US state governments cannot ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors because it would violate free-speech rights, the US Supreme Court said on Monday in its first ruling in a video game case.
By a 7-2 vote, the high court struck down a California law, which also imposed strict video game labeling requirements, as unconstitutional. It said video games, like books, plays and movies, deserve free-speech protection.
The Supreme Court’s majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia rejected California’s argument that violent video games should be banned just like the sale of sexually explicit material to minors.
Scalia also rejected the argument by California lawmakers who cited studies that suggested violent video games could be linked to aggressive and anti-social behavior in children.
Leland Yee, a California state senator and the law’s author, criticized the ruling.
“The US Supreme Court is supposed to take care of the people of this country. They have failed miserably, particularly our children, with this particular defeat,” the Democrat from San Francisco said.
UNENFORCED LAW
California’s 2005 law has never taken effect because of the legal challenge. At issue were popular video games such as Warner Bros Entertainment Inc’s Mortal Kombat and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc’s Grand Theft Auto.
The law defines a violent video game as one that depicts “killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.”
Retailers who sold or rented a violent video game to a minor could be fined as much as US$1,000.
Scalia said the state’s expert testified he found the same effects when children watched television cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner or viewed a picture of a gun.
Scalia cited famous books for children throughout history that have depicted violence.
“Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed,” he said with examples of Snow White’s poisoning, Cinderella’s evil stepsisters having their eyes pecked out by birds and Hansel and Gretel killing their captor by baking her in an oven.
PARENTAL DUTIES
Scalia said parents, not the government, should decide what games their children can buy and play. He said the video game industry has a rating system designed to inform consumers and store owners which games were violent.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer dissented.
“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?” Breyer asked.
More than two-thirds of US households include at least one person who plays video games, according to industry statistics.
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