The Supreme Court Tackles Violent Video Games By Katy Steinmetz

In today’s time with the new head turning technology in video games most of the games have some sort of violence present in them. Many games past and present incorporate some kind of violence such as, killing with weapons, using explosives, and crashing cars. With all of the present day technology all activities portrayed during in-game scenarios are becoming more and more realistic. In 2005 the state of California enacted a law to ban the sale of certain violent games to children without the consent of their parents. The law was created based upon the idea that with the realistic in-game events real behavior could be drastically effected by the violence. The worries are that tragic events such as massacres could occur based on ideas seen in games. Incidents such as high school shooting have heightened concerns of potential connections between violent games and violent actions.

In our time period there is currently a battle that is happening,one that many people do not know of,and the enemy is; Video games.Violent video games are currently in the possession of millions of children, and these games are having a bad influence on them. Most people do not know this and do not know that the consequence could be dire. In the article “Violent video games are hurtful to our children” the author,Blagojevich Rod, says that we are currently engaged in a battle for the minds and souls of our children. That these violent video games are leading the children down the wrong path and have to be stopped.Rod uses violent diction and rhetorical appeals to get parents to intervene with children playing violent video games because while, these violent video games give children a misconception of moral value, video game manufactures turn a blind eye to this and make a profit and that has to stop.

The article Do Video Games Kill? by Karen Sternheimert, brings up that the media unfairly targets video games as the root of violence among youths. In the article she first draws attention to politicians and their labeling of video games and the people who play them. She writes that "Politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create folk devils," [Sternheimert].

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that a 2005 law restricting the sale of violent video games to those under the age of 18 was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the law was not backed by scientific evidence and therefore goes against the first amendment, which requires proof of harm in order to violate. The case came about after a group of politicians expressed concern about the effects violent video games had upon children. Prosecutor Stefen F. Gruel fought in favor of the ban, citing studies and research which displayed a correlation between violent video games and violence in children. Whereas defense attorney Patricia A. Millett argued that the research was not thorough enough and that there is substantial evidence that negates the research Gruel’s used to argue his case. With the ever-increasing video game industry, it is important to fully understand the impacts such technology is having on children positive and negative. I believe that the evidence does not support a correlation between violence in video games and violence in children, though it does support the causation of other possible negative effects. I also do not think the government establishing a ban on violent video games for minors would greatly reduce the number of children playing them due to the culture of violence in the United States.

Rebecca Hagelin is a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group whose vision is to “create an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.” On March 28, 2006, Rebecca Hagelin wrote the article “Video Game Violence and Our Sons”. She discusses video games which have bad influence on people’s minds. She thinks that playing games have really bad consequences. She gives an example of a person, Devin Moore, who was a huge fan of the game Grand Theft Auto. This guy spent hundreds of hours playing this game, and as a result, he murdered three people in a real life. The author expresses people who play games can shot others, steal their cars, and do other bad things getting a lot of negative effects

Although it is okay to censor things that could potentially harm a certain group of people or person, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Censoring certain video games and music interferes with the power of free speech and can be argued as unconstitutional. Censorship is censoring anything that may display any profane, graphic, or obscene content such as nudity, and graphic hate, speech, or symbol. It is a topic that has many different pros and cons as well as many arguments as to if it should be allowed or not and if it is interfering with the First Amendment of protecting freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, and petitio. According to the Constitution,

It has been proven that violent video games have been causing the recent school massacres in schools and public places. Teens should not be aloud to play these video games because it is proven that the violent video games have been causing all or most of the school shootings in the past recent years. Teens and kids should not be able to be exposed to these types of violent video games because it is mainly boys that have been causing deaths of teens and kids by school schoolings, the violent video games are causing school shootings , and the violent video games are causing mental health issues amongst this age group.

