Elena Lee
13 September 2015
Prosecutor
Issue #3 – Are Violent Video Games Protected by the First Amendment
Today The California law would have imposed $1,000 fines on stores that sold violent video games to anyone under 18. It defined violent games as those “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” in a way that was “patently offensive,” appealed to minors’ “deviant or morbid interests” and lacked “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” The video game industry, with annual domestic sales of more than $10 billion, welcomed Monday’s ruling. Leland Yee, a California state senator who wrote the law, said in a statement
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“ ‘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,” Justice Thomas wrote. He relied on studies that he said showed violent video games were positively associated with aggressive behavior. This is the wrong fight and the wrong question. What we should be asking for is: what are the positive effects of playing violent video games? We all think childhood is precious and short, and we all want to give our children the best. So, is this a good way to spend a childhood? Of all the different possible activities a boy or girl could participate in, where does this rank? Is it one the top of the list? The middle of the list? Or maybe, is it on the bottom, the very bottom of the list of positive activities? Compare this to reading, playing outdoors, playing sports, playing make-believe, chess, swimming, biking, watching TV, etc. Where does this rank? And if this ranks near the bottom, that's like feeding your kid chips and coke all day, isn't