The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday (June 27th) that states can't ban the sale of violent video games to children, saying it violates free speech rights. The 7-2 vote nullified California's 2005 law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to those under 18. Writing for the majority, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said that while states have legitimate power to protect children from harm, quote, "that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

Dissenting were liberal Justice Stephen Breyer and conservative Clarence Thomas. Breyer argued that it makes no sense to block children from being able to get pornography, but allow them to buy violent video games. He said, "What sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?" However, Scalia said that there's no tradition in the U.S. of banning children's access to depictions of violence, which there is for sexual images.

In a separate dissent, Thomas argued that the Founding Fathers never intended for free speech rights to, quote, "include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians."

California's law never took effect, and courts in six other states struck down similar bans.

QUESTION:

    Do you agree with the court's ruling? Why/Why not?