Gamers rejoice, Supreme Courts says video games protected under 1st Amendment

For some time there has been an effort by politicians looking for easy votes to ban or rent games that are deemed to be violent to anyone under the age of 18, with the most recent effort being by the State of California.

As expected this law was challenged in the courts with it making it all the way to the Supreme Court where the matter was settled once and for all, well at least for this round until someone tries to introduce a newer version of the same old crap.

While it may not have surprised many the fact that the decision that video games are protected as free speech the number of judges in favor might be a little bit of a surprise.

The final count – 5 for and only 2 against.

Judge Scalia and four supporting judges determined that games, like books, movies, and plays, get a message across through “fammiliar literary devices” and can’t be censored solely because it contained violence.

“The most basic principle — that government lacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter, or content… is subject to a few limited exceptions for historically unprotected speech, such as obscenity, incitement, and fighting words,” the ruling says. “But a legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test.”

Since the US didn’t stop kids from seeing violence in movies or other formats, the state’s argument that gaming was somehow different was “unpersuasive,” according to the court.

via electronista

As good as it is to see this you can be sure that it won’t be long before some politician tries this stupidity again.