Top Court Mulls Video Game Violence

The first day of deliberation in the Supreme Court about that perennial legal favorite, violence in video games, brought debate Tuesday about the potential damage done by minors’ exposure to sex versus violence ... and a Founding Fathers joke from Justice Samuel Alito.

Los Angeles Times:

The justices voted to hear California’s appeal, but they sounded split Tuesday.

Scalia insisted that since the nation’s founding, depictions of sex could be banned, but not depictions of violence and torture.

This drew a mocking rebuke from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who is usually allied with Scalia on the conservative side.

When Scalia pressed the state’s lawyer to explain how the framers of the 1st Amendment would see the issue, Alito interjected: “What Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games.” The remark elicited laughter in the courtroom.

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AP / Max Whittaker

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill in 2005 restricting the sale and rental of violent video games to minors as Sacramento Girl Scouts look on.