OPINION OF THE COURT BROWN V. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSN. 564 U. S. ____ (2011) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 08-1448 EDMUND G. BROWN, Jr., GOVERNOR OF CAL- IFORNIA,
et al., PETITIONERS v. ENTERTAIN- MENT MERCHANTS
ASSOCIATION et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 27, 2011]

															   Justice Scalia delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   We consider whether a California
law imposing restrictions on violent video games comports with the
First Amendment.

															I

															   California Assembly Bill 1179
(2005), Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§1746–1746.5 (West 2009) (Act),
prohibits the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors,
and requires their packaging to be labeled “18.” The Act covers
games “in which the range of options available to a player includes
killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of
a human being, if those acts are depicted” in a manner that “[a]
reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find
appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,” that is
“patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to
what is suitable for minors,” and that “causes the game, as a
whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific
value for minors.” §1746(d)(1)(A). Violation of the Act is
punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000. §1746.3.

															   Respondents, representing the
video-game and software industries, brought a preenforcement
challenge to the Act in the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California. That court concluded that the Act
violated the First Amendment and permanently enjoined its
enforcement. Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger , No. C–05–04188 RMW (2007), App. to Pet.
for Cert. 39a. The Court of Appeals affirmed, Video Software
Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger , 556 F. 3d 950
(CA9 2009), and we granted certiorari, 559 U. S. ____ (2010).

															II

															   California correctly acknowledges
that video games qualify for First Amendment protection. The Free
Speech Clause exists principally to protect discourse on public
matters, but we have long recognized that it is difficult to
distinguish politics from entertainment, and dangerous to try.
“Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction.
What is one man’s amusement, teaches another’s doctrine.” Winters v. New York , 333 U. S. 507 , 510 (1948). Like the
protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games
communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar
literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music)
and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the
player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to
confer First Amendment protection. Under our Constitution,
“esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature … are for
the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with
the mandate or approval of a majority.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. , 529 U. S. 803 , 818
(2000). And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to
ever-advancing technology, “the basic principles of freedom of
speech and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do not
vary” when a new and different medium for communication appears. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson , 343 U. S. 495 , 503
(1952).

															   The most basic of those
principles is this: “[A]s a general matter, … government has no
power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its
subject matter, or its content.” Ashcroft v. American
Civil Liberties Union , 535 U. S. 564 , 573
(2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). There are of course
exceptions. “ ‘From 1791 to the present,’ … the First
Amendment has ‘permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in
a few limited areas,’ and has never ‘include[d] a freedom to
disregard these traditional limitations.’ ” United
States v. Stevens , 559 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip
op., at 5) (quoting R. A. V. v. St.
Paul , 505 U. S.
377 , 382–383 (1992)). These limited areas—such as obscenity, Roth v. United States , 354 U. S. 476 , 483
(1957), incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio , 395 U. S. 444 , 447–449
(1969) (per curiam) , and fighting words, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire , 315 U. S. 568 , 572
(1942)—represent “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of
speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been
thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” id. , at
571–572.

															   Last Term, in Stevens , we held that
new categories of unprotected speech may not be added to the list
by a legislature that concludes certain speech is too harmful to be
tolerated. Stevens concerned a federal statute purporting
to criminalize the creation, sale, or possession of certain
depictions of animal cruelty. See 18 U. S. C. §48 (amended
2010). The statute covered depictions “in which a living animal is
intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed” if
that harm to the animal was illegal where the “the creation, sale,
or possession t[ook] place,” §48(c)(1). A saving clause largely
borrowed from our obscenity jurisprudence, see Miller v. California , 413 U. S. 15 , 24 (1973),
exempted depictions with “serious religious, political, scientific,
educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value,” §48(b).
We held that statute to be an impermissible content-based
restriction on speech. There was no American tradition of
forbidding the depiction of animal cruelty—though States
have long had laws against committing it.

															   The Government argued in Stevens that
lack of a historical warrant did not matter; that it could create
new categories of unprotected speech by applying a “simple
balancing test” that weighs the value of a particular category of
speech against its social costs and then punishes that category of
speech if it fails the test. Stevens , 559 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 7). We emphatically rejected that “startling and
dangerous” proposition. Ibid. “Maybe there are some
categories of speech that have been historically unprotected, but
have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in
our case law.” Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 9). But without
persuasive evidence that a novel restriction on content is part of
a long (if heretofore unrecognized) tradition of proscription, a
legislature may not revise the “judgment [of] the American people,”
embodied in the First Amendment, “that the benefits of its
restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs.” Id. ,
at ___ (slip op., at 7).

															   That holding controls this case.[ Footnote 1 ] As in Stevens ,
California has tried to make violent-speech regulation look like
obscenity regulation by appending a saving clause required for the
latter. That does not suffice. Our cases have been clear that the
obscenity exception to the First Amendment does not cover whatever
a legislature finds shocking, but only depictions of “sexual
conduct,” Miller , supra, at 24. See also Cohen v. California , 403 U. S. 15 , 20 (1971); Roth , supra, at 487, and n. 20. Stevens was not the first time we
have encountered and rejected a State’s attempt to shoehorn speech
about violence into obscenity. In Winters , we considered a
New York criminal statute “forbid[ding] the massing of stories of
bloodshed and lust in such a way as to incite to crime against the
person,” 333 U. S., at 514. The New York Court of Appeals upheld
the provision as a law against obscenity. “[T]here can be no more
precise test of written indecency or obscenity,” it said, “than the
continuing and changeable experience of the community as to what
types of books are likely to bring about the corruption of public
morals or other analogous injury to the public order. ” Id. , at 514 (internal quotation marks omitted). That is of
course the same expansive view of governmental power to abridge the
freedom of speech based on interest-balancing that we rejected in Stevens . Our opinion in Winters , which concluded
that the New York statute failed a heightened vagueness standard
applicable to restrictions upon speech entitled to First Amendment
protection, 333 U. S., at 517–519, made clear that violence is not
part of the obscenity that the Constitution permits to be
regulated. The speech reached by the statute contained “no
indecency or obscenity in any sense heretofore known to the law.” Id. , at 519.

															   Because speech about violence is not obscene,
it is of no consequence that California’s statute mimics the New
York statute regulating obscenity-for-minors that we upheld in Ginsberg v. New York , 390 U. S. 629 (1968).
That case approved a prohibition on the sale to minors of sexual material that would be obscene from the perspective
of a child.[ Footnote 2 ] We held
that the legislature could “adjus[t] the definition of obscenity
‘to social realities by permitting the appeal of this type of
material to be assessed in terms of the sexual interests …’ of …
minors. ” Id. , at 638 (quoting Mishkin v. New York , 383 U. S. 502 , 509
(1966)). And because “obscenity is not protected expression,” the
New York statute could be sustained so long as the legislature’s
judgment that the proscribed materials were harmful to children
“was not irrational.” 390 U. S., at 641.

															   The California Act is something else entirely.
It does not adjust the boundaries of an existing category of
unprotected speech to ensure that a definition designed for adults
is not uncritically applied to children. California does not argue
that it is empowered to prohibit selling offensively violent works to adults —and it is wise not to, since that is but a
hair’s breadth from the argument rejected in Stevens .
Instead, it wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based
regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at
children.

