Politicians Wising up on Game Legislation?

Blackjack writes "Ars Technica looks at recent failures to pass laws regulating the sales of violent video games. They ask whether politicians are finally wising up to First Amendment issues and the costs associated with lawsuits resulting from the laws. Recent attempts to pass video game legislation in Mississippi, Utah, and Indiana have either failed or been put on indefinite hold. 'Now, state lawmakers are more cognizant of the constitutionality issues at stake. The judicial landscape is littered with the charred husks of laws passed by Illinois, Washington, Michigan, California, Louisiana, and others. All of them tried in some way or another to regulate the sale of violent video games to children, and all of them were struck down on First Amendment grounds.'"

Comments

Re:I don't get it???

[Zephyros]

Beer is a product. I won't argue that good beer can indeed be considered an art form, but not in the same way that media (books, music, movies, games) are. Beer expresses hops, malts, etc. Media can express ideas, and that's what the first amendment protects.

Re:I am relieved

[Jerf]

Maybe politicians are figuring out that you need evidence to prove their points.

What politicians need, if they want to pass a feel-good law like this, is a law that passes First Amendment muster. It can be based on a theory of Evil Fairies penetrating the minds of unsuspecting young teens and corrupting their precious bodily fluids, and it'll hold up, as long as it passes First Amendment muster, and all other relevant criteria. No amount of scientific studies demonstrating the evils of video games will help with that, because we have no criteria about laws being scientifically sound. (For better or worse, probably mostly better, but that's a separate argument.)

You are confusing your desires with reality.

No, because I don't read, listen, or interpret....

[Fallen Kell]

...you beer. The primary use of beer is to consume as in, drink, the product. It is not an idea or thought that is passed through a written, or visual media. Thus, your "free speech" rights do not apply to this product.

Re:Laws in action, minus the laws

[Rob T Firefly]

It doesn't solve the problem when adults buy it and turn around and give it to a kid

But it can sent that one last necessary jolt to the addled brain of Clueless Joe Sixpack, who is about to buy "Manhunt" for his eight-year-old because one time in his youth he played "Pac-Man" and that's what all video games are, right?

It seems stupid to anyone on /., but this is an accurate representation of the sort of braindead masses that overregulation or censorship would actually serve. If we can cause the necessary brain-attacks in these people by having the cashier gently suggest that the M-rated game a parent is about to buy their kid isn't happy friendly "Super Mario" stuff, in the accepted manner of other comparable age-restricted purchases like R-rated movie tickets, then the ultimate responsibility is once again reverted to the parent where it belongs, and said parent is hopefully forced to become educated enough to properly make the decision on what to buy their kids.