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.

Comments

Re:Coming from the Terminator

[vlm]

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.