Illinois Videogame Law Struck Down

Big_Al_B writes "CNN reports that a federal judge ruled against the state of Illinois law that banned the sale of some games to minors." From the article: "The Illinois law, which also was to go into effect January 1, would have barred stores from selling or renting extremely violent or sexual games to minors, and allowed $1,000 fines for violators. Kennelly said the law would interfere with the First Amendment and there wasn't a compelling enough reason, such as preventing imminent violence, to allow that." Triumphantly, GamePolitics offers up the ESA's reaction to the decision. The Governor has vowed to appeal, so this isn't over yet.

Comments

So 12 y/o kids should get playboy?

[keraneuology]

Why is it legal to sell some slasher video game to kids where they get to control the action, but not legal to sell the slasher DVD to those same kids? Why can you sell some Playboy game, or some hardcore sex game to kids, but they can't buy the magazine?

Pick a standard and stick with it - kids should either be allowed to purchase sexual images or they shouldn't. Just because one particular format sells more than others isn't a valid reason to allow it but exclude everything else.

Won't someone think of the children?

[Loonacy]

Does this mean that it's unconstitutional to ban the sale of Playboys to minors?
Honestly, I'm confused here. I'm all for freedom of speech and all that, but this was a ban on selling "extremely violent or sexual games" to minors. I'm guessing this is AO rated stuff, which could be comparable to nudie mags (Playboy Mansion?). What's the big deal?

Re:Uh, kinda sane

[Blkdeath]

I'm suspicious that judgment suddenly just "comes to a person" after their 18th birthday, or after any other day for that reason.

You'll get no argument here. I still find it strange that at the age of 18 here in Ontario one is allowed to vote or sign up for the armed forces but not allowed to smoke, drink, or peruse sexual materials. At the age of 16 you're allowed to operate a motor vehicle but insurance rates make it prohibitive to do so (indicating the frequency of collisions and infractions by 16-18 year old drivers).

The problem being, how do you determine when an individual is 'ready' for responsibility? Individual testing for age of majority status would be tedious, costly, and entirely ineffective. Ages are set at an arbitrary number decided by the government of the day at a point they believe is reasonable. You say the age when people graduate high school - that's probably not a coincidence. One would suppose by that point in a person's life they've had exposure to enough education and general life experience that they should(!) be capable of making decisions while understanding the consequences. Whether that's always the case is suspect, but hey, it's an imperfect world we live in.

I know a lot of people who believed themselves to be ready to party, have sex, and nine months later the consequences became very real. Sure enough, they drop out of school, live on their parents' (or the tax payers') dime and eventually find themselves grossly unqualified to do anything that pays more than minimum wage. But at the age of 14 here in Ontario boys and girls are considered mature enough to have sex.

What we need is some form of mandatory training on personal responsibility in the modern world. But hey, that's just my opinion.