Liberty and Videogames for all!

Being an eighteen year old boy who loves video games this topic is a huge deal to me. In 2005 California was trying to pass a law that banned the selling of any violent videogames to minors. The law was written by Cal Senator Leland Yee and Governor Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger. The reasoning behind this law was the outburst of child violence because of violence these kids saw in videogames such as Grand Theft Auto. Thankfully the law was shot down in the state court system by reason of being unconstitutional. The verdict was appealed and is now heading to the Supreme Court; this is the first videogame case the Supreme Court has ever agreed to hear. Senator Leland Yee talking about his law against violent videogames

A photo from Grand Theft Auto one of the controversial videogames

I along with many others believe this law is ridiculous. Two major newspapers The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times spoke out against the appealing of the law, the LA Times even called the California videogame law “an embarrassment”. Not only are these two highly respected newspapers speaking out, but the entire videogame community has fully spoken out against this law. There is normally a national expo in LA, called “E3”. It is held in LA every year, except for now; the president of E3 said that they are not willing to hold such a huge convention in a state where they are not wanted. Since the introduction of the law in 05’ the E3 expo has now been held in Los Vegas, Nevada. I believe that this law is complete baloney; you can not restrict kids of something just because it “shows” violent acts because if you were to do that videogames are not the only thing that should be banned. There are hundreds of movies, TV shows, comics, magazines, even advertisement that depicts some violence that not all kids should see, but no one is chasing after them trying to band them. In my view I think it is up to the parents of the children of today to limit what their kids can see because some kids, such as myself, know the difference between a videogame and real life and are allowed to play videogames that portray violent behavior. I hope the Supreme Court goes the same way of the California state court and shuts down this law before it spreads to other states.