Monday, June 27, 2011

Violent Video Games for Kids?

This Supreme Court decision that reverses the California video game ban makes no sense to me.  The court decided that governments cannot ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors because it would violate free-speech rights.  Really?  I can see that banning the production of violent video games might violate the free-speech rights of the video game makers, but do they really have to be able to sell them to kids?  I suppose that means that anything that people are free to say also has to be available to kids?  What about pornography?  That has to be available too, because the people who produce pornography are free to produce it, right?

I was thinking that, but then I read this question asked by Stephen Breyer, one of the dissenting justices.  "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 a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the women, then tortures and kills her?"  So I guess the same logic/freedom of speech doesn't apply to pornography?  Really, it makes no sense.