Banning Violent Arcade Games Unconstitutional

zTTTz writes "The US District court ruled that it was not only unconstitutional to ban violent video games from public arcades, but also ruled that the city of Indianapolis pay $318,000 in legal fees to the video game industry. This will probably make other cities think twice about trying to censor video game content again." Update 17:45 GMT by J : We covered the Indianapolis story previously in July 2000, October 2000, and March 2001. Check out NCAC's open letter, too. We haven't bothered covering the recurring news of declining real-world violence (while video games just get more gruesome and explicit), mostly because it's the same story over and over.

Comments

Sometimes the Court System gets it

[toupsie]

Its every American's right to be outrageously offensive through expression. Be it sex, violence or politics, its every American's right to make other people incredibly uncomfortable by their speech and expression. The more disgusting and disturbing, the more freedom it should enjoy. These violent video games are nothing more than an expression of ideas set forth by a person or group.

Hopefully, the courts will also start striking down "Hate Speech" codes at public institutions next. Once Government and our public institutions start governing what can and cannot be said, it limits the ability for the disenfranchised to respond. No one has the right not to be offended.

Re:Correctness

[breon.halling]

I concur. Up here in Toronto, one of our local stations (CityTV) has a tendency to bleep out the word "mother" while leaving the word "fucker" untouched.

It's a constant source of amusement. ;)

Re:Correctness

[einer]

Oh I know, just the other day I was watching the "tee-vhee" and they cut out the majority of Animal House on TNN. However, they had no objections to showing a man spraying a can of liquid hair onto his bald head. I think we all know which one is going to be more damaging to our nations children in the long run.

Re:Expect more rulings like this

[DonkPunch]

and has pretty much ripped up the Bill of Rights from No 3. on

Please cite evidence proving Ashcroft has sought to allow forcible quartering of soldiers in private households.

You do know what what Amendment Three says, don't you?

So please back up your poorly-punctuated assertion about "No. 3 on." Otherwise, I will simply dimiss you as yet another immature, Constitutionally misinformed, knee-jerk slashdot wannabe geek.