Brandon Nadeau is an anthropology student in his sophomore year at the University of Connecticut and a weekly columnist for UConn’s Daily Camus. On October 21, 2015, he wrote an article “Video Games Make Society Less Violent”. He discusses one man who is a medical malpractice lawyer, Jack Thompson, and this guy hates video games. He think that video games inspire violent behavior in people; however, all of facts are against him. Brandon Nadeau gives us a lot of examples of positive effects of video games. One example that he gives is that since video games became a mainstream industry when PlayStation came out in 1995, the violent crime rate has decreased significantly. This argument is a very important reason that video games have some positive

Bloodshed and aggression is everywhere; in magazines, in the shops, on the TV, on websites like YouTube as well as in video games. Yet, why is it that those video games are assumed to be the biggest media source responsible for the violent outbursts of different individuals? Is this really the case? Every eight out of ten homes in the United Kingdom own a existing generation games console and video games have become a extraordinary source of education when helping kids to learn, such websites like educationcity.com or the VTech Learning System that teach kids literacy, numeracy and the sciences through their games. However, it seems an American politician called Joe Biden deemed that violent video games should be taxed just because some

People are entitled to their own opinions. And that’s a fact. Some think violent video games are poisoning the youth of our modern day. Although others severely disagree with this point. Two men, J. Ramirez and the other man anonymous, have stated their opinions in written articles. My adult education teacher, Mr. Michael Bittner is having us compare these articles to determine whose argument is supported by the words following their point.

In conclusion, I am against violent video games but I understand the need for others to participate in such activities. I also understand that taking away such rights to play these games would cause chain reaction of government control of not only what is played but viewed and voiced. I believe if we are able to have full knowledge of the things we bring home, and then maybe we wouldn’t bring them home. But if we do then we are prepared for the consequences. In being prepared we teach our children not only what is right and wrong, teaching to them to be aware of what they are teaching themselves. If parents monitor what their children do, watch

Anyone who has played a video game knows there is a commonality of violence throughout the genres and ratings, because of this there is the ongoing argument that the influence video game violence causes real life violence. In order to curb the growing aggression in today's youth many parents support the idea of regulating children’s access to the video games they blame with the government and lawmakers. However many would argue that games aren’t to blame and, in fact, can help children with social bonding and harmless venting. There really is no solid ruling to support either standing, but should there be laws around the video games accessible to children or should this stay a matter varied by individual opinions?

Authority comes into play strongly as well, without having authority, we do not have censorship. Video games are a strong argument in why we have censorship and strong authorization of parental control. Children of a young age should not be viewing gore, blood, and guts. I, on the other hand, have played video games and they did not affect me in any way shape or form. With understanding, the parental watchdogs are vexing on the situation to prevent future school shooting, basically anything having to do with harming another person. By law if you want to purchase a video game rated M for mature or watch a movie rated R, you’d either need to not purchase whatever it is or have a parents consent. The U.S. Supreme Court has never carved out a First Amendment exception for violent speech and images. Instead, the Court has affirmed that violent content is protected by the First Amendment, regardless of its social worth because the line between the transmission of ideas and mere entertainment is much too elusive for this Court to

“Do video games support violent and terrorist acts”? “Do video games influence those into conducting sexual and racial abusive actions”? “Do video games worship Satan”? These are but a few controversial questions that I have heard throughout my lifetime when it comes to video games. Whenever there seems to be some sort of problem that had occurred, there is always some way to put the blame on video games. Whether or not that they had some sort of influence, it would seem that gaming has always been some sort of escape goat for anything wrong in the United States. And for those who didn’t play video games during their time, they would fall victim to the stereotypes, and they would be blinded onto seeing the other side of gaming. And in doing so, this would lead them to become a person with a fixed mindset about it.

Recently the debate on whether or not violent video games cause violent tendencies in children and young adults has been spread around. With this widely known debate dating back from the early days of Asteroid in the late 1970’s, we have to really think about how long this issue has been going on without a break. Movies, books, newspapers, basically all things that have to do with either the media or entertainment have gone through this argument phase and passed it, but video games are still being targeted 40 years later, still going hot, and shows no sign of slowing down. Now let me ask you, have you watched any violent movies? Have they made you contemplate murders or any other violent actions? The answer is probably no. So, what makes video games so much more viable as a target? The simple fact would be they’re everywhere now days. With video games being is almost every home around the world and an even larger growing part of the coming generations, people have cold feet about how young children are being introduced to violence. From an Uncle’s stand point I feel their concern. I don’t believe my 8 year old nephew should play something like Gears of War at that early stage in life, but playing something with violence will not make him a murderer. The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) is set in place and funded for only one reason, to regulate the way games are sold. This rating system clearly defines the age group that is best suited to play a certain game, now