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Supreme Court To Rule On State Video Game Regulation
DJRumpy sends in this quote from an AP report:"The Supreme Court will decide whether free speech rights are more important than helping parents keep violent material away from children. The justices agreed Monday to consider reinstating California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, a law the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out last year on grounds that it violated minors' constitutional rights. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the law in 2005, said he was pleased the high court would review the appeals court decision. He said, 'We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies.'"
SCOTUSblog has a more thorough legal description of the case.
All heil Der Gropenfuhrer!
Also, fuckin' hypocrite.
Because video games are new and scary, while republicans are old and fearful. 10 to 1 the supreme court rules against individual freedom once again.
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They're keeping kids from buying them directly.
No, they are not. There is nothing in the bill to prevent kids from buying. The bill instead fines and criminalizes the stores that do not check ID carefully enough or that find it a civil disobedience measure, or that don't find the cost benefit ratio to work.
At best, it locks out kids that don't have any older friends, any "cool" older relatives, any older siblings, with no access to garage sales or craigslist, with parents whom are control freaks, no access to bittorrent, etc.
Oldest child, living in moms basement, no friends, no money, no broadband internet = stuck, all other kids OK. A couple retailers will be publicly screwed with TV cameras rolling, and a couple photo ops. That's about it for effects.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Do you really expect every parent to talk with every store owner about what their children can and cannot buy? Setting laws is one of the ways that societies govern themselves. Societies that fail to govern themselves tend to get washed away in a tide of sociopaths.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
What are you talking about? No one is telling you how to raise your kids. All they're saying is that if you want to buy an R-rated game for your kid, you should do it yourself. How is that wrong?
We let the movie and music industries self-regulate. Why should video games be any different?
Apparently they don't self regulate well enough. I know for a fact that movie theaters don't self-regulate well in my area. I don't have any kids, but I imagine I would be pissed off if my child saw an R-rated movie because no one bothers checking ID
No one absolves you of the parent responsibility. All this does is to make sure your kid can't buy an R-rated game without your knowledge. Constitution can hardly get corrupted, because it is a well known fact that minors do not have full constitutional rights or responsibilities (just check with your local school if you don't believe me)
What ARE you people talking about? The gap between restriction on R-rated games and nanny state is so big that I don't know where to start. Nanny state would be forbidding your kids to play violent games. This says kids just need your consent to play anything they want. You see the difference?
You're like that scene in the British comedy The Young Ones. There's these interviews with kids on the street complaining that society does not recognized their value, but all they really want is to be able to get drunk in pubs.
It's a shame you weren't born a few decades earlier -- you would've fit in much better with the opponents of desegregation and women's suffrage. It took at least some balls to be a bigot in those days, and you got to wear scary white robes. Mocking youth rights is pretty cowardly in comparison.
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