“California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors.”
—Justice Antonin Scalia in the majority opinion on Brown v. EMA
CBLDF is delighted to be celebrating the resounding victory in Brown v. EMA that came with yesterday’s 7-2 Supreme Court decision, a victory that dismantles the same pseudoscience that fueled the attacks on comic books in the 1950s.
Brown v. EMA (formerly Schwarzenegger v. EMA) pertains to a California law that restricted the sale of violent video games to anyone under age 18, citing that violence is harmful to minors. Previous decisions in the case ruled the law unconstitutional under the First Amendment. California appealed these decisions to the Supreme Court.
CBLDF filed an amicus brief on the case, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and a response akin to the moral panic that fomented around comic books during the 1950s. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion both referenced the CBLDF amicus brief and called to mind past concerns over comic books:
Many in the late 1940s and early 1950s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate….But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed.
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