The Supreme Court's Video Game Decision

[Anonymous]

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf

Anyone want to discuss? I have only read Scalia's and Alito's decisions so far. While my first reaction is that Scalia has the principled position, this is one of those cases where my heart really wants the law to produce a different result. Is it unsurprising that the Justices who joined Scalia's reasoning (Ginsburg, Kennedy, Sotomayor, and Kagan) either never had children or, I think, raised them longer ago than the other Justices? (Well, I think that is true, but I could be wrong. Justice Thomas and his wife raised a nephew who I think became an adult only recently.) I wonder how O'Connor would have voted on this one. Not saying it should have come out differently, just saying I wish it could have. The bottom line is that we as parents have to parent and not expect the Government to do it for us. Read Justice Alito's concurrence and you will be horrified at what is out there and available for computer savvy kids.

[Anonymous]

OP again. Before I get flamed for putting a judicial decision in the "politics" forum, I just thought it might get more attention here than in Off-Topic!

[Anonymous]

Alito concurring. Some disturbing stuff.

In some of these games, the violence is astounding.13 Victims by the dozens are killed with every imaginable implement, including machine guns, shotguns, clubs, hammers, axes, swords, and chainsaws. Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. They cry out in agony and beg for mercy. Blood gushes, splatters, and pools. Severed body parts and gobs of human remains are graphically shown. In some games, points are awarded based, not only on the number of victims killed, but on the killingtechnique employed.
It also appears that there is no antisocial theme too base for some in the video-game industry to exploit. There are games in which a player can take on the identity and reenact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of themurders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.14

[Anonymous]

whoa.

The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters;15 in another, the goal is to rape Native Ameri-can women.16 There is a game in which players engage in“ethnic cleansing” and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews.17 In still another game,players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of Presi-dent Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.18
If the technological characteristics of the sophisticatedgames that are likely to be available in the near future arecombined with the characteristics of the most violent games already marketed, the result will be games thatallow troubled teens to experience in an extraordinarily personal and vivid way what it would be like to carry out unspeakable acts of violence.

[Anonymous]

1. The industry still labels these as M and retailers do not sell them to minors.

2. The law did by no means guarantee that restrictions would ONLY be limited to examples of the above.

3. The court demonstrated quite convincingly that horrible things have been passed on to kids in other media dating all the way back to Brothers Grimm.

4. None of this means you can't act like a parent and decide what your kids will play.

5. The problem with banning unpopular speech is that one day it might be yours. This is properly handled by any parent. The government should not be involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. The industry still labels these as M and retailers do not sell them to minors.

2. The law did by no means guarantee that restrictions would ONLY be limited to examples of the above.

3. The court demonstrated quite convincingly that horrible things have been passed on to kids in other media dating all the way back to Brothers Grimm.

4. None of this means you can't act like a parent and decide what your kids will play.
5. The problem with banning unpopular speech is that one day it might be yours. This is properly handled by any parent. The government should not be involved.

This is the key take away. Most kids (meaning those under 18) still live at home and do not have independent means of income. Its the parents who need to police these games not the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. The industry still labels these as M and retailers do not sell them to minors.

2. The law did by no means guarantee that restrictions would ONLY be limited to examples of the above.

3. The court demonstrated quite convincingly that horrible things have been passed on to kids in other media dating all the way back to Brothers Grimm.

4. None of this means you can't act like a parent and decide what your kids will play.

5. The problem with banning unpopular speech is that one day it might be yours. This is properly handled by any parent. The government should not be involved.

I had the pleasure of watching oral arguments for this case. The court made the right decision. I'd add on, but this poster did a pretty good job!

[Anonymous]

OK. So if the parents are supposed to be policing, why are there laws preventing the sale of pornography to minors? Cigarettes? Liqour?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK. So if the parents are supposed to be policing, why are there laws preventing the sale of pornography to minors? Cigarettes? Liqour?

If you read the decision, you can see how they separate pornography and these video games. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf The gist of it is that obscenity is uniquely regulated because it is one of a few classes of historically unprotected speech. But we have no history whatsoever in outlawing depictions of violence in children's material, and we can't ban a specific type of material unless there is a compelling state interest. Basically we have violence dating back to our fairy tales and all the way through cartoons and kid's shows and movies. So given our country's historical position, we can't outlaw particular content or a media type just because we find it distasteful. The court was not persuaded that the state has a compelling interest in regulation because while video games may not be great for kids they are not turning them all into mass murderers either.


Cigarettes and liquor don't even fall under free speech, so they are easily regulated.