Minors and Free Speech

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Minors can Buy Violent Games, Justices Decide,” describes what must have been a difficult ruling for the Supreme Court, a 7-to-2 decision declaring a California law unconstitutional for its prohibition of store owners selling video games to children under 18.

At first glance, the ruling may seem counterintuitive. After all, who thinks selling violent video games is a good thing? But it is the role of parents to decide what games their kids should buy, and criminalizing the actions of store owners for this purpose is not the proper purview of government. More important, as the Court observed, the California law would have created an entirely new category of speech outside of the First Amendment, an amendment that has been held sacrosanct by the present Court in a wide number of rulings including controversial funeral protests and depictions of cruelty to animals.

The Court observed that the depiction of violence, unlike obscenity, incitement and fighting words, has never been exempted from First Amendment protections, and it was unwilling to create a new category lightly.

Of course, many parents may not be happy with today’s ruling, and it does make their job a little harder. But deciding what happens under their own roof is their responsibility, not the government’s, and upholding the First Amendment is one of our most precious traditions.