Ninth Circus: California state law prohibiting the sale and rental of violent video games to people under a certain age are unconstitutional abrogations of the 1st. Will they have the same civil libertarian verve when a 17-year old wants to buy a long gun or a 20-year old wants to buy a handgun? Some of these really violent video games are directly based on U.S. Army programs to desensitize its personnel to killing, so it’s not crazy to think that the consumer-level games will give teenagers the will and skill to kill.
Though this doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with these laws about video games. If you prohibit them to people under 17, then it’ll make it marginally more likely that such teenagers will want to get these games. The whole forbidden fruit thing.
