Derek Tremblay
Major Garriott
ERH 102-11
27 March 2017
Why Violence Shouldn’t be Taken Out of Video Games
After numerous school shootings and instances of violence from young people such as Sandy Hook and many others, Congress is looking to pass legislation to limit the amount of violence in video games. While violent video games such as Call of Duty, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Battlefield have been on the rise in popularity with young adults, youth violence has declined in recent years (usnews.com), they do not cause the people who play these games to commit acts of violence. Rather than focusing on video games it would be more useful to control the weapons used to carry out these horrendous acts. The people who do any outrageous acts of violence are mentally ill, and whether or not they play violent video games has no influence on if they commit these acts or not. The current laws and age limit required to buy violent video games should not be limited or taken out because there is no evidence that playing violent video games cause people to act violently, and limiting people’s ability to create video games would be a violation of their right to free speech. Instead the current video games laws banning anyone under the age of 17 to buy a mature rated video game should stay in place.
Video games do not cause anyone to commit mass homicides, the people who do these acts were previously mentally ill and if video games had been banned they would have committed these acts regardless. In a recent study conducted by Christopher J. Ferguson and Cheryl Olsen found “little evidence that violent video games had negative influences on children with pre-existing mental health problems (cnn.com). This research means that the violence in video games has no correlation to the effect the mental state of children, and that it doesn’t cause kids to act how they otherwise normally would. The urge to commit violent acts is a result of being mentally ill rather than what type of video games someone plays. I know many people, myself included, that grew up playing violent video games since grade school like Halo, and Medal of Honor, and it never gave us the urge to go out and mimic the violent acts in real life on real people. People who kill others are born being mentally ill killers, and playing video games does not turn anyone who is normal into killers. Also supporting that video games don’t cause violence are the many cases of people who are not children, such as men over the age of 60, who commit terrible acts and are not in any way influenced by the violence in video games (cnn.com). When lawmakers debate making a restriction on video games they often ignore the facts relating to video games and mass homicides and they just point at the violence in the games, which doesn’t have an effect on the mental health of a person.
If the government were to take away from the people’s ability to make the video games that they want it would be a violation of their free speech granted in the constitution. Video games were declared in 2011 by the Supreme Court to be “entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature” and that “disgust (such as violence) is not a valid basis for restricting expression” (ibls.com). Video games are like books or movies in many ways. “Many have elaborate plots and characters, often drawn from fiction or history” (nytimes.com). Such as book enthusiasts there are video game enthusiasts who sit on the edge of their seats waiting for the next version of the game to come out so they can find out what the fate of their favorite character is. Everyone has the right to enjoy the free creations of others and violence in a game should not be discriminated from violence in a book or movie, or any other form of violence. Video games are a form of free expression (nytimes.com) and proposing a ban on video games based solely on violence would be against the Supreme Court ruling in 2011 and could never happen because it would be a violation of free speech.
The laws regarding video games in the United States are fair in respecting people and their Constitutional rights, and they should remain the same and not be taken away. The current laws for the sale of video games only allow for Mature and Adult Only games to be sold to those 17 and older. This way youths cannot get violent games unless their parents approve of them having these games. Parents have the discretion to whether or not their kids can mentally handle violence and it should be up to them if they allow their kids to play these games. After kids turn 17 or 18 they have fully developed the ability to decipher real life and fantasy. This is the correct age that kids should be allowed to buy video games and it should remain that way.
Lawmakers looking to ban video games because of potential violence from the youth could be barking up the entirely wrong tree. “The average video game player is 35 years old and has been playing for 12 years. Forty percent of gamers are women, and one out of every four gamers is over 50” (usnews.com). Since such a large percentage of gamers aren’t easily influenced youth in grade or middle school the eliminating the violence in video games would most likely not affect the target audience of America’s youth.
Work’s Cited:
“Don’t link video games with mass shootings”, cnn.com, http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/20/opinion/ferguson-video-games/, 20 Sep. 2013
“Internet Law – Violent Video Games are Constitutionally Protected Speech”, ibls.com, http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=2539, accessed on 27 Mar. 2017
“Video Games and Free Speech”, nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06thu3.html, 5 May 2010
