Comments on: How does SCOTUS define violence?

By: Matt G.

Matt G. — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:11:08 +0000

I agree with the things Warren said. The banning of violent video games shouldn’t happen. Parents should be the ones to decide if their kids can play the games or not. There is no reason for the Supreme Court to get involved in this, they shouldn’t be able decide who can play video games and who can’t. If you can see an R rated movie when your 17yrs. Old why should you have to wait until your 18 to play a violent game. Also ever since video games have became so popular the teen crime rates have gone down. If young kids aren’t playing violent video games then they will most likely still engage in some kind of war behavior. I know when my brothers and I were little we used to play war outside with kids in the neighborhood. We would all have our own guns that made sound effects and we would actually run around acting like we would be killing each other The violent games aren’t a problem for kids, the real problem is the environment that the kids are growing up in. Also the court will have trouble deciding which games are “deviant” violent games and which are just normal violent games.

By: tracye

tracye — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:58:40 +0000

I agree with Warren that the parents of a minor should be in charge of whether their children are exposed to violent video games. Parents have the responsibility to filter everything that their children encounter, they should also be responsible for determining what their child is mature enough to partake in. The tolerance of violence and “too much violence” cannot be determined. Violence is determined by the blood content, gun use, and the overall objective of the game. Whether a child is mature enough to separate reality from fantasy can only be determined by those who raised the child. The Supreme Court should not be responsible for banning violent video games. As Warren mentions, the video game designers know what is appropriate to put into the games. There is no direct link between violence in fantasy and reality. Whether a child becomes actively violent and aggressive may be based on the atmosphere he resides in, which a parents or guardian is also responsible for whether their child is exposed to violence in their neighborhood. The Supreme Court is only responsible for making these neighborhoods safer, which is not going to start with banning violent video games. When considering the current state of the economy, it wouldn’t be logical to limit the sales of a popular merchandise for a reason that has yet to be proven valid.

By: dano

dano — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:30:02 +0000

When dealing with everything else there is certain regulations on who can play the games, the games have a rating system on it to show who the companies intended to be playing this game, if it has a mature rating it should be obvious that it is not appropriate for a nine year old to be playing this game. the same thing goes for movies, if it is rated R your not supposed to see it if you’re under 18, but overall the parents are the ones to decided if it is okay or not. I believe that the video games should fall under the same rules and regulations, the mature games should only be aloud to be sold to adults but if an adult buys the game for a child then it is obvious that they are okay with the kid playing the game. This would require the adults to take responsibility for their child’s actions. The only way you can regulate violent video game sales without ruining the video game economy is to make it so that the Mature games are purchased by Mature adults.

By: DavidMc

DavidMc — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:47:08 +0000

How should “violence” in a video game be defined?
The definition of “violence” in video games should be no different than the definition of the word in any other usage. Any real question about *what* violence is only occurs when debating where a line should be drawn. The question to be asked is the second, “How should “too much violence” be defined?” Violence becomes excessive when it upsets the sensibilities of the people exposed to it. Unfortunately, that’s a completely subjective matter. A person could conceivably find a game about boxing to be “too violent”, whereas another person could be perfectly fine with a game such as Grand Theft Auto. I suppose that it’s possible to stick with a social norm and simply target what the majority deems to be too violent. If that’s the case though, what pool of people should be considered when making games? People that live in urban areas on the coasts generally have different sensibilities than those in the rural midwest. Besides, if people find a game to be too violent or immoral in any way, they’ll avoid purchasing it. The real question is about children, of course, but children don’t necessarily have the final say in what games they can get. As far as the Supreme Court goes, I don’t think that they should further restrict the First Amendment. There is simply no conclusive evidence that supports violent games harming children. If such evidence was to arise, then there would certainly be reason to restrict games. However, that hasn’t happened as of yet. I am 100% in favor of parents being responsible for deciding which video games their children play. There’s always the case of parents being “unable” to monitor what games their children play. That doesn’t make sense to me. If a parent is so concerned about their children playing a violent game that they’re willing to try to pass laws against said games, they’re perfectly capable of knowing what games there kids do and do not get. If they can’t handle simple parenting, then there’s a much greater problem than whatever video game the child decided to play.

By: DevonC

DevonC — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:05:52 +0000

Where I stand on this subject is that violent video games do affect excessive players, now whether it is a good affect or a bad affect I am unsure. I like the statement from this reading saying, “How is “violence” to be defined? What kind of violence would be “too much” violence.” I believe that there is no real way to tell how much is too much and what violence is too violent. I think that the Supreme Court has the right to do whatever they decide that they want to do whether it is to expand the protection over miner against violence or to allow them to purchase these games. I think that parents should not be responsible for deciding which video games their children can play, because parents may think they know what is best but they are human beings and can be wrong. No parent thinks that their children are psychopaths, and may not know they are enhancing their child’s likely hood of harmful acts. Opposed to parents I think the state should be in charge or the Supreme Court.

