Mario Unmuzzled

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down a St. Louis ordinance banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The ruling found that video games "contain stories, imagery, 'age-old themes of literature,' and messages, even an 'ideology,' just as books and movies do."

This is good news, though the challenge to the law covered only violence, not sex, both of which were verboten under the ordinance. This reflects a strange tension in public attitudes about what children need to be "shielded" from. Hacking off limbs? Protected. Whipping out the wrong one? Corrupting the youth; get the hemlock!