At first smack, it's easy enough to say, "there ought to be a law" to protect kids and teens against stuff like this:

In video games these days, you can strangle someone with a garrote ("Manhunt"), pop off an enemy's head in a shower of gore with a sniper shot ("Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy"), and direct a teenage girl to shotgun a demon dog ("Silent Hill 3").

Not to mention beat up prostitutes, run down pedestrians, bathe in the blood of your enemies and curse like a lobster boat captain who's stubbed his toe.

...The next 12 months could see a flurry of new scrutiny of violent games because three controversial franchises are due to release sequels. They include "Doom," notorious as a favorite of the Columbine killers; "Mortal Kombat," with its calls for a player to "finish" opponents in myriad gruesome ways; and "Grand Theft Auto," which exhorted players in its latest iteration to start a Cuban-Haitian race war.

Naturally, politicians can't help themselves: they want to legislate bans or restrictions on violent video games.

Here's what the long arm of the law CAN accomplish. Impressive, huh?

In Britain, the makers of the "Resident Evil" series were made to change the color of blood from red to green, while the creators of "Carmageddon" had to make the people you run over in your car look more like zombies than average pedestrians.

Efforts at restrictive video game legislation in the U.S. keep running into legal troubles. Yet who can doubt personal injury attorneys are watching this case with bated breath?

Among games' most vocal critics is Jack Thompson, a Florida lawyer who has tried, so far without success, to argue for acquittal of defendants in violent crime cases in which he believed that games made them do it.

"There's a culpability here that should be shared by those who are training kids to kill," Thompson said.

Thompson is part of a $246 million case filed last year that accuses Rockstar Games, Sony Entertainment and other companies of causing two teenage stepbrothers to shoot and kill a motorist, and wound another, in Tennessee last year. The boys, who pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault, told authorities they were inspired by the "Grand Theft Auto" series; Thompson and another lawyer are suing on behalf of the victims.

Right. the killers were brainwashed. They're not responsible, nor their parents. No, it was Rockstar, Sony et al.

So-called children's advocates agitating for restrictions on video games are a bit less odious. But only a bit. They're actually working against the interests of impressionable kids and teens by letting parents off the hook. Parents need to be the content cops with video, Internet and entertainment.

And the stronger the values you impart while raising your children, the less policing you'll have to do once they have access to vile stuff. There are no toy guns in our house. No handheld video games. No cable television. There are lots of books, colored pencils and paper.

To impose a government role in monitroing video games for kids only sends a message parents can't or shouldn't take full responsibility.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 5, 2004 12:10 PM

---

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/405

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Torch The Nanny State:

---

» Video games, violence, and vapidity from steevak.com v3.4
Matt Rosenberg has a fine post about video game violence and the response that many politicans and lawyers are having to it. I couldn't agree with his conclusion more: To impose a government role in monitroing video games for kids only sends a mes... [Read More]

Tracked on July 5, 2004 10:37 PM

---

---

---

---