Views on Violent Video Games
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court overruled California’s law which restricted the sale of violent video games. This landmark decision means that states can no longer ban the sale or rental of video games, despite the violent content, to children as it is said to be a violation of First Amendment rights laid out in the Constitution. I know many “under-aged” gamers in the States would be overjoyed at this Supreme Court decision but it also brings the issue of violent games back to the surface. Should minors still be shielded from gory content in games? or should they have the freedom to feed their gamenesstivity(I must make it a valid word!) as they please?
To be honest, I see where the ban-the-sale-of-violent-games-to-minors crowd are coming from. There is some solid evidence that such video games can make a child go barbaric. Remember the Columbine massacre in 1999? That was an incident where two high school students decided to turn up one day with guns, shooting 20 people and killing 13. The best part is that they apparently played a lot of violent video games like ”Wolfenstein 3D,” “Doom,” and “Mortal Kombat.” Quite the “fatality” they created. So surely after such occurrences, especially if you were affected somehow by it, you’re going to be skeptical about giving kids freedom to play these brutal games.
Columbine shooters Eric Harris(Left) and Dylan Klebold
In my opinion though, I still say let the children go out and buy all the violent games they want because even if you stop them somehow, best believe they are going to find a way around it and get those games anyway. My own issue is with parents. Most Nigerian children are brought up really well, thanks to “koboko” and belts in many cases, so majority of us have the sense to not go out and attempt to maximise our kill streaks in real life because Call of Duty isn’t satisfying the bloodlust anymore. I’m not trying to bash any parenting style, I’m just saying that parents should imbue their children with enough common sense to understand that violent video games exist so that they can virtually carry some actions they can’t in real life. Also, I wonder why law makers are only concerned with the violence in video games. What about the ones on television? The internet? The war in Iraq and possibly Libya? Why can’t restrictions be put on those instead/as well?
This is just my opinion though and I’m willing to hear yours. If you have any comments please leave them below.
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