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Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gaming

In case you aren’t up to speed, in 2005 California proposed a law that would inhibit retailers the right to sell violent video games to minors.

Today, the Supreme Court made an official ruling on violent games, and it was quite shocking just how liberal the decision was.

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to defend the Constitutional rights of games, stating,

"The Act does not comport with the First Amendment. Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And the basic principles of freedom of speech...do not vary with a new and different communication medium."   

The attempt to moderate violent video games seemed impractical since we would have to censor all other mediums of entertainment that we expose to our youth.

"Banning violent games would have necessitated bans elsewhere, argued the court. California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore."

In the end, the potential infringement of the first amendment’s freedom of speech was enough to demolish this proposal to make selling violent games to minors illegal.

What do you guys think about the ruling?