First of all, I promise the legal jargon is brief....anywho for the last 5 years California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been fighting a war against violent video games; the bill being a ban against selling violent video games to minors. The bill started out in October 2005, when the Govenator signed into law:

"a bill restricting the sale or rental of certain video games to anyone under the age of 18. The computer and video games are classified as "violent video games" and restricted if the depictions of violence are "offensive to the community" or if the violence depicted is committed in an "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" manner.  Under the law, game manufacturers and distributors would be required to label games with 2" x 2" stickers displaying the numeral "18" on their front covers."

Quickly after the Video Software Dealers Association (Now known as the Entertainment Merchants Association...aka EMA) and the Entertainment Software Association filed a complaint and thus the legal battle has ensued.

As of now the bill has gone through both the District Court and the 9th Circuit Court and has been ruled unconstitutional under the 1st amendment, which is totally a good thing, but now on November 2, the bill is going all the way to the Supreme Court and will once and for all finally be decided.

In a way I'm relieved and worried. I'm relieved because both of the lower courts have found this in violation of the 1st Am. so I hope/believe they'll rule the same way. However...what if they don't? Now I'm 19 so it doesn't affect me in anyway, and after all who wants screaming children who shout racist profanities constantly playing these games anyways but there are so many issues with this bill.

First and foremost is that this is a clear violation of first amendment rights. Video games have long been proclaimed under the "free speech" clause of the 1st am.  restricting the free speech of game designers. If the supreme court rules in favor of the T-800's mission from Skynet, this could be the beginning of many losses to our 1st amendment rights.

Additionally, proponents of the bill say that there are dangerous side-effects from violent video games; causing children to act much more aggressively. While the state legally has a vested interest in the psychological and physical well-being of minors, there has been no conclusive evidence to support that video games have an ill effect on minors or any evidence stating that video games are worse than any other forms of entertainment.

Another thing that irks me about this bill is the redundancy of it. The ESRB is already established and is working with retailers to limit the sale of rated "M" games to people under the ages of 17. While the retailers aren't bound by the ESRB's rating system, all the retailers I know of are actively working with the ESRB to enforce this.

So as I finish this article, I find it funny that a man with such a "colored" past in the entertainment industry would propose such a bill, so here is a little clip I found. Please let me know what you think of this bill below in the comments; and whether you think either video games or maybe movies and our culture that idolizes and elects for Governor people who display these "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" acts is worse for the youth of America.






  

 Interesting and related reads:

For some articles pertaining to the Bill
A history for the Bill
This might be a bit of a hard read, but has the basic arguments from both sides