Courts Look to Resolve Violent Game Issue

Using the upcoming Wii title "Mad World" as an example, legislators and gamer groups are taking their figurative chainsaws to one another.

A 2005 California state law barred the sale of violent games to minors, a law many thought violated the First Amendment of the Constitution. California is attempting to revive its "anti-violent-video-game law" in federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals will review a 2007 ruling that found the law was indeed unconstitutional.

For state law makers, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the law is but an effort to reduce youth violence. This view is dubious at best, replacing parental responsibility.

"The same argument has been made again and again throughout the history of the country about books, about movies, about comic books and now about video games," said Jennifer Mercurio, director of a national group that represents "America's gamers."

"The way this law is drafted comes up against hundreds of years of First Amendment issues," she concluded.

The opposition insists this is not a matter of constitutional rights: "It defies logic to suggest that our founding fathers intended to adopt a First Amendment that would guarantee children the right to purchase a video game wherein the player is rewarded for interactively causing a character to take out a shovel and bash the head of an image of a human being," California Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini wrote in a court brief.

The time and effort spent on these proceedings would be better served researching the supposed link between violent games and violent behavior. So far this notion has not been confirmed, and in more recent studies dispelled altogether.

Source: The Mercury News

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