iraqis alone and who know how many more.
History repeat itself over and over again.
China is the next superpower, it will also fall into the same quagmire.
Already it has started building bases in Asia and Europe.
And endless cycle, yep we read history but do we learn from it?
Of course sex is banned but violence is fine. It must be promoted and even encouraged under the guise of some twisted logic to corrupt the innocent, how else or where will the empire find it’s ever needed cannon fodder to subjugate and pillage the rest of the world. whether they wear kaki, brown or black one mans hero is most certainly another brutal killer.
Right. The Marines are looking for a few good gamers…to come up outta Momma’s basement.
That’s exactly what the SCOTUS had in mind….a N.E.R.D army of fun….