By: AlyciaB

AlyciaB — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:13:55 +0000

I think that it is up to parents to decide on if the children should be allowed to play the video games. Its the parents place to raise children, and if the parents see fit to allow their children to play violent video games, its their choice. How are violent video games any different then past children playing Soldier or Cops and Robbers. These children are actively playing the part of a Soldier or a bank robber. Yet the government didn’t have a problem with these types of games. But where do the children get the ideas to play the games? Do they get them from the television, do they get them from violent movies, or from a simple fairy tale, as Justices Ginsburg and Kennedy pointed out. If violent video games are banned will it really stop children from playing “violent” games, or seeing violence in the everyday world? A world where wars are brought in to the living room by the nightly news, or where they have a chance (no matter how small) of being hurt walking out side their home. Personally I think that the question isn’t should violent video games be banned, I think the question is how do we protect our children from the violence of the real world? And that’s what the government should be working on, and leave the choice of buying violent video games up to parents.

By: NicolletteG

NicolletteG — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:24:06 +0000

When Warren says he thinks it is appropriate for the parents to make a decision about their children playing video games, I could not agree more. When he says violence varies from one person to the next, I think he is completely right. To one person violence could be a slap in the face, while to others violence could mean killing someone. In my opinion, violent video games act as an alternative to real violence. While researching this issue in class, I came up with many statistics to back up my theory of it being an alternative to real violence. In a study, 45% of boys said they played video games to “get their anger out”, and 62% said they play because it “helps them relax.” I think these games are a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings. If all of these games are taken off the market to kids under the age of 18, the sale of video games will start to decrease. Children under the age of 18 usually are the ones with a lot of free time to play these video games. 18 year old adults and older, are mostly in college fighting to get a college degree, they really aren’t given that much time to worry about video games. The sales will go down, which is one less thing feeding back to our economy. I do agree with Warren that parents should be able to make the call if their children are allowed to play these games or not.

By: nikitac3

nikitac3 — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 01:27:07 +0000

I agree with Warren as to who has the right to decides if children can play violent video games. Parents are there to raise their children. If they choose not to allow their children to play violent video games it’s their decision. But I do not think there is a way to define violence. Everyone’s definitions vary from one another. The idea of how much violence can actually influence a child to behave violently is vague, as nothing has proved to show this kind of behavior even exists. For California to claim that “too much” of violent video games can result in violence is simply unjustifiable. Since there can be no true definition of violence, how can a law be created that has no limit? Some can think “too much” violence is shooting someone in the head, like Warren said, while others could think that is a reward.

By: DanL

DanL — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:03:40 +0000

The fact that this case is even being debated by the Supreme Court is ridiculous. For starters, what is California’s motive for suddenly bringing this before the Supreme Court? I feel that video games by themselves don’t contribute directly to violence in children. More prominent issues, like poverty, family/social issues, and gang activity are more of a factor in violence in young ones than any video game could be. I feel that this case is and attempt to create a “Beast” for people to rally against in combating a serious problem in California instead of addressing more relevant, stronger factors in violence in children. As JoeJ and others have said, it is impossible to quantify violence for the majority because everyone has different views on what is “too much violence”. With this in mind, the case itself would require violence in video games to be quantified, which the Justices on the Supreme Court need clarification on to make an accurate ruling. Seeing as there is no way to quantify a varying opinion, not everyone will agree on what the cutoff point between simply violent and “too much” violence. And even then, how will they calculate this point between games? There are different types of violence in video games, and again, varying opinions on what is too much and what isn’t. In addition, much of the violence in games can’t be imitated. On top of that, whose fault is it that the children think that anything they see in video games is acceptable to do or imitate? Either the parents or guardians aren’t doing their job at all, or the child has preexisting problems mentally and should a.) not be given these games, and b.) be put on medication or in special programs meant to deal with this. The viable solution is to allow the parents to decide what is and isn’t suitable for their children. That way, each parent or guardian, with their opinion on what a suitable level of violence for their child is, can make the decision. I don’t see many eight year olds having the money or means to go and buy violent video games, so it is another person’s decision ultimately.

By: Joe J

Joe J — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:36:57 +0000

In my opinion, the term “violence” in video games refers to, or can be measured by, the amount of exerted injurious physical force depicted by characters or events in the game. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define exactly what is considered “too much violence” because, as Warren stated before, the opinions will vary greatly from person to person based on many factors. These factors (individual experience, environmental circumstances, etc.) would influence the individual’s unique view of what he/she may view as “too violent” because they serve as frames of reference, for relativity purposes. The more important question however, is do violent video games pose a significant health threat to the public? Although a highly debated controversial topic with statistics pointing in both directions, I lean heavily on the side that they do not pose a significant threat to the public. I trust that they are not harmful because there is no proven causal relationship between video game violence, and certain statics actually point to an inverse correlation (video game sales increasing, while teen violence is decreasing). I think people may be oversimplifying problems, trying to hard to compartmentalize acts of violence in the real world into anything easily worth attacking and hence creating scape-goats like video game violence. People are unknowingly falling bias to the availability heuristic (in psychology, the phenomenon in which people can predict the frequency of an event based on how readily available it is in memory), that is people see crimes and acts of aggression on the news constantly with the occasional pointing of the finger at video games; pairing that could skew rational thinking. It may seem a bit ironic for me to blame other media for hyping up video game violence, but I digress. Video games should be protected by our First Amendment right, our freedom of expression and the parents should have the ultimate responsibility for regulating these “violent” forms of entertainment in their households, not the government.