Slashdot Mirror
Appeals Court Strikes Down California's Violent Game Ban
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has struck down as unconstitutional a California statute purporting to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. In a 30-page decision (PDF), in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, the federal appeals court ruled that 'the Act, as a presumptively invalid content based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the 'variable obscenity' standard from Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968). Applying strict scrutiny, we hold that the Act violates rights protected by the First Amendment because the State has not demonstrated a compelling interest, has not tailored the restriction to its alleged compelling interest, and there exist less-restrictive means that would further the State's expressed interests. Additionally, we hold that the Act's labeling requirement is unconstitutionally compelled speech under the First Amendment because it does not require the disclosure of purely factual information; but compels the carrying of the State's controversial opinion.'"
Tempting fate by going against one of the most violent; a Terminator.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
i veel check urls before posting
http://www.game-walls.com/images/terminator%203/terminator_3_the_redemption_01_1024x768.jpg
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I won't get into the should kids or shouldn't kids buy various games issue. I don't think that's the real question these articles raise. The real issue is why would any politician vote for a law such as this which has already been shown time and again to be an automatic failure then waste money defending the failed law. As far as why judges strike these down, that's an interesting question so I asked a client of mine that happens to also be a judge once.
The main issue for the courts, it seems, is that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to tailor legislation to violence alone in the same manner as it is with pornography. This difficulty of is the real issue from what I can gather. We can say any evidence of bloodshed is obscene but then what about a safety video showing actual injury? By definition, these things are both bloody and violent yet are absolutely something minors should see before they operate certain power tools.
What it boils down to is what is considered obscene, really. Pretty much everyone (I suppose there are some few who'd disagree, thus the qualifier) agrees that nudity can be obscene, although not always. We likewise can agree that certain subject matter such as sexually explicit material are inappropriate for people under a certain age. Not everyone, however, agrees that violence, in and of itself, is necessarily obscene.
I hope this makes sense; I'm neither a lawyer nor a legal expert so I may habve mangled this somewhat.
You know the thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get it or not.
I think when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they never meant it to mean that a black guy could be president.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Did anyone notice that the lawyers who successfully argued for "freedom of speech" here are the same ones who are fighting so hard to prevent the televising of the SONY v. Tenenbaum RIAA case?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful