ACLU Advocates Against Restrictions of Violent Video Games

by Sarah Lawes
DTHartford Staff

HARTFORD-- The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut opposes a statewide bill in Connecticut that would regulate violent point-and-shoot video games for minors.  Statewide Bill 328 in Connecticut would ban anyone under the age of eighteen from playing violent video games in arcades or other public establishments.  Also included in Bill 328 would be the creation of a task force that would further study the effects of violent video games on minors, which would be used to make policy suggestions to the legislature. 

This is not the first time a law pertaining to banning video games among minors has occurred.  In 2011, a California law was passed that banned minors from buying or renting violent video games.  In the court case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment, and the law was overturned.

Attorney for the ACLU, David McGuire, advocates against the passing of Bill 328 because it violates the First Amendment.  To support his argument, McGuire referred back to the 2011 court case. In the previous court case, the Supreme Court ruled that there was not enough factual evidence to support these claims.  Therefore, McGuire argues because the Supreme Court has already stated in the court case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, that the California law violated the First Amendment, the same holds true for Bill 328.

Advocates for passing Bill 328 assert that the bill will allow the government step in for parents and ban video games that can cause violence in minors.  Therefore if violent video games are not allowed for minors, then this will decrease violence among our youth. 
Hartford resident with young children, Lisa Simone, said, “I disagree with allowing your child to play ‘M’ level games when they are young.  Many parents are quite ignorant regarding this label or allow their children to play because they do not want to say, ‘no’ or just do not understand the maturity level of these games.”

The ACLU argues against Bill 328 because parents should take more control of what video games their children are playing.  Hartford legislator, Geoff Luxenburg, said, “Good parents will likely shield their young children from participating in violent games and they should do so.”

The ACLU proposes that some of the challenging issues with the bill are that regulation among minors should place more responsibility on the individual, and that parents should be monitoring their children instead of outside forces.  McGuire says that by restricting violent video games for parents, it is “taking decision making of their children away from the parents.”

While the McGuire believes that parents should not have their control taken away from them in raising their children, he also advocate for other alternatives to fix violence in minors rather than just banning minors from playing certain video games in arcades and other public establishments.

The First Amendment violation and insufficient research is why the ACLU promptly challenged the court over this bill appeared.  The ACLU reminds the court that the Supreme Court has rejected many social science research studies in the past as not having sufficient enough evidence.  Also in the study, Computers in Human Behavior, it showed that there has been a short decrease in violent youth since the 1990’s, but there has been in increase in video games. 

Hartford Political Consultant, David Leonardo said, “Instead of this bill, why not a bill where the focus is on the mental health issues in this country and how people interpret violence?”  The ACLU agrees and claims that the task force researching violence in minors would again be more efficiently used in creating resources for mental health issues rather than just banning certain video games.

McGuire also insists that the bill violates the First Amendment as the Supreme Court ruled that video games are a protected form of free expression just like films and books.  Due to the rise of video games, and the claims that video production make children more violent, the Supreme Court ruled that video games fall do into free expression.

During the 2011 court case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia wrote about the matter: “Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world).”

People remain divided still as to whether or not they are having a negative or positive effect on minors, which makes the topic controversial.  To respond to the controversy over video games, McGuire says, “Every decade there’s a new media that is scrutinized.  Video games are not understood by everyone, and it will take time for the public to accept it in the same category as books and film."