Ruling on violent video games: Score one for 1st Amendment

[Commentary] The Supreme Court took almost eight months to render a decision in a case challenging California's law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The wait was worth it, and not just for the video-game industry.

In striking down the law, the court bolstered anew the protections of the 1st Amendment. Although seven justices voted to invalidate the law, it was five led by Antonin Scalia who grounded the decision in a compelling opinion that examined new technology through the prism of the 1st Amendment. Justice Scalia dispatched all of the major arguments for the law and fended off a theory that would have created a new loophole in the protections afforded to free speech. Sexually explicit materials sold or given to minor are considered legally obscene — and outside the protection of the 1st Amendment — even if the materials wouldn't be obscene for adults. The state wanted the court to treat violent materials provided to minors as unprotected; Scalia, for the court, declined. The case law on obscenity is confused enough; there is no need for another category of unprotected speech. And if fictional violence is treated as illegal speech, the effects surely would soon creep beyond video games and beyond children.