															   That is unprecedented and mistaken. “[M]inors
are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment
protection, and only in relatively narrow and well-defined
circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected
materials to them.” Erznoznik v. Jacksonville , 422 U. S. 205 ,
212–213 (1975) (citation omitted). No doubt a State possesses
legitimate power to protect children from harm, Ginsberg , supra , at 640–641; Prince v. Massachusetts , 321 U. S. 158 , 165
(1944), but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict
the ideas to which children may be exposed. “Speech that is neither
obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate
proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from
ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for
them.” Erznoznik , supra, at 213–214.[ Footnote 3 ]

															   California’s argument would fare better if
there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially
restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there
is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or
read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just
deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made
to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a
sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm
Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have
their eyes pecked out by doves. Id. , at 95. And Hansel and
Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id. , at 54.

															   High-school reading lists are full of similar
fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding
out his eye with a heated stake. The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p.
125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transls. 1909) (“Even so did we seize
the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the
blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame
singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye
burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”). In the
Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to
stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they be
skewered by devils above the surface. Canto XXI, pp. 187–189 (A.
Mandelbaum transl. Bantam Classic ed. 1982). And Golding’s Lord of
the Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely
murdered by other children while marooned on an island. W.
Golding, Lord of the Flies 208–209 (1997 ed.).[ Footnote 4 ]

															   This is not to say that minors’ consumption of
violent entertainment has never encountered resistance. In the
1800’s, dime novels depicting crime and “penny dreadfuls” (named
for their price and content) were blamed in some quarters for
juvenile delinquency. See Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus
Curiae 6–7. When motion pictures came along, they became the
villains instead. “The days when the police looked upon dime novels
as the most dangerous of textbooks in the school for crime are
drawing to a close… . They say that the moving picture machine
… tends even more than did the dime novel to turn the thoughts of
the easily influenced to paths which sometimes lead to prison.”
Moving Pictures as Helps to Crime, N. Y. Times, Feb. 21, 1909,
quoted in Brief for Cato Institute, at 8. For a time, our Court did
permit broad censorship of movies because of their capacity to be
“used for evil,” see Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial
Comm’n of Ohio , 236 U. S. 230 , 242
(1915), but we eventually reversed course, Joseph Burstyn,
Inc. , 343 U. S., at 502; see also Erznoznik , supra, at 212–214 (invalidating a drive-in movies
restriction designed to protect children). Radio dramas were next,
and then came comic books. Brief for Cato Institute, at 10–11. Many
in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s blamed comic books for
fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the
young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate. See Note,
Regulation of Comic Books, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 489, 490 (1955).
But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed.
Brief for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as Amicus Curiae 11–15.[ Footnote 5 ] And, of
course, after comic books came television and music lyrics.

															   California claims that video games present
special problems because they are “interactive,” in that the player
participates in the violent action on screen and determines its
outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Since at least the
publication of The Adventures of You: Sugarcane Island in 1969,
young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able
to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions
about which page to turn to. Cf. Interactive Digital Software
Assn. v. St. Louis County, 329 F. 3d 954,
957–958 (CA8 2003). As for the argument that video games enable
participation in the violent action, that seems to us more a matter
of degree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all
literature is interactive. “[T]he better it is, the more
interactive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into
the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to
judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and
sufferings as the reader’s own.” American Amusement Machine
Assn. v. Kendrick , 244 F. 3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001)
(striking down a similar restriction on violent video games).

															   Justice Alito has done considerable
independent re-search to identify, see post , at 14–15, nn.
13–18, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post , at 14. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated,
disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. . . .
Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. Justice Alito recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust
us—but disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. And
the same is true of Justice Alito’s description, post , at
14–15, of those video games he has discovered that have a racial or
ethnic motive for their violence—“ ‘ethnic cleansing’ [of] . .
. African Americans, Latinos, or Jews.” To what end does he relate
this? Does it somehow increase the “aggressiveness” that California
wishes to suppress? Who knows? But it does arouse the reader’s ire,
and the reader’s desire to put an end to this horrible message.
Thus, ironically, Justice Alito’s argument highlights the precise
danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech—whether it be violence, or gore, or racism—and
not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental
proscription.

															III

															   Because the Act imposes a
restriction on the content of protected speech, it is invalid
unless California can demonstrate that it passes strict
scrutiny—that is, unless it is justified by a compelling government
interest and is narrowly drawn to serve that interest. R. A. V. , 505 U. S., at 395. The State must
specifically identify an “actual problem” in need of solving, Playboy , 529 U. S., at 822–823, and the curtailment of
free speech must be actually necessary to the solution, see R.
A. V. , supra, at 395. That is a demanding standard.
“It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its
content will ever be permissible.” Playboy , supra, at 818.

															   California cannot meet that
standard. At the outset, it acknowledges that it cannot show a
direct causal link between violent video games and harm to minors.
Rather, relying upon our decision in Turner Broadcasting
System, Inc. v. FCC , 512 U. S. 622 (1994),
the State claims that it need not produce such proof because the
legislature can make a predictive judgment that such a link exists,
based on competing psychological studies. But reliance on Turner Broadcasting is misplaced. That decision applied intermediate scrutiny to a content-neutral regulation. Id. , at 661–662. California’s burden is much higher, and
because it bears the risk of uncertainty, see Playboy , supra, at 816–817, ambiguous proof will not suffice.

															   The State’s evidence is not compelling.
California relies primarily on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson
and a few other research psychologists whose studies purport to
show a connection between exposure to violent video games and
harmful effects on children. These studies have been rejected by
every court to consider them,[ Footnote 6 ] and with good reason: They do not prove that
violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead,
“[n]early all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence
of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant,
admitted flaws in methodology.” Video Software Dealers
Assn. 556 F. 3d, at 964. They show at best some
correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule
real-world effects, such as children’s feeling more aggressive or
making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent
game than after playing a nonviolent game.[ Footnote 7 ]

															   Even taking for granted Dr. Anderson’s
conclusions that violent video games produce some effect on
children’s feelings of aggression, those effects are both small and
indistinguishable from effects produced by other media. In his
testimony in a similar lawsuit, Dr. Anderson admitted that the
“effect sizes” of children’s exposure to violent video games are
“about the same” as that produced by their exposure to violence on
television. App. 1263. And he admits that the same effects
have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or
the Road Runner, id., at 1304, or when they play video
games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated “E” (appropriate for
all ages), id., at 1270, or even when they “vie[w] a
picture of a gun,” id., at 1315–1316.[ Footnote 8 ]

															   Of course, California has (wisely) declined to
restrict Saturday morning cartoons, the sale of games rated for
young children, or the distribution of pictures of guns. The
consequence is that its regulation is wildly underinclusive when
judged against its asserted justification, which in our view is
alone enough to defeat it. Underinclusiveness raises serious doubts
about whether the government is in fact pursuing the interest it
invokes, rather than disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint.
See City of Ladue v. Gilleo , 512 U. S. 43 , 51 (1994); Florida Star v. B. J. F. , 491 U. S. 524 , 540
(1989). Here, California has singled out the purveyors of video
games for disfavored treatment—at least when compared to
booksellers, cartoonists, and movie producers—and has given no
persuasive reason why.

															   The Act is also seriously underinclusive in
another respect—and a respect that renders irrelevant the
contentions of the concurrence and the dissents that video games
are qualitatively different from other portrayals of violence. The
California Legislature is perfectly willing to leave this
dangerous, mind-altering material in the hands of children so long
as one parent (or even an aunt or uncle) says it’s OK. And there
are not even any requirements as to how this parental or avuncular
relationship is to be verified; apparently the child’s or putative
parent’s, aunt’s, or uncle’s say-so suffices. That is not how one
addresses a serious social problem.

