![]() |
| Duke SCOTUS! |
The Supreme Court ended the 2010 term today, delivering the much-anticipated decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, a case that challenged California's ban of the sale of violent video games to minors.
In a 7-2 decision, the Court found the state's law violated the First Amendment. The Court called California's attempt to put video games in a new category not protected by the First Amendment "unpersuasive."
But they're not just free speech -- they require active participation. When you shoot someone in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, you don't think "oh the character I am playing got him!" You say "*I* got him!!!"
Anyone who has played a shooter understands that the dynamic is drastically different than watching a violent movie or reading a violent book. It's also reflected in our language. In reviews, tutorials, chats, it's always "You have many weapons to choose from" or "(You) Go to point B and shoot the guard" or "Don't teabag me!"
Combine this fact with shitty parenting, crap diets, medication, totalitarian school rules, and/or a mild sociopathic/psychotic temperament (so only about HALF the school-going population of the U.S.) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Letting kids play violent games is gonna seem as nuts as letting them smoke or drink in 50 years, after there's more research and a few more massacres and society finally gets it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go play my
~

0 permanent comments:
post a permanent comment