Court to MN: UR Video Game Laws R DUM

Happy days - the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a Minnesota law to ban the sale of certain video games to minors. Looks like parents will not be able to rely on stores to decide what is appropriate for their kids.

But Chief U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum ruled in July 2006 that violent video games were protected speech, even for children. He found the state failed to prove its claim that playing violent video games caused lasting harm to the psychological well-being of minors.

Rosenbaum also faulted the state for failing to address other forms of violence in the media. And he held that the state's dependence on a voluntary rating board to determine which games should be restricted was unconstitutional because it did not permit immediate judicial supervision of the ratings.

This opinion totally shot down the rationale for these stupid video game laws (as advanced by many Democrats, including Hillary ... I think Obama is also on the censorship wagon here but I could be wrong).

"Indeed, a good deal of the Bible portrays scenes of violence, and one would be hard-pressed to hold up as a proper role model the regicidal Macbeth," Wollman wrote.

If kids were so influenced by video games, we would expect more to be getting lost in pipes, chasing coins, and eating every mushroom they saw. The overwhelming majority understand the line between video games and real life.