Reference no: EM133230220

In the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association case, you are assigned to read, the US Supreme Court struck down a California law banning the sale of certain violent video games to children without parental supervision. In a 7-2 decision (so 7 Justices said the California law was unconstitutional and 2 said the law was constitutional), the Court upheld the lower court decisions and nullified the law; ruling that video games were protected speech under the 1st and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. Specifically, the Court held that "video games qualify for First Amendment protection" and "like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas- and even social messages - through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection."

The Court also stated that while states may pass laws to block obscene / pornographic material from minors "speech about violence is not obscene," and thus California's statute was unlawful.

In Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion (he was 1 of the 2 Justices that voted for the ban), he made a very practical observation in support of the California law. Specifically, he noted that it does not make sense to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a 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 - In short, he was saying that the Supreme Court is being a bit disingenuous by allowing a State to ban the sale of pornographic material to minors, but not allowing a State to ban the sale of violent video games to minors - so a minor is not allowed to have access to a picture / video of a naked woman/man, but that same minor is allowed to see that same women/man beaten, shot, stabbed and raped!

First, state whether or not you agree or disagree with the majority opinion (i.e., that States cannot ban the sale of violent video games to minors and video games should be fully protected by the 1st Amendment), and

Second, in support of your answer, briefly address Justice Breyer's observation that the Brown case/holding basically makes it ok to ban the sale of pornography to minors, but not the sale of violent video games of women/men being brutally murdered/raped.

Do you see a difference between violent video games and pornography like the majority of the Supreme Court Justices, or do you agree with Justice Breyer - that violent video games should be treated like pornography and obscene material?