															   California claims that the Act is justified in
aid of parental authority: By requiring that the purchase of
violent video games can be made only by adults, the Act ensures
that parents can decide what games are appropriate. At the outset,
we note our doubts that punishing third parties for conveying
protected speech to children just in case their parents
disapprove of that speech is a proper governmental means of aiding
parental authority. Accepting that position would largely vitiate
the rule that “only in relatively narrow and well-defined
circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected
materials to [minors].” Erznoznik , 422 U. S., at
212–213.

															   But leaving that aside, California cannot show
that the Act’s restrictions meet a substantial need of parents who
wish to restrict their children’s access to violent video games but
cannot do so. The video-game industry has in place a voluntary
rating system designed to inform consumers about the content of
games. The system, implemented by the Entertainment Software Rating
Board (ESRB), assigns age-specific ratings to each video game
submitted: EC (Early Childhood); E (Everyone); E10+ (Everyone 10
and older); T (Teens); M (17 and older); and AO (Adults Only—18 and
older). App. 86. The Video Software Dealers Association encourages
retailers to prominently display information about the ESRB system
in their stores; to refrain from renting or selling adults-only
games to minors; and to rent or sell “M” rated games to minors only
with parental consent. Id., at 47. In 2009, the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) found that, as a result of this system, “the
video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries” in
“(1) restricting target-marketing of mature-rated products to
children; (2) clearly and prominently disclosing rating
information; and (3) re-stricting children’s access to mature-rated
products at retail.” FTC, Report to Congress, Marketing Violent
Entertainment to Children 30 (Dec. 2009), online at http://
www.ftc.gov / os/ 2009 / 12/ P994511violententertainment.pdf
(as visited June 24, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case
file) (FTC Report). This system does much to ensure that minors
cannot purchase seriously violent games on their own, and that
parents who care about the matter can readily evaluate the games
their children bring home. Filling the remaining modest gap in
concerned-parents’ control can hardly be a compelling state
interest.[ Footnote 9 ]

															   And finally, the Act’s purported aid to
parental authority is vastly overinclusive. Not all of the children
who are forbidden to purchase violent video games on their own have
parents who care whether they purchase violent video
games. While some of the legislation’s effect may indeed be in
support of what some parents of the restricted children actually
want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks
parents ought to want. This is not the narrow tailoring to
“assisting parents” that restriction of First Amendment rights
requires.

															*  *  *

															   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. While
we have pointed out above that some of the evidence brought forward
to support the harmfulness of video games is unpersuasive, we do
not mean to demean or disparage the concerns that underlie the
attempt to regulate them—concerns that may and doubtless do prompt
a good deal of parental oversight. We have no business passing
judgment on the view of the California Legislature that violent
video games (or, for that matter, any other forms of speech)
corrupt the young or harm their moral development. Our task is only
to say whether or not such works constitute a “well-defined and
narrowly limited clas[s] of speech, the prevention and punishment
of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional
problem,” Chaplinsky , 315 U. S., at 571–572 (the answer
plainly is no); and if not, whether the regulation of such works is
justified by that high degree of necessity we have described as a
compelling state interest (it is not). Even where the protection of
children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental
action apply.

															   California’s legislation
straddles the fence between (1) addressing a serious social problem
and (2) helping concerned parents control their children. Both ends
are legitimate, but when they affect First Amendment rights they
must be pursued by means that are neither seriously underinclusive
nor seriously overinclusive. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye,
Inc. v. Hialeah , 508 U. S. 520 , 546
(1993). As a means of protecting children from portrayals of
violence, the legislation is seriously underinclusive, not only
because it excludes portrayals other than video games, but also
because it permits a parental or avuncular veto. And as a means of
assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because
it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose
parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a
harmless pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not
cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such
as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict
scrutiny.

															   We affirm the judgment below.

															It is so ordered. Footnote 1 Justice Alito distinguishes Stevens on several grounds that seem to us ill founded. He suggests, post , at 10 (opinion concurring in judgment), that Stevens did not apply strict scrutiny. If that is so (and
we doubt it), it would make this an a fortiori case. He
says, post , at 9, 10, that the California Act punishes the
sale or rental rather than the “creation” or “possession” of
violent depictions. That distinction appears nowhere in Stevens itself, and for good reason: It would make
permissible the prohibition of printing or selling books—though not
the writing of them. Whether government regulation applies to
creating, distributing, or consuming speech makes no difference.
And finally, Justice Alito points out, post , at 10, that Stevens “left open the possibility that a more narrowly
drawn statute” would be constitutional. True, but entirely
irrelevant. Stevens said, 559 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
19), that the “crush-video” statute at issue there might pass
muster if it were limited to videos of acts of animal cruelty that
violated the law where the acts were performed. There is no
contention that any of the virtual characters depicted in the
imaginative videos at issue here are criminally liable. Footnote 2 The statute in Ginsberg restricted
the sale of certain depictions of “nudity, sexual conduct, sexual
excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse,” that were “ ‘[h]armful
to minors.’ ” A depiction was harmful to minors if it:

															   “(i) predominantly appeals to the prurient,
shameful or morbid interests of minors, and

															   “(ii) is patently offensive to prevailing
standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is
suitable material for minors, and

