Law banning violent video games blocked

Do you think playing 'Half Life' or 'Quake 3 Arena' will turn your fourteen-year-old into a killer? U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte does not think so. A court order has been issued which nullifies a law that sought to ban retailers from renting or selling violent video games to minors, set to be effective from January 1.

The judge said that the proposed law violates free speech rights provided by the Constitution and that there was not sufficient evidence to suggest that violent video games made the little kids into psychopathic killers.

There has been much debate recently on the effect of violent video games on the minds of children of impressionable age. It has been argued that such games do promote mental imbalance in children who played them for long periods, while the counter argument runs that games reflect only the violence they see in the real world, nothing more. Many of the recently released games do contain extremely violent scenes where players are required to kill or blast off or chop enemies into pieces for gaining valuable points or to advance to the next level.