The normally quite reliable Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times argues that the Court’s ruling doesn’t take it account harried parents who, in the present economy, have difficulty finding time to actually parent, nor did it give the proper weight to the ickiness of certain games, played by people who just might date your daughter!
To which I say, so? Such arguments were made at one time against the music of Elvis Presley or Judas Priest, against the mixing of the races, against the exposure of Barbara Eden’s belly button on prime time TV. And it simply renders legal conservatism incoherent to argue consistently for personal responsibility and individual liberty, then turn around and bemoan the Court’s failure to ban things that you find distasteful — but which are not harmful in any demonstrable way, despite efforts of anti-gun social scientists and social engineers to develop and push the pseudo-science necessary to advance such an argument. Dave Kopel, writing at Volokh:
Thus, EMA v. Brown rejects the “violent video game effect” studies for failing to demonstrate a compelling state interest. Indeed, EMA suggests that the studies do not even rise to the level of a trivial state interest. Quite significantly, for Second Amendment purposes, the very similar “weapons effect” hypothesis likewise is presented as something which is equally non-compelling, and no more than trivial.
The studies on video games have led, at worst, to some minors being unconstitutionally deprived of video games. In contrast, the “weapons effect” has become an article of faith among many anti-gun advocates, who are convinced that guns turn peaceable people into dangerous aggressors. Many anti-gun laws have been enacted in part because of this wrongful idea, and some of those laws have deprived the victims of violent crimes from having the means of effective self-defense. Indeed, continuing belief in the non-existent weapons effect is a major reason why nine states still deny law-abiding trained adults the constitutional right to carry licensed firearms for lawful protection in public places.
In examining the legislative history of anti-gun laws, courts will not have to look far to find the “weapons effect” as a crucial motive for many of the laws which aim to reduce gun ownership or accessibility by ordinary citizens (rather than merely keeping guns away from actually dangerous people). Legislative animus against the exercise of constitutional rights can be, in itself, an important reason to find a law unconstitutional. When that animus is based on the same type of social science which the Supreme Court has recently dismissed an unrelated to any serious state interest, then courts have especially good reason to recognize the unconstitutionality of the legislation.
The war on the Second Amendment isn’t over, naturally — taking away your right to own guns is of paramount importance to a politically ideology that seeks to control you for your own good — but progressives are going to have to go back to the drawing board when it comes to advancing their next “for the public good” argument which, let’s face it, is really just a cover for a desire to strip you of your last protections against the encroachment of an ever-expanding centralized state.
Still. They’ll always have Chicago…
Schwarzennegger was a lot concerned that his bastard child might could develop violent ideation I guess.
Nice foster kids ya got there. Shame if anything happened to them.
— Little Boy George Stephanopolodopdebopopolous, practicing the Chicago Way like a big boy.
I do find killing zombies cathartic. Or even messing with angry birds.
Such arguments were made at one time against the music of Elvis Presley or Judas Priest… against the exposure of Barbara Eden’s belly button on prime time TV.
And look at us now! Society isn’t one whit more crude or vulgar or pornogrified! Popular culture NEVER shoves the camel’s nose under the tent, it just reflects an existing reality, because as we all know, art is entirely beholden to reality, and those poor artists are helpless to control their work product.
Actually, I don’t know how violent video games or movies or cartoons affect people. I do know that in WWI, they found that if they trained solders to shoot at bull’s eyes, the soldiers had a hard time shooting actual humans, but if they trained them to shoot at human-shaped targets with faces, the soldiers didn’t balk as much.
So, desensitization, yes, but stimulating more violence in the first place? Dunno.
On the other hand, even if video games are entirely benign, they do have opportunity costs attached, such as not being outside exercising or not interacting face-to-face with humans. My bro and SIL permit their kids to have X amount of screen time and but insist that they do face-to-face time even more.
Oh wait: this was about statism and the Second Amendment.
I’m agin the former and all for the latter.
There.
Such arguments were made at one time against the music of Elvis Presley or Judas Priest, against the mixing of the races, against the exposure of Barbara Eden’s belly button on prime time TV.
My favorite is reading.
In the early days of the universal literacy push, parents (and childcare advisors and such) thought that reading too much, especially reading fiction, would shatter a child’s sense of the distinction between reality and make believe, damage their development, and interfer with their ability to cope with mundane practical tasks like farming.
Books full of make-believe ideas and abstracts are dangerous! Especially to the children!
And look at us now! Society isn’t one whit more crude or vulgar or pornogrified!
In Victorian England, paying a hooker to let you snort coccaine off her tits was legal.
Just saying.
Also, as far as ‘vulgar’ goes, there’s a reason that many professions, like the profession of shooting up and mugging people and chucking them into the sea and stealing their boat, have a reputation for being nothing else above all polite and soft spoken in those times.
Lovely Bride used to find it disturbing that I enjoyed American McGee’s Alice as much as I did. I maintain that whacking card guards with a flamingo/croquet mallet is wonderfully therapeutic.
(Please, oh please, let Alice 2 not suck.)
On the other other hand, being inside prevents them from releasing earth-killing CO2 directly into the outdoor environment, and they are less likely to get run over by a porn-fueled drunk would-be artist texting while driving his Segway at dangerous speeds.
So. Kind of a trade-off.
On the other hand, even if video games are entirely benign, they do have opportunity costs attached, such as not being outside exercising or not interacting face-to-face with humans. My bro and SIL permit their kids to have X amount of screen time and but insist that they do face-to-face time even more.
To continue being argumentative just for the fun of it…
Many a child is likely to get quite the workout playing a video game if he’s spastically jerking around like he’s having an epileptic siezure, which children with video games are liable to do.
Also, most games these days have some form of co-op, and if you’re not playing socially with the person sitting on the couch next to you, these days you can go online and play with other people by yourself. So any moment the console is even ON, they’re liable to be socializing with the peers using the thing, possibly even if they’re not in the same room.
Lastly, say whatever you like about video games, but at the end of the day they’re still more interactive and engauging than sitting in front of the same screen and watching plain TV or a movie.
IT: You should not do that.
non-IT: But I like it. ‘Sfun.
IT: Yet you are wrong. Fun there is bad. Evil. Stop.
non-IT: Oh. My. Sorry, I can’t see the harm.
IT: Precisely. You can’t see. That’s why I am here to care for you.
non-IT:
IT: Would you take away my reason for being?
My name is Jeff and I have played violent video games.
I haven’t yet raped, killed, or treated women as objects as a direct result; but when I do, I know just who to blame!
So’s, this means Joe Camel can come outta hiding, yes? Ronald McDonald and the King are anxious to know!
I get tired of people bemoaning government’s inability to save-one-from-themselves.
If people don’t want their kids to play at gunplay, or “violent” video games it’s their responsibility to police that “policy” decision. And if that means restricting the kid from going to a friend’s house where the parents lose their ability to exert control, well, there’s an old saw that says something about making beds and lying in them I believe…
And really, the entire argument about video-games somehow inducing violent behavior is ridiculous; especially if the parents have “raised the kids right”. It’s just another excuse along the lines of, “society made Smoofus steal those cars!”.
Anybody play “frogger” when they were in elementary school?
And I don’t mean the video game.
“Frog’er? I hardly even know ‘er!”
So.. by sitting here reading Protein Wisdom I’m not outside emitting CO2 and methane, or possibly catching a fatal dose of cancer-causing sunshine? Why, you’re saving the world while saving me from myself! What a guy!!