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Oklahoma Game Law Permanently Enjoined
The poorly-written game law passed in Oklahoma - and subsequently found unconstitutional by the courts - has now been permanently enjoined from existing. This has been a pet project of Governor Brad Henry, and this enjoinment will stop the law from rearing its head again. "The law sought to ban the dissemination to minors of any computer or video game that contains any depiction of "inappropriate violence," which was defined by depictions that fall into any one of nine broad categories. Violators would also have been subject to fines of up to $1,000 ...It also seems in some way that the law singled out the game industry, since according to the court decision, the law was found to be underinclusive - meaning that a minor might be prevented from buying a video game with 'inappropriate violence' but may still legally buy or rent the book or movie on which the game was based." GamePolitics has reaction to this decision.
The home of Senators Inhofe and Coburn and of Oral Roberts University is a common sense area and merely on the edge of the Bible Belt?
It means that not only was the law struck down by the court, the state assembly cannot attempt to revive the law or a (IIRC) similar law
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
You realize that the court's decision was against the law, right?
IAALBNYL (ATINLA)*-- In civil rights cases that challenge the legitimacy of a statute, courts often apply an overinclusive/underinclusive analysis to determine whether the State's claimed reason for a statute is legitimate (whether it's legitimate and whether the reason is sufficient depends on the kind of right involved). In this case, the purpose of the law was to prevent minors from being exposed to "inappropriate violence." What the court is saying by calling the law underinclusive is "if you want to protect kids from 'inappropriate violence,' the method you've chosen is completely inadequate, because they can be exposed to it from other media such as books and movies. Therefore, your law doesn't pass muster." Realize, that this analysis depends largely on the stated purposes of a statute, and the specific analysis followed by the court will usually be more complex than "your law doesn't pass muster." --AC