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Supreme Court to Rule on California Violent Video Game Law

by Amar Toor on April 26, 2010 at 03:30 PM

Before he began his disastrous gubernatorial term in Sacramento, Arnold Schwarzenegger shot to international stardom on the strength of a Hollywood career defined by a violent onscreen persona. Today, though, Schwarzenegger finds himself staunchly defending a piece of California legislation aimed at limiting the spread of violent media, and the debate has now made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

In 2005, Schwarzenegger signed a bill that threatened to outlaw sales and rentals of violent video games to minors, in the hopes of protecting California's youth from any game that features "killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." Before the law could go into effect, though, a San Francisco federal appeals court tossed it out, on the grounds that it violated a minor's civil rights guaranteed under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The state eventually appealed to the Supreme Court, which announced today that it will accept the case.

Schwarzenegger, for his part, seems delighted by the high court's willingness to hear the case, saying, "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." Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher took inspiration from last week's Supreme Court ruling on animal cruelty videos, saying, "We are hopeful that the court will reject California's invitation to break from these settled principles by treating depictions of violence, especially those in creative works, as unprotected by the First Amendment."

Comparing violent video games to animal cruelty videos is a bit of a stretch, especially since last week's ruling had more to do with defining what actually constitutes animal cruelty media. This case, on the other hand, more overtly addresses the role of government in regulating consumer choice. Although we certainly support governmental intervention in certain, more life-or-death contexts, an outright ban might be taking things too far -- especially if violent games are smacked with a warning label. We'll have to wait until this fall's hearing to see how it plays before the court, but we've always thought that determining the appropriate media for a child should be done within the family -- not within the halls of a state legislature. [From: Reuters, HuffPo and CNN]

Tags: california, censorship, law, Schwarzenegger, SupremeCourt, SupremeCourtRuling, top, video games, VideoGames, violence, ViolenceInVideoGames

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