High Court Strikes Down Violent Video Game Law

We've all seen the commercials for the latest video game promising bigger explosions, more innovative ways to kill enemies and deadlier weaponry for maximum carnage.

The games are readily available at places such as  in Pacifica, and have many local kids and politicians buzzing. They have come under the microscope of state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who wrote a law in 2005 that would make ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

But today, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, struck down the California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to children under the age of 18.

The court majority said the games are protected by the First Amendment right of free speech.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, "Like protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages.

"That suffices to confer First Amendment protection," Scalia wrote.

The court ruled in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose in 2005 by two industry groups, the Entertainment Merchants Association and the Entertainment Software Association.

The high court upheld rulings by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose in 2007 and the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco in 2009 that struck down the law.

The 2005 law was authored by Lee, who was then an assemblyman. It was blocked from going into effect by an injunction issued by Whyte.

The court's reasoning aside, are these games good for kids?

Two Pacifica residents think not.

"Video games have a rating system, just like movies," said John Negley of Pacifica. "A minor cannot purchase tickets to an R rated movie or purchase an R rated DVD, so I do not quite understand the reasoning to this ruling. The video game industry has worked hard to establish the rating system, now that system has no teeth."

Although Negley does not have children, he said he has many friends who do, and some that work in the video game industry but do not allow their children to play video games. 

Pacifican Alyssa Jenkins, a teacher at Terra Nova High School and a mother, disagrees with the court's decision to keep the sale of video games to minors unregulated. 

"The idea that selling Grand Theft Auto to a 10-year-old is protected by the First Amendment is ludicrous," she said. "By that logic, it should be just fine for minors to buy porn. However, I wonder what the actual case and actual opinion said because it is legal to sell R-rated movies to a minor...just not one under 17. Could the problem have been the scope of the restrictions?"

So, what do you think? Did the Supreme Court make the right decision?

Bay City News contributed to this report.