State Laws Banning Video Games Still Unconstitutional

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

Tue, Nov 28th 2006 7:02pm — Mike Masnick

It's amazing that despite court after court after court after court pointing out that attempts to put in place laws that ban the sale of video games are unconstitutional, states keep on trying. Last year, Illinois had its law shot down as unconstitutional, and an Appeals Court has now upheld the ruling, pointing out that the ban violates the First Amendment. The same has been found in Michigan, Minnesota, Louisiana, Oklahoma and a few other states as well. However, politicians keep pushing forward with such plans because it plays well with some voters. Update Adam Thierer notes that this makes the score Gamers 10, Censors 0, and points out just how much this useless effort has cost taxpayers.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

15 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

PhysicsGuy, 28 Nov 2006 @ 7:29pm

Last year, Illinois had its law shot down as unconstitutional, and an Appeals Court has now upheld the ruling, pointing out that protected the First Amendment.

maybe it's just late at night, but the last part of that sentence doesn't make sense to me... what's protecting the first amendment where?!?!?! o.O
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike (profile), 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:29pm
  
  Re:
  maybe it's just late at night, but the last part of that sentence doesn't make sense to me...
  
  Not just you. Sentence was screwed up. Fixed. Thanks.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Brandon, 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:31pm

Politicians will do anything to get a cheap vote. Just like the hype for the banning of flag burning... Hello Retards Ever hear of Freedom of political expression????
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
needa, 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:33pm

whats next... our tv shows?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
nerd, 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:46pm

.......

people

c'mon if you make vidoe games illegal, a black market will just open up

and then kids will be exposed to more dangerous people, that not only sell video games, but drugs too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Baal, 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:51pm

,,!,, to those against video games
It's a conspiracy I tell ya. They are trying to keep us down. They are also shooting images into our mind to suppress us from a revolution. I'm selling the specially made, highly crafted Reynolds wrap hats to keep those dirty bastards from getting our thoughts! Next you'll have to piss a certain way without getting a fine or thrown in jail. Keep that happy face or they'll brain wash you again. OMG THE VOICES ARE EVERY WHERE!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!

lol...screw the politicians. I remember hearing about a few that wanted to ban rap music and a few others because they thought that the groups were responsible for making kids kill. Imagine that some parents thought that too. Further investigation proved that it was more peer and the same parents that pissed n moaned's fault.

Ban video games? I believe they tried something similar with a different product. Although highly different from electronics... prohibition was introduced and taken off the books just as fast. Video games won’t be any different. I'll never give up my urge to kill computer generated objects.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
noned, 28 Nov 2006 @ 8:51pm

banning something just makes more people want it....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Charles Griswold, 28 Nov 2006 @ 9:14pm
  
  Re: banning something just makes more people want
  Yeah, like that screwy ban on private ownership of nuclear hand grenades. I'm sure that if they were legal, then I wouldn't want one (BOOM! *giggle*)
  
  :-D
  
  Seriously, though, I agree that government censorship is generally a bad idea.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
icon149, 28 Nov 2006 @ 11:59pm

Parents
Just gonna throw this out there... but what ever happened to parents being responsible for raising their kids? Parents need to control what their children watch and play. Legistlation can not fix bad parenting. If parents won't raise their own kids, how can the state of illinios do it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
damon billian, 29 Nov 2006 @ 3:23am

Well said...
icon149,

Well said! This type of legislation leads to a "nanny state", and history has shown us how well this turns out for folks (think repressive regimes). I think there's quite enough legislation on the books about *who* can purchase specific items that have age restrictions...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sanguine Dream, 29 Nov 2006 @ 7:10am

Why not do it like cigarettes?
Send in some undercover kid and to see if a store will sell her/him an M rated game. Then if they do bust the store.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Gabriel Tane (profile), 29 Nov 2006 @ 12:59pm

Insanity:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
PhysicsGuy, 2 Dec 2006 @ 9:47pm

Re: Insanity:
While I admire Einstein greatly I have one issue with that quote. You CAN do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. One example is running. I can run a mile my hardest over and over again and expect that over time the result of my measured mile time will change (the more i run consecutively in a day the longer it will take AND the more i run over several weeks or months the shorter it will take). Even in science you can expect different results from doing experiments over and over... it's inevitable. it's called %error. The average of all the experiments should correspond to the established theory (no guarantees on it corresponding to your hypothesis though ;)) but you can expect different results from each separate trial. there are certainly things in which this definition of insanity is completely applicable, but to define insanity in such a manner is borderline idiotic. i'm just hoping that quote was from a larger context or that someone mistranslated it...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Gabriel Tane (profile), 4 Dec 2006 @ 12:45pm
  
  Re: Re: Insanity:
  While I'm not a physicist, nor a good friend of Albert, I'd have to say that the context of this quote was in regards to the laws of phyics. I think Al was trying to point out that you can't expect something that can't happen to happen, no matter how hard you want it to. It applies to the context of this article thus because no matter how hard these States may want anti-gaming laws, they just can't do it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Robby, 13 Jun 2007 @ 12:14am

"While I admire Einstein greatly I have one issue with that quote. You CAN do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. One example is running. I can run a mile my hardest over and over again and expect that over time the result of my measured mile time will change (the more i run consecutively in a day the longer it will take AND the more i run over several weeks or months the shorter it will take). Even in science you can expect different results from doing experiments over and over... it's inevitable. it's called %error. The average of all the experiments should correspond to the established theory (no guarantees on it corresponding to your hypothesis though ;)) but you can expect different results from each separate trial. there are certainly things in which this definition of insanity is completely applicable, but to define insanity in such a manner is borderline idiotic. i'm just hoping that quote was from a larger context or that someone mistranslated it..."

he meant under the same circumstances. in your example, its like trying to do an experiment with more than one variable changed each time.
with everything identical, including your body and mine, to the first time you ran it would happen the same way as the first time
[ link to this | view in chronology ]