Supreme Court Justice Scalia will never be mistaken for a geek, but his majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. is worth a read if you have an interest in videogames and 1st Amendment jurisprudence. The ruling strikes down California’s ban on the sale of violent videogames and Scalia makes a compelling, carefully reasoned argument for extending 1st Amendment protections to videogames while affirming that children also enjoy 1st Amendment protections from the state’s paternalistic instincts. He compares the current hand-wringing regarding videogames’ effects on children to previous episodes in American history when dime novels, movies, and comic books all took their turns as punching bags for anyone who feared our nation’s youth stood on the brink of degeneracy. And while Scalia can’t resist making a few of his patented rhetorical flourishes, the decision is free of the unfortunate histrionics that sometimes appear in his opinions (although usually when he’s in the minority).
We also learn that Justices Breyer and Alito are complete buzzkills who will never understand the pleasure of taking down a zombie with a headshot delivered by a double-barreled shotgun.