															   “(iii) is utterly without redeeming social
importance for minors.” 390 U. S., at 646 (Appendix A to opinion of
the Court) (quoting N. Y. Penal Law §484–h(1)(f)). Footnote 3 Justice Thomas ignores the holding of Erznoznik , and denies that persons under 18 have any
constitutional right to speak or be spoken to without their
parents’ consent. He cites no case, state or federal, supporting
this view, and to our knowledge there is none. Most of his dissent
is devoted to the proposition that parents have traditionally had
the power to control what their children hear and say. This is true
enough. And it perhaps follows from this that the state has the
power to enforce parental prohibitions—to require, for
example, that the promoters of a rock concert exclude those minors
whose parents have advised the promoters that their children are
forbidden to attend. But it does not follow that the state has the
power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent . The latter would
mean, for example, that it could be made criminal to admit persons
under 18 to a political rally without their parents’ prior written
consent—even a political rally in support of laws against corporal
punishment of children, or laws in favor of greater rights for
minors. And what is good for First Amendment rights of speech must
be good for First Amendment rights of religion as well: It could be
made criminal to admit a person under 18 to church, or to give a
person under 18 a religious tract, without his parents’ prior
consent. Our point is not, as Justice Thomas believes, post , at 16, n. 2, merely that such laws are
“undesirable.” They are obviously an infringement upon the
religious freedom of young people and those who wish to proselytize
young people. Such laws do not enforce parental authority
over children’s speech and religion; they impose governmental authority, subject only to a parental veto.
In the absence of any precedent for state control, uninvited by the
parents, over a child’s speech and religion (Justice Thomas cites
none), and in the absence of any justification for such control
that would satisfy strict scrutiny, those laws must be
unconstitutional. This argument is not, as Justice Thomas asserts,
“circular,” ibid. It is the absence of any historical
warrant or compelling justification for such restrictions, not our ipse dixit , that renders them invalid. Footnote 4 Justice Alito accuses us of pronouncing that
playing violent video games “is not different in ‘kind’ ” from
reading violent literature. Post , at 2. Well of course it
is different in kind, but not in a way that causes the provision
and viewing of violent video games, unlike the provision and
reading of books, not to be expressive activity and hence not to
enjoy First Amendment protection. Reading Dante is unquestionably
more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal
Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violent video games, tawdry
TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of
speech than The Divine Comedy, and restrictions upon them must
survive strict scrutiny—a question to which we devote our attention
in Part III, infra. Even if we can see in them “nothing of
any possible value to society . . . , they are as much entitled to
the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” Winters v. New York , 333 U. S. 507 , 510 (1948). Footnote 5 The crusade against comic books was led by a
psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, who told the Senate Judiciary
Committee that “as long as the crime comic books industry exists in
its present forms there are no secure homes.” Juvenile Delinquency
(Comic Books): Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate
Juvenile Delinquency, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 84 (1954). Wertham’s
objections extended even to Superman comics, which he described as
“particularly injurious to the ethical development of children.” Id. , at 86. Wertham’s crusade did convince the New York
Legislature to pass a ban on the sale of certain comic books to
minors, but it was vetoed by Governor Thomas Dewey on the ground
that it was unconstitutional given our opinion in Winters,
supra. See People v. Bookcase, Inc. , 14
N. Y. 2d 409, 412–413, 201 N. E. 2d 14, 15–16 (1964). Footnote 6 See Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F. 3d 950, 963–964 (CA9 2009); Interactive Digital Software Assn. v. St. Louis
County, 329 F. 3d 954 (CA8 2003); American Amusement
Machine Assn. v. Kendrick , 244 F. 3d 572,
578–579 (CA7 2001); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Foti , 451 F. Supp. 2d 823, 832–833 (MD La. 2006); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Hatch , 443 F.
Supp. 2d 1065, 1070 (Minn. 2006), aff ’d, 519 F. 3d 768 (CA8
2008); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Granholm ,
426 F. Supp. 2d 646, 653 (ED Mich. 2006); Entertainment
Software Assn. v. Blagojevich , 404 F. Supp. 2d
1051, 1063 (ND Ill. 2005), aff ’d, 469 F. 3d 641 (CA7
2006). Footnote 7 One study, for example, found that children
who had just finished playing violent video games were more likely
to fill in the blank letter in “explo_e” with a “d” (so that it
reads “explode”) than with an “r” (“explore”). App. 496, 506
(internal quotation marks omitted). The prevention of this
phenomenon, which might have been anticipated with common sense, is
not a compelling state interest. Footnote 8 Justice Alito is mistaken in thinking that we fail
to take account of “new and rapidly evolving technology,” post , at 1. The studies in question pertain to that new
and rapidly evolving technology, and fail to show, with the degree
of certitude that strict scrutiny requires, that this
subject-matter restriction on speech is justified. Nor is Justice
Alito correct in attributing to us the view that “violent video
games really present no serious problem.” Post , at 2.
Perhaps they do present a problem, and perhaps none of us would
allow our own children to play them. But there are all sorts of
“problems”—some of them surely more serious than this one—that
cannot be addressed by governmental restriction of free expression:
for example, the problem of encouraging anti-Semitism ( National
Socialist Party of America v. Skokie , 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam) ), the problem of spreading a political
philosophy hostile to the Constitution ( Noto v. United
States , 367 U.
S. 290 (1961)), or the problem of encouraging disrespect for
the Nation’s flag ( Texas v. Johnson , 491 U. S. 397 (1989)).

															   Justice Breyer would hold that California has
satisfied strict scrutiny based upon his own research into the
issue of the harmfulness of violent video games. See post ,
at 20–35 (Appendixes to dissenting opinion) (listing competing
academic articles discussing the harmfulness vel non of
violent video games). The vast preponderance of this research is
outside the record—and in any event we do not see how it could lead
to Justice Breyer’s conclusion, since he admits he cannot say
whether the studies on his side are right or wrong. Post ,
at 15. Similarly, Justice Alito says he is not “sure” whether there
are any constitutionally dispositive differences between video
games and other media. Post , at 2. If that is so, then
strict scrutiny plainly has not been satisfied. Footnote 9 Justice Breyer concludes that the remaining
gap is compelling because, according to the FTC’s report, some “20%
of those under 17 are still able to buy M-rated games.” Post , at 18 (citing FTC Report 28). But some gap in
compliance is unavoidable. The sale of alcohol to minors, for
example, has long been illegal, but a 2005 study suggests that
about 18% of retailers still sell alcohol to those under the
drinking age. Brief for State of Rhode Island et al . as Amici Curiae 18. Even if the sale of violent video
games to minors could be deterred further by increasing regulation,
the government does not have a compelling interest in each marginal
percentage point by which its goals are advanced. ALITO, J., CONCURRING IN JUDGMENT BROWN V. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSN. 564 U. S. ____ (2011) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 08-1448 EDMUND G. BROWN, Jr., GOVERNOR OF CAL- IFORNIA,
et al., PETITIONERS v. ENTERTAIN- MENT MERCHANTS
ASSOCIATION et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 27, 2011]

															   Justice Alito, with whom The
Chief Justice joins, concurring in the judgment.

															   The California statute that is
before us in this case represents a pioneering effort to address
what the state legislature and others regard as a potentially
serious social problem: the effect of exceptionally violent video
games on impressionable minors, who often spend countless hours
immersed in the alternative worlds that these games create.
Although the California statute is well intentioned, its terms are
not framed with the precision that the Constitution demands, and I
therefore agree with the Court that this particular law cannot be
sustained.

															   I disagree, however, with the approach taken
in the Court’s opinion. In considering the application of
unchanging constitutional principles to new and rapidly evolving
technology, this Court should proceed with caution. We should make
every effort to understand the new technology. We should take into
account the possibility that developing technology may have
important societal implications that will become apparent only with
time. We should not jump to the conclusion that new technology is
fundamentally the same as some older thing with which we are
familiar. And we should not hastily dismiss the judgment of
legislators, who may be in a better position than we are to assess
the implications of new technology. The opinion of the Court
exhibits none of this caution.

															   In the view of the Court, all those concerned
about the effects of violent video games—federal and state
legislators, educators, social scientists, and parents—are unduly
fearful, for violent video games really present no serious problem.
See ante , at 10–13, 15–16. Spending hour upon hour
controlling the actions of a character who guns down scores of
innocent victims is not different in “kind” from reading a
description of violence in a work of literature. See ante ,
at 10–11.

															   The Court is sure of this; I am not. There are
reasons to suspect that the experience of playing violent video
games just might be very different from reading a book, listening
to the radio, or watching a movie or a television show.

															I

															   Respondents in this case,
representing the video-game industry, ask us to strike down the
California law on two grounds: The broad ground adopted by the
Court and the narrower ground that the law’s definition of “violent
video game,” see Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §1746(d)(1)(A) (West 2009), is
impermissibly vague. See Brief for Respondents 23–61. Because I
agree with the latter argument, I see no need to reach the broader
First Amendment issues addressed by the Court.[ Footnote 1 ]

															A

															   Due process requires that laws
give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is
prohibited. Grayned v. City of Rockford , 408 U. S. 104 , 108
(1972). The lack of such notice in a law that regulates expression
“raises special First Amendment concerns because of its obvious
chilling effect on free speech.” Reno v. American
Civil Liberties Union , 521 U. S. 844 , 871–872
(1997). Vague laws force potential speakers to “ ‘steer far
wider of the unlawful zone’ … than if the boundaries of the
forbidden areas were clearly marked.” Baggett v. Bullitt , 377 U. S. 360 , 372
(1964) (quoting Speiser v. Randall , 357 U. S. 513 , 526
(1958)). While “perfect clarity and precise guidance have never
been required even of regulations that restrict expressive
activity,” Ward v. Rock Against Racism , 491 U. S. 781 , 794
(1989), “government may regulate in the area” of First Amendment
freedoms “only with narrow specificity,” NAACP v. Button , 371
U. S. 415 , 433 (1963); see also Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. , 455 U. S. 489 , 499
(1982). These principles apply to laws that regulate expression for
the purpose of protecting children. See Interstate Circuit,
Inc. v. Dallas , 390 U. S. 676 , 689
(1968).

