Horse Sense

My mom referred to common sense as “horse sense.”  I’m not sure why she called it that, but she did and so whenever someone does something that just doesn’t seem logical I wonder about their “horse sense.”  Today I’m wondering about the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court, wrapping up its current term, has struck down California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to children. A divided court majority said the law violates the Constitution’s guarantee of free expression.  NPR

Even if you don’t let your children or grandchildren play violent video games, what happens when they go home with a friend who does?

Here is a smattering of what they may see.

“In some of these games,” wrote Alito, “the violence is astounding.” He listed an arsenal of weapons used — “machine guns, shotguns, clubs, hammers, axes, swords, and chainsaws” — and details the injuries that players can inflict – “[v]ictims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. They cry out in agony and beg for mercy.”

Alito even provided plot lines for some of the most disturbing games, including re-enacting the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, raping a mother and her daughter, raping Native American women and engaging in ethnic cleansing.

The authors of the constitution could not have known the many different vile and obscene things that would be protected by “freedom of speech.”

Common sense dictates that children (and adults for that matter) who are consistently exposed to violence through video games, movies, and television will become desensitized and more prone to violence. Common sense also says that parents should act as responsible adults and should protect their children from such trash. Unfortunately, there are many parents who don’t do that.

I know that what I am about to say may sound over the top to some of you so you might want to stop reading now.

I believe that our society is on a downhill spiral and I believe that video games, television and movies are largely responsible. If millions of people are exposed to a virus then a percentage of them will contract it. If we keep exposing impressionable children to violence (and other things that children shouldn’t be exposed to) then it follows that a percentage of them will soak up those tendencies.

Can we outlaw everything that children shouldn’t be exposed to? Probably not, but outlawing the sale of video games was a start.