Minnesota Appeal of "Fine the Buyer" Video Game Law Goes Down

In 2006 the state of Minnesota passed a law that penalized the buyer by charging a $25 fine to kids, not retailers, caught purchasing video games beyond their ESRB rating level. U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum overturned the law after actually playing several violent video games on his law clerk’s Xbox.

Unsatisfied, Minnesota appealed the ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit. After hearing the case, the 8th Circuit has upheld judge Rosenbaum’s decision ruling that the “penalize the buyer” law was unconstitutional.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune had this to report about the ruling:

While the judges upheld Rosenbaum’s ruling that violent games are entitled to First Amendment protections, they did so reluctantly.

[Judge] Wollman wrote that “whatever our intuitive (dare we say commonsense) feelings regarding the effect that extreme violence portrayed in the above-described video games may well have upon the psychological well-being of minors,” precedent requires incontrovertible proof of a causal relationship between exposure to the games and some psychological harm.

The state failed to meet that burden, Wollman wrote… “Indeed, a good deal of the Bible portrays scenes of violence, and one would be hard-pressed to hold up as a proper role model the regicidal Macbeth,” Wollman wrote.

According to GamePolitics, the reluctance to uphold the ruling is unsurprising. Debate over this bill has been heated and produced some memorable quotes.

Bill sponsor Rep. Sandy Pappas (D) actually said:

Legislators don’t worry too much about what’s constitutional.

Mike Hatch (D) serving as Attorney General at the time expressed the opinion that violent games are a form of speech:

Worthless, disgusting speech… speech of very low societal value.

These opinions are both unimaginative and unsurprising. I’ve got to wonder if either of these politicians have even bothered to try out any mature rated video games. It’s a good thing we have a system of checks and balances in our government and a judicial branch that tempers our “representatives. ”

http://news.filefront.com/category/gamer-life/game-related-laws/