Federal Judge Strikes Down Ban on Violent Games

CaptainEbo writes "A federal judge in Louisiana has issued a preliminary injunction blocking a statewide ban on violent video games. The judge's holding that 'depictions of violence are entitled to full constitutional protection' flies in the face of Louisiana's assertion that video games interactive nature make them inherently more likely to incite people to violence, and therefore requires reduced First Amendment protection. In rejecting the state's argument, the judge compared video games to literature. 'It is the interactive aspect of literature that makes it successful — 'draw[ing] the reader into the story, mak[ing] him identify with the characters, invit[ing] him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader's own.'" GamePolitics also has reaction to the news from Louisiana political figures, as forwarded by Jack Thompson.

Video games don't make me violent

[stubear]

However, stupid jackasses passing laws trying to ban violent video games make me want to kill the jackasses passing the laws. Perhaps I can have a ban passed on banning violent video games because that makes people violent.

Re:Meh.

[bman08]

I read the headline and thought they banned games like football, dodgeball and red rover. Now that might be a step in the right direction.

Re:Meh.

[nebaz]

It's people like you that take all the fun out of life.

Re:is it an election year already!?

[vldragon]

Are you trying to tell me that violence has been around for a millenia?! Thats crazy. Damn kids and there "rock'n roll" and games played on tv. what ever happened the to good days when games where played outdoors far away from anyone else. No one ever got hurt that way. Besides the occasional fight among friends, bruises, & broken bones. But that was good clean fun; except when we came home covered in mudd. What was I talking about again? damn alzheimer's...

Good judge!

[Lord Aurora]

He draws the obvious conclusion that, even though most of /. has read Neuromancer, it doesn't push us into love/hate relationships with the neighborhood hottie street samurai who has built-in HUD/sunglasses.

Mainly because she's such a bitch, but still.

Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is this, the 20-something-ith attempt at a violent video games ban?... We might need to find some new activity to fill up the time of these politicians. Maybe adding recess and nap-time...

Pity the judges... or the judge's assisstants

[Jerf]

It's going to get to the point with these cases that just citing all the relevant precedent alone is going to take tens of pages.

Maybe the ESRB should help these guys out and provide a pre-written list of all the relevant citations so the judges can just copy/paste the list into the ruling. :) (After checking them, of course.)

Positive Effects of Video Games

[Anonymous Coward]

People focus too much on the detrimental effects of video games, what about the good ones? I walk to work every day and have to cross a busy 5 lane highway, I can run across that thing like nothing else, dodging trucks, cars, logs, you name it. Thanks Frogger!

Re:is it an election year already!?

[macshit]

Still, I look forward to being old so I can start blaming the problems that have existed for millenia on the latest, greatest thing that I do not understand.

Mall store naming?

Re:Meh.

[Amouth]

my wife is a 4th grade teacher.. they don't have swings at her school.. some kid might get hurt.. infact.. they took the swings out.. not because some kid got hurt .. but because one "could"

if i was a kid in school now. i would just start stabing people and blame it on air to see if they would remove that too

Careful with that language, please.

[ScentCone]

I mean, "Judge strikes down..." ? Do we have to use violent words like "strike?" There are teenagers reading this web site, and just seeing words like that could cause them to become violent.

Then there's Arnold.

[Animats]

Schwarzenegger signs game-restriction bill [gamespot.com]. The concept of the guy who played the Terminator, Conan, etc. coming out against violent images is hysterical.

Re:Careful with that language, please.

[Kadin2048]

Your use of the phallic capital "I", as a reminder of the misogynist and violent nature of patriarchial culture, is offensive and incites violence. We must ban its use, and replace it with the capital "O" instead, which represents peace, tranquility, and the circle of life.

Re:A good law would be...

[mgabrys_sf]

Reminds me of an old (but funny and relevant) riff from G. Carlin:

People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay,
Sherrif, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."

Re:Meh.

[Chmcginn]

Not to mention it seemed much harder to get injured when one was ten. Watch almost any 30something dad trying to keep up with his eight year old kid on a bike, and you'll see what I mean before too long...