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Opinion

Parenting not a job for the courts

Shaun Rodriguez
Opinion Columnist

Who among us remembers growing up spending hours in the arcades playing Mortal Kombat? Or playing Doom or Duke Nukem 3D for the first time? Those were the golden days of gaming, filled with enough pixilated carnage and simulated death to satisfy any young, adolescent male.

Columbine was one of the first major events in recent history that brought video game violence into the limelight, because the teenage shooters played heavy amounts of violent games, Doom in particular. Senators such as Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., blasted violent games as the corrupters of America's youth; Lieberman himself persuaded the video game industry to develop the ESRB rating system, whose ratings can be found on the front of every game created in the U.S. today. 

The ESRB system is not a legal measure of preventing children from purchasing violent games, though, and there have been grumbles in several states lately about instituting laws that would make the sale of such games illegal to anyone below the age of 17. Illinois recently attempted to pass such a law (and was the first state to do so), that a district court judge struck down last month as being unconstitutional. Other states, such as Michigan, are attempting to follow Illinois' example.

The real question to be asked is this: Does the government have the right to regulate the sale of video games to anyone? Many would argue that video games are protected as free speech under the First Amendment, and as such cannot be regulated. Several courtroom battles have been waged over this, with the game industry on one side and government proponents on the other. 

Time has shown that the courts invariably support the game industry. As long as this precedent continues, game regulation should remain out of state law.

Many states are attempting to pass such laws because many state officials' constituencies are full of of parents demanding them. This begs the question: Why do these parents want the government to regulate the sale of these games when they can simply watch over their own children? This should be part of their jobs as good parents, not an issue to dump on state lawmakers. 

After all, anyone below the age of 16 cannot acquire money easily, usually relying on their parents for cash. If anyone is to blame for the corruption of children, it should be parents and not the development teams behind such innovative games as Grand Theft Auto and Halo (and that's assuming games do have the power to corrupt people). Taxpayers shouldn't have to take care of a problem that parents are too lazy or ignorant to solve on their own.

When the issue of games having power to corrupt is raised, the only good response is, despite what some claim, games themselves cannot corrupt, much like guns cannot kill people without a human hand at the trigger. People who use this defense in a courtroom should try an insanity plea instead; it would be a lot more plausible.

Games are virtual worlds in and of themselves, much like films and books. If someone attempts to hurt another human being on the basis of what happens in a video game, film or book, then something else is obviously wrong with that person. Society and our parents have taught us, as rational beings, to differentiate between what is real and what is not. 

Anyone who cannot do this (and subsequently anyone who kills actual people because it "looked cool" in GTA) has severe mental issues and cannot be used as a representative of every other reasonable person in any reputable courtroom or lawmaking body.

Rodriguez, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at r0cketwhor3@gmail.com.