															   Here, the California law does not
define “violent video games” with the “narrow specificity” that the
Constitution demands. In an effort to avoid First Amendment
problems, the California Legislature modeled its violent video game
statute on the New York law that this Court upheld in Ginsberg v. New York , 390 U. S. 629 (1968)—a law that
prohibited the sale of certain sexually related materials to
minors, see id. , at 631–633. But the California
Legislature departed from the Ginsberg model in an
important respect, and the legislature overlooked important
differences between the materials falling within the scope of the
two statutes.

															B

															   The law at issue in Ginsberg prohibited the sale to minors of materials that
were deemed “harmful to minors,” and the law defined “harmful to
minors” simply by adding the words “for minors” to each element of
the definition of obscenity set out in what were then the Court’s
leading obscenity decisions, see Roth v. United
States , 354 U.
S. 476 (1957), and Book Named “John Cleland’s Memoirs of a
Woman of Pleasure” v. Attorney General of Mass. , 383 U. S. 413 (1966).

															   Seeking to bring its violent
video game law within the protection of Ginsberg , the
California Legislature began with the obscenity test adopted in Miller v. California , 413 U. S. 15 (1973), a
decision that revised the obscenity tests previously set out in Roth and Memoirs . The legislature then made
certain modifications to accommodate the aim of the violent video
game law.

															   Under Miller , an obscenity statute
must contain a thresh-old limitation that restricts the statute’s
scope to specifically described “hard core” materials. See 413 U.
S., at 23–25, 27. Materials that fall within this “hard core”
category may be deemed to be obscene if three additional
requirements are met:

															(1) an “average person, applying contemporary community
standards [must] find … the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the
prurient interest”;

															(2) “the work [must] depic[t] or describ[e], in a patently
offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the
applicable state law; and”

															(3) “the work, taken as a whole, [must] lac[k] serious literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value.” Id. , at 24
(internal quotation marks omitted).

															   Adapting these standards, the
California law imposes the following threshold limitation: “[T]he
range of options available to a player [must] includ[e] killing,
maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human
being.” §1746(d)(1). Any video game that meets this threshold test
is subject to the law’s restrictions if it also satisfies three
further requirements:

															   “(i) A reasonable person, considering the game
as a whole, would find [the game] appeals to a deviant or morbid
interest of minors.

															   “(ii) It is patently offensive to prevailing
standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.

															   “(iii) It causes the game, as a whole, to lack
serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for
minors.” §1746(d)(1)(A).[ Footnote
2 ]

															C

															   The first important difference
between the Ginsberg law and the California violent video
game statute concerns their respective threshold requirements. As
noted, the Ginsberg law built upon the test for adult
obscenity, and the current adult obscenity test, which was set out
in Miller, requires an obscenity statute to contain a
threshold limitation that restricts the statute’s coverage to
specifically defined “hard core” depictions. See 413 U. S., at
23–25, 27. The Miller Court gave as an example a statute
that applies to only “[p]atently offensive representations or
descriptions of ultimate sexual acts,” “masturbation, excretory
functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.” Id ., at
25. The Miller Court clearly viewed this threshold
limitation as serving a vital notice function. “We are satisfied,”
the Court wrote, “that these specific prerequisites will provide
fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and
commercial activities may bring prosecution.” Id. , at 27;
see also Reno , supra , at 873 (observing that Miller ’s threshold limitation “reduces the vagueness
inherent in the open-ended term ‘patently
offensive’ ”).[ Footnote
3 ]

															   By contrast, the threshold
requirement of the California law does not perform the narrowing
function served by the limitation in Miller . At least when Miller was decided, depictions of “hard core” sexual
conduct were not a common feature of mainstream entertainment. But
nothing similar can be said about much of the conduct covered by
the California law. It provides that a video game cannot qualify as
“violent” unless “the range of options available to a player
includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an
image of a human being . ” §1746(d)(1).

															   For better or worse, our society has long
regarded many depictions of killing and maiming[ Footnote 4 ] as suitable features of popular
entertainment, including entertainment that is widely available to
minors. The California law’s threshold requirement would more
closely resemble the limitation in Miller if it targeted a
narrower class of graphic depictions.

															   Because of this feature of the California
law’s threshold test, the work of providing fair notice is left in
large part to the three requirements that follow, but those
elements are also not up to the task. In drafting the violent video
game law, the California Legislature could have made its own
judgment regarding the kind and degree of violence that is
acceptable in games played by minors (or by minors in particular
age groups). Instead, the legislature relied on undefined societal
or community standards.

															   One of the three elements at issue here refers
expressly to “prevailing standards in the community as to what is
suitable for minors.” §1746(d)(1)(A)(ii). Another element points in
the same direction, asking whether “[a] reasonable person,
considering [a] game as a whole,” would find that it “appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors.”
§1746(d)(1)(A)(i) (emphasis added).

															   The terms “deviant” and “morbid” are not
defined in the statute, and California offers no reason to think
that its courts would give the terms anything other than their
ordinary meaning. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 5 (arguing that
“[a] reasonable person can make this judgment through … a common
understanding and definition of the applicable terms”). I therefore
assume that “deviant” and “morbid” carry the meaning that they
convey in ordinary speech. The adjective “deviant” ordinarily means
“deviating … from some accepted norm,” and the term “morbid” means
“of, relating to, or characteristic of disease.” Webster’s 618,
1469. A “deviant or morbid interest” in violence, therefore,
appears to be an interest that de- viates from what is
regarded—presumably in accordance with some generally accepted
standard—as normal and healthy. Thus, the application of the
California law is heavily dependent on the identification of
generally accepted standards regarding the suitability of violent
entertainment for minors.

															   The California Legislature seems to have
assumed that these standards are sufficiently well known so that a
person of ordinary intelligence would have fair notice as to
whether the kind and degree of violence in a particular game is
enough to qualify the game as “violent.” And because the Miller test looks to community standards, the legislature
may have thought that the use of undefined community standards in
the violent video game law would not present vagueness
problems.

															   There is a critical difference, however,
between obscenity laws and laws regulating violence in
entertainment. By the time of this Court’s landmark obscenity cases
in the 1960’s, obscenity had long been prohibited, see Roth , 354 U. S., at 484–485, and this experience had
helped to shape certain generally accepted norms concerning
expression related to sex.

															   There is no similar history regarding
expression related to violence. As the Court notes, classic
literature contains descriptions of great violence, and even
children’s stories sometimes depict very violent scenes. See ante , at 8–9.

															   Although our society does not generally regard
all depictions of violence as suitable for children or adolescents,
the prevalence of violent depictions in children’s literature and
entertainment creates numerous opportunities for reasonable people
to disagree about which depictions may excite “deviant” or “morbid”
impulses. See Edwards & Berman, Regulating Violence on
Television, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1487, 1523 (1995) (observing that the Miller test would be difficult to apply to violent
expression because “there is nothing even approaching a consensus
on low-value violence”).

															   Finally, the difficulty of ascertaining the
community standards incorporated into the California law is
compounded by the legislature’s decision to lump all minors
together. The California law draws no distinction between young
children and adolescents who are nearing the age of majority.

															   In response to a question at oral argument,
the attorney defending the constitutionality of the California law
said that the State would accept a narrowing construction of the
law under which the law’s references to “minors” would be
interpreted to refer to the oldest minors—that is, those just short
of 18. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11–12. However, “it is not within our power
to construe and narrow state laws.” Grayned , 408 U. S., at
110. We can only “ ‘extrapolate [their] allowable
meaning’ ” from the statutory text and authoritative
interpretations of similar laws by courts of the State. Ibid . (quoting Garner v. Louisiana , 368 U. S. 157 ,
174 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment)).

