Politicians Target Video Games

With Iraq a beacon of safety and freedom and poverty and disease all but a unhappy memory at home, senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have unveiled their plans to have the government step in and make sure children aren’t buying M-rated video games.

We’ll use Variety as our source because I’m shameless like that:

“We are not interested in censoring video (games) meant for adult entertainment, but we do want to ensure that these video (games) are not purchased by minors," Sen. Lieberman said in a statement. Vidgame publishers and retailers responded that education and voluntary enforcement are the only solutions to the problem and noted the irony of the government using ESRB ratings while condemning the industry for not doing enough.

"While we are gratified that (Sen. Clinton) holds the ESRB in such high regard that her bill would give these ratings the force of law," said ESA prexyprexy Doug Lowenstein, "the courts have made clear that giving a private party governmental powers is unconstitutional."

The bill would fine retailers that sell M or AO games to tykes. It would also, according to the senators' summary, authorize an annual analysis to "ensure that the ESRB ratings system accurately reflects the content in each game and that the ratings system does not change significantly over time."

It's a good idea to keep children away from violent video games, but the government should not step in like this.  The bill is an unprecidented governent restrict on a entertainment medium. Let me ask you this, why should a store be forced by law to check the age of a child buying a video game when there is no restriction from that same child from buying an NC-17 movie?  Where is the evidence that video games are somehow more insidious to children than movies, books, television, newspapers, plays and radio?

Is there any evidence that this is a pressing need in our country?  This is another case of politicians riding the wave of a controversy to get a little more spotlight.