The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals laid the smackdown on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s law restricting the sales and rental of violent video games to minors.  By unanimous vote, the three-judge panel ruled that the law was too restrictive and violates free speech guarantees, upholding the same ruling by the lower courts of California. Bo Andersen, president and chief executive of the Entertainment Merchants Association and Michael Gallagher, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, urged the state to abandon any further appeals of the case, however, state senator Leland Yee, the author of the legislation, said he will urge California Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal the court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Everyone seems to have a lot of urges around here that I’m not sure I want to be a part of.

The law intended to create a new “18″ label for violent video games but the court thought it’s wording on just what constituted a “violent” game was too vague.  All that is nice but what I really want to know is do people actually think it makes that much difference if the kid is 17 or 18?  “AO” rated titles, rated by the ESRB, are basically 18 and up titles and as such if your brand new shooter game earns an “AO” tag you can pretty much kiss your sales goodbye.  On the other hand if you tweak it just enough that an “immature” 17 year old could handle it well then sales a plenty.  Whatever.  All that really means is that some mom somewhere is scared of the phrase “adults only” but isn’t quite smart enough to realize that 17 and up games probably shouldn’t go to her 12 year old either.  Someday they will find a new scapegoat to uselessly throw money at so parents can continue to avoid the responsibility of parenting and I just hope they don’t pick something else I love.

I leave you with the words of Michael Gallagher, “This is a clear signal that in California and across the country, the reckless pursuit of anti-video game legislation like this is an exercise in wasting taxpayer money, government time and state resources.”