															   In this case, California has not provided any
evidence that the California Legislature intended the law to be
limited in this way, or cited any decisions from its courts that
would support an “oldest minors” construction.[ Footnote 5 ]

															   For these reasons, I conclude that the
California violent video game law fails to provide the fair notice
that the Constitution requires. And I would go no further. I would
not express any view on whether a properly drawn statute would or
would not survive First Amendment scrutiny. We should address that
question only if and when it is necessary to do so.

															II

															   Having outlined how I would
decide this case, I will now briefly elaborate on my reasons for
questioning the wisdom of the Court’s approach. Some of these
reasons are touched upon by the dissents, and while I am not
prepared at this time to go as far as either Justice Thomas or
Justice Breyer, they raise valid concerns.

															A

															   The Court is wrong in saying that
the holding in United States v. Stevens , 559 U.
S. ___ (2010), “controls this case.” Ante , at 4. First,
the statute in Stevens differed sharply from the statute
at issue here. Stevens struck down a law that broadly
prohibited any person from creating, selling, or
possessing depictions of animal cruelty for commercial gain. The
California law involved here, by contrast, is limited to the sale
or rental of violent video games to minors . The California
law imposes no restriction on the creation of violent video games,
or on the possession of such games by anyone, whether above or
below the age of 18. The California law does not regulate the sale
or rental of violent games by adults. And the California law does
not prevent parents and certain other close relatives from buying
or renting violent games for their children or other young
relatives if they see fit.

															   Second, Stevens does not
support the proposition that a law like the one at issue must
satisfy strict scrutiny. The portion of Stevens on which
the Court relies rejected the Government’s contention that
depictions of animal cruelty were categorically outside the range
of any First Amendment protection. 559 U. S., at __ (slip
op., at 5). Going well beyond Steven s, the Court now holds
that any law that attempts to prevent minors from purchasing
violent video games must satisfy strict scrutiny instead of the
more lenient standard applied in Ginsberg , 390 U. S. 629 , our most closely
related precedent. As a result of today’s decision, a State may
prohibit the sale to minors of what Ginsberg described as
“girlie magazines,” but a State must surmount a formidable (and
perhaps insurmountable) obstacle if it wishes to prevent children
from purchasing the most violent and depraved video games
imaginable.

															   Third, Stevens expressly left open
the possibility that a more narrowly drawn statute targeting
depictions of animal cruelty might be compatible with the First
Amendment. See 559 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 19). In this case,
the Court’s sweeping opinion will likely be read by many, both
inside and outside the video-game industry, as suggesting that no
regulation of minors’ access to violent video games is allowed—at
least without supporting evidence that may not be realistically
obtainable given the nature of the phenomenon in question.

															B

															   The Court’s opinion distorts the
effect of the California law. I certainly agree with the Court that
the government has no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to
which children may be exposed,” ante , at 7, but the
California law does not exercise such a power. If parents want
their child to have a violent video game, the California law does
not interfere with that parental prerogative. Instead, the
California law reinforces parental decisionmaking in exactly the
same way as the New York statute upheld in Ginsberg . Under
both laws, minors are prevented from purchasing certain materials;
and under both laws, parents are free to supply their children with
these items if that is their wish.

															   Citing the video-game industry’s
voluntary rating system, the Court argues that the California law
does not “meet a substantial need of parents who wish to restrict
their children’s access to violent video games but cannot do so.” Ante , at 15. The Court does not mention the fact that the
industry adopted this system in response to the threat of federal
regulation, Brief for Activision Blizzard, Inc., as Amicus
Curiae 7–10, a threat that the Court’s opinion may now be seen
as largely eliminating. Nor does the Court acknowledge that
compliance with this system at the time of the enactment of the
California law left much to be desired[ Footnote 6 ]—or that future enforcement may decline if the
video-game industry perceives that any threat of government
regulation has vanished. Nor does the Court note, as Justice Breyer
points out, see post , at 11 (dissenting opinion), that
many parents today are simply not able to monitor their children’s
use of computers and gaming devices.

															C

															   Finally, the Court is far too
quick to dismiss the possibility that the experience of playing
video games (and the effects on minors of playing violent video
games) may be very different from anything that we have seen
before. Any assessment of the experience of playing video games
must take into account certain characteristics of the video games
that are now on the market and those that are likely to be
available in the near future.

															   Today’s most advanced video games
create realistic alternative worlds in which millions of players
immerse themselves for hours on end. These games feature visual
imagery and sounds that are strikingly realistic, and in the near
future video-game graphics may be virtually indistinguishable from
actual video footage.[ Footnote
7 ] Many of the games already on the market can produce high
definition images,[ Footnote 8 ]
and it is predicted that it will not be long before video-game
images will be seen in three dimensions.[ Footnote 9 ] It is also forecast that video games will
soon provide sensory feedback.[ Footnote 10 ] By wearing a special vest or other device, a
player will be able to experience physical sensations supposedly
felt by a character on the screen.[ Footnote 11 ] Some amici who support respondents
foresee the day when “ ‘virtual-reality shoot-‘em-ups’ ”
will allow children to “ ‘actually feel the splatting blood
from the blown-off head’ ” of a victim. Brief for Reporters
Comm. for Freedom of the Press et al. as Amici Curiae 29
(quoting H. Schechter, Savage Pastimes 18 (2005)).

															   Persons who play video games also have an
unprecedented ability to participate in the events that take place
in the virtual worlds that these games create. Players can create
their own video-game characters and can use photos to produce
characters that closely resemble actual people. A person playing a
sophisticated game can make a multitude of choices and can thereby
alter the course of the action in the game. In addition, the means
by which players control the action in video games now bear a
closer relationship to the means by which people control action in
the real world. While the action in older games was often directed
with buttons or a joystick, players dictate the action in newer
games by engaging in the same motions that they desire a character
in the game to perform.[ Footnote
12 ] For example, a player who wants a video-game character to
swing a baseball bat—either to hit a ball or smash a skull—could
bring that about by simulating the motion of actually swinging a
bat.

															   These present-day and emerging characteristics
of video games must be considered together with characteristics of
the violent games that have already been marketed.

															   In some of these games, the violence is
astounding.[ Footnote 13 ]
Victims by the dozens are killed with every imaginable implement,
including machine guns, shotguns, clubs, hammers, axes, swords, and
chainsaws. Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set
on fire, and chopped into little pieces. They cry out in agony and
beg for mercy. Blood gushes, splatters, and pools. Severed body
parts and gobs of human remains are graphically shown. In some
games, points are awarded based, not only on the number of victims
killed, but on the killing technique employed.

															   It also appears that there is no antisocial
theme too base for some in the video-game industry to exploit.
There are games in which a player can take on the identity and
reenact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of the murders
at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.[ Footnote 14 ] The objective of one game is to
rape a mother and her daughters;[ Footnote 15 ] in another, the goal is to rape Native
American women.[ Footnote 16 ]
There is a game in which players engage in “ethnic cleansing” and
can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or
Jews.[ Footnote 17 ] In still
another game, players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of
President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book
Depository.[ Footnote 18 ]

															   If the technological characteristics of the
sophisticated games that are likely to be available in the near
future are combined with the characteristics of the most violent
games already marketed, the result will be games that allow
troubled teens to experience in an extraordinarily personal and
vivid way what it would be like to carry out unspeakable acts of
violence.

															   The Court is untroubled by this possibility.
According to the Court, the “interactive” nature of video games is
“nothing new” because “all literature is interactive.” Ante , at 10–11. Disagreeing with this assessment, the
International Game Developers Association (IGDA)—a group that
presumably understands the nature of video games and that supports
respondents—tells us that video games are “far more concretely
interactive.” Brief for IGDA et al. as Amici Curiae 3. And on this point, the game developers are surely correct.

															   It is certainly true, as the Court notes, that
“ ‘[l]it-erature, when it is successful draws the reader into
the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to
judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and
sufferings as the reader’s own.’ ” Ante , at 11
(quoting American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick , 244 F. 3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001)). But only an
extraordinarily imaginative reader who reads a description of a
killing in a literary work will experience that event as vividly as
he might if he played the role of the killer in a video game. To
take an example, think of a person who reads the passage in Crime
and Punishment in which Raskolni- kov kills the old pawn broker
with an axe. See F. Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 78 (Modern
Library ed. 1950). Compare that reader with a video-game player who
creates an avatar that bears his own image; who sees a realistic
image of the victim and the scene of the killing in high definition
and in three dimensions; who is forced to decide whether or not to
kill the victim and decides to do so; who then pretends to grasp an
axe, to raise it above the head of the victim, and then to bring it
down; who hears the thud of the axe hitting her head and her cry of
pain; who sees her split skull and feels the sensation of blood on
his face and hands. For most people, the two experiences will not
be the same.[ Footnote
19 ]

															   When all of the characteristics of video games
are taken into account, there is certainly a reasonable basis for
thinking that the experience of playing a video game may be quite
different from the experience of reading a book, listening to a
radio broadcast, or viewing a movie. And if this is so, then for at
least some minors, the effects of playing violent video games may
also be quite different. The Court acts prematurely in dismissing
this possibility out of hand.

															*  *  *

															   For all these reasons, I would
hold only that the particular law at issue here fails to provide
the clear notice that the Constitution requires. I would not
squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some
to be a significant and developing social problem. If differently
framed statutes are enacted by the States or by the Federal
Government, we can consider the constitutionality of those laws
when cases challenging them are presented to us. Footnote 1 It is well established that a judgment may be
affirmed on an alternative ground that was properly raised but not
addressed by the lower court. Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of Yakima Nation , 439 U. S. 463 , 478,
n. 20 (1979). Footnote 2 Under the California law, a game that meets
the threshold requirement set out in text also qualifies as
“violent” if it “[e]nables the player to virtually inflict serious
injury upon images of human beings or characters with substantially
human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous,
cruel, or depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical
abuse to the victim.” §1746(d)(1)(B). In the Court of Appeals,
California conceded that this alternative definition is
unconstitutional, 556 F. 3d 950, 954, n. 5 (CA9 2009),
and therefore only the requirements set out in text are now before
us. Footnote 3 The provision of New York law under which the
petitioner was convicted in Ginsberg was framed with
similar specificity. This provision applied to depictions of
“nudity” and “sexual conduct,” and both those terms were
specifically and unambiguously defined. See 390 U. S., at 645–647
(Appendix A to opinion of the Court). Footnote 4 The California law does not define the term
“maiming,” nor has the State cited any decisions from its courts
that define the term in this context. Accordingly, I take the term
to have its ordinary meaning, which includes the infliction of any
serious wound, see Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
1362 (2002) (hereinafter Webster’s). Footnote 5 At oral argument, California also proposed
that the term “minors” could be interpreted as referring to the
“typical age group of minors” who play video games. Tr. of Oral
Arg. 11. But nothing in the law’s text supports such a limitation.
Nor has California cited any decisions indicating that its courts
would restrict the law in this way. And there is nothing in the
record indicating what this age group might be. Footnote 6 A 2004 Federal Trade Commission Report showed
that 69 percent of unaccompanied children ages 13 to 16 were able
to buy M-rated games and that 56 percent of 13-year-olds were able
to buy an M-rated game. Marketing Violent Entertainment to
Children: A Fourth Follow-Up Review of Industry Practices in the
Motion Picture, Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries
26–28 (July 2004), http://www.ftc.gov/os/
2004/07/040708kidsviolencerpt.pdf (all Internet materials as
visited June 24, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case
file). Footnote 7 See Chayka, Visual Games: Photorealism in
Crisis, Kill Screen (May 2011),
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/visual-games-photorealism-crisis. Footnote 8 To see brief video excerpts from games with
highly realistic graphics, see Spike TV Video Game Awards 2010—Game
of the Year Nominees, GameTrailers.com (Dec. 10, 2010),
http://www.gametrailers.com/
video/game-of-spike-tv-vga/707755?type=flv. Footnote 9 See Selleck, Sony PS3 Launching 50 3D-Capable
Video Games in the Near Future, SlashGear (Nov. 23, 2010),
http://www.slashgear.com/
sony-ps3-launching-50-3d-capable-video-games-in-the-near-future-23115866;
Sofge, Why 3D Doesn’t Work for TV, But Is Great for Gaming, Popu-
lar Mechanics (Mar. 11, 2010), http://www.popularmechanics.com/
technology/digital/gaming/4342437. Footnote 10 T. Chatfield, Fun Inc.: Why Games are the
Twenty-first Century’s Most Serious Business 211 (2010) (predicting
that “[w]e can expect … physical feedback and motion detection as
standard in every gaming device in the near future”); J. Blascovich
& J. Bailenson, Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New
Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution 2 (2011)
(“Technological developments powering virtual worlds are
accelerating, ensuring that virtual experiences will become more immersive by providing sensory information that makes
people feel they are ‘inside’ virtual worlds” (emphasis in the
original)). Footnote 11 See Topolsky, The Mindwire V5 Turns Gaming
into Pure Electroshock Torture, Engadget (Mar. 9, 2008),
http://www.engadget.com/
2008 / 03 / 09 / the - mindwire - v5 - turns - gaming - into - pure-electroshock-torture;
Greenemeier, Video Game Vest Simulates Sensation of Being Capped,
Scientific American (Oct. 25, 2007),
http://www.scientificamerican.com/
article.cfm?id=video-game-vest-simulates. Footnote 12 See Schiesel, A Real Threat Now Faces the
Nintendo Wii, N. Y. Times, Dec. 3, 2010, p. F7 (describing how
leading developers of video-game consoles are competing to deliver
gesture-controlled gaming devices). Footnote 13 For a sample of violent video games, see
Wilson, The 10 Most Violent Video Games of All Time, PCMag.com
(Feb. 10, 2011),
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379959,00.asp. To see brief
video excerpts from violent games, see Chomik, Top 10: Most Violent
Video Games, AskMen.com, http://www.askmen.com/top_10/videogame/
top-10-most-violent-video-games.html; Sayed, 15 Most Violent Video
Games That Made You Puke, Gamingbolt (May 2, 2010), http://
gamingbolt.com/15-most-violent-video-games-that-made-you-puke. Footnote 14 Webley, “School Shooter” Video Game to
Reenact Columbine, Virginia Tech Killings, Time (Apr. 20, 2011),
http://newsfeed.time.com/
2011 / 04 / 20 / school - shooter - video - game - reenacts-columbine-virginia-tech-killings.
After a Web site that made School Shooter available for download
removed it in response to mounting criticism, the developer stated
that it may make the game available on its own Web site. Inside the
Sick Site of a School Shooter Mod (Mar. 26, 2011),
http://ssnat.com. Footnote 15 Lah, “RapeLay” Video Game Goes Viral Amid
Outrage, CNN (Mar. 30, 2010),
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-30/world/japan.video.
game.rape_1_game-teenage-girl-japanese-government?_s=PM:WORLD. Footnote 16 Graham, Custer May be Shot Down Again in a
Battle of the Sexes Over X-Rated Video Games, People, Nov. 15,
1982, pp. 110, 115. Footnote 17 Scheeres, Games Elevate Hate to Next Level,
Wired (Feb. 20, 2002),
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/02/50523. Footnote 18 Thompson, A View to a Kill: JFK Reloaded is
Just Plain Creepy, Slate (Nov. 22, 2004),
http://www.slate.com/id/2110034. Footnote 19 As the Court notes, there are a few
children’s books that ask young readers to step into the shoes of a
character and to make choices that take the stories along one of a
very limited number of possible lines. See ante , at 10.
But the very nature of the print medium makes it impossible for a
book to offer anything like the same number of choices as those
provided by a video game. THOMAS, J., DISSENTING BROWN V. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSN. 564 U. S. ____ (2011) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 08-1448 EDMUND G. BROWN, Jr., GOVERNOR OF CAL- IFORNIA,
et al., PETITIONERS v. ENTERTAIN- MENT MERCHANTS
ASSOCIATION et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 27, 2011]

															   Justice Thomas, dissenting.

															   The Court’s decision today does
not comport with the original public understanding of the First
Amendment. The majority strikes down, as facially unconstitutional,
a state law that prohibits the direct sale or rental of certain
video games to minors because the law “abridg[es] the freedom of
speech.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1. But I do not think the First
Amendment stretches that far. The practices and beliefs of the
founding generation establish that “the freedom of speech,” as
originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors
(or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the
minors’ parents or guardians. I would hold that the law at issue is
not facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment, and
reverse and remand for further proceedings.[ Footnote 1 ]

															I

															   When interpreting a
constitutional provision, “the goal is to discern the most likely
public understanding of [that] provision at the time it was
adopted.” McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U. S. ___, ___
(2010) (slip op., at 25) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and
concurring in judgment). Because the Constitution is a written
instrument, “its meaning does not alter.” McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n , 514 U. S. 334 , 359 (1995) (Thomas, J.,
concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted). “That
which it meant when adopted, it means now.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). As originally
understood, the First Amendment’s protection against laws
“abridging the freedom of speech” did not extend to all speech. “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited
classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have
never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire , 315 U. S. 568 , 571–572
(1942); see also United States v. Stevens , 559 U.
S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 5–6). Laws regulating such speech
do not “abridg[e] the freedom of speech” because such speech is
understood to fall outside “the freedom of speech.” See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition , 535 U. S. 234 , 245–246
(2002). In my view, the “practices and
beliefs held by the Founders” reveal another category of excluded
speech: speech to minor children bypassing their parents. McIntyre , supra, at 360. The historical evidence
shows that the founding generation believed parents had absolute
authority over their minor children and expected parents to use
that authority to direct the proper development of their children.
It would be absurd to suggest that such a society understood “the
freedom of speech” to include a right to speak to minors (or a
corresponding right of minors to access speech) without going
through the minors’ parents. Cf. Brief for Common Sense Media as Amicus Curiae 12–15. The founding generation would not
have considered it an abridgment of “the freedom of speech” to
support parental authority by restricting speech that bypasses
minors’ parents. A Attitudes toward
children were in a state of transition around the time that the
States ratified the Bill of Rights. A complete understanding of the
founding generation’s views on children and the parent-child
relationship must therefore begin roughly a century earlier, in
colonial New England. In the Puritan
tradition common in the New England Colonies, fathers ruled
families with absolute authority. “The patriarchal family was the
basic building block of Puritan society.” S. Mintz, Huck’s Raft 13
(2004) (hereinafter Mintz); see also R. MacDonald, Literature for
Children in England and America from 1646 to 1774, p. 7 (1982)
(hereinafter MacDonald). The Puritans rejected many customs, such
as godparenthood, that they considered inconsistent with the
patriarchal structure. Mintz 13. Part of the father’s absolute
power was the right and duty “to fill his children’s minds with
knowledge and … make them apply their knowledge in right action.”
E. Morgan, The Puritan Family 97 (rev. ed. 1966) (herein-after
Morgan). Puritans thought children were “innately sinful and that
parents’ primary task was to suppress their children’s natural
depravity.” S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions 2
(1988) (hereinafter Mintz & Kellogg); see also B. Wadsworth,
The Well-Ordered Family 55 (1712) (“Children should not be left to
themselves … to do as they please; … not being fit to govern
themselves”); C. Mather, A Family Well-Ordered 38 (1699).
Accordingly, parents were not to let their children read “vain
Books, profane Ballads, and filthy Songs” or “fond and amorous
Romances, … fabulous Histories of Giants, the bom- bast
Achievements of Knight Errantry, and the like.” The History of
Genesis, pp. vi–vii (3d ed. corrected 1708). This conception of parental
authority was reflected in laws at that time. In the Massachusetts
Colony, for example, it was unlawful for tavern keepers (or anyone
else) to entertain children without their parents’ consent. 2
Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County,
Massachusetts, p. 180 (1912); 4 id., at 237, 275 (1914); 5 id., at 143 (1916); see also Morgan 146. And a “stubborn
or rebellious son” of 16 years or more committed a capital offense
if he disobeyed “the voice of his Father, or the voice of his
Mother.” The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts 6 (1648) (reprint
M. Farrand ed. 1929); see also J. Kamensky, Governing the Tongue
102, n. 14 (1997) (citing similar laws in the Connecticut, New
Haven, Plymouth, and New Hampshire Colonies in the late
1600’s). B In the decades
leading up to and following the Revolution, attitudes towards
children changed. See, e.g., J. Reinier, From Virtue to
Character: American Childhood, 1775–1850, p. 1 (1996) (hereinafter
Reinier). Children came to be seen less as innately sinful and more
as blank slates requiring careful and deliberate development. But
the same overarching principles remained. Parents continued to have
both the right and duty to ensure the proper development of their
children. They exercised significant authority over their children,
including control over the books that children read. And laws at
the time continued to reflect strong support for parental author-
ity and the sense that children were not fit to govern
themselves. 1 The works of John
Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were a driving force behind the
changed understanding of children and childhood. See Reinier 2–5;
H. Brewer, By Birth or Consent 97 (2005) (hereinafter Brewer); K.
Calvert, Children in the House 59–60 (1992) (hereinafter Calvert).
Locke taught that children’s minds were blank slates and that
parents therefore had to be careful and deliberate about what their
children were told and observed. Parents had only themselves to
blame if, “by hu-mouring and cockering” their children, they
“poison’d the fountain” and later “taste[d] the bitter waters.”
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1692), in 37 English
Philosophers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 27–28 (C.
Eliot ed. 1910). All vices, he explained, were sowed by parents and
“those about children.” Id., at 29. Significantly, Locke
did not suggest circumscribing parental authority but rather
articulated a new basis for it. Rousseau disagreed with Locke in
important respects, but his philosophy was similarly premised on
parental control over a child’s development. Although Rousseau
advocated that children should be allowed to develop naturally, he
instructed that the environment be directed by “a tutor who is
given total control over the child and who removes him from
society, from all competing sources of authority and influence.” J.
Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims 30 (1982) (hereinafter
Fliegelman); see also Reinier 15. These writings
received considerable attention in America. Locke’s An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding and his Some Thoughts Concerning
Education were significantly more popular than his Two Treatises of
Government, according to a study of 92 colonial libraries between
1700 and 1776. Lundberg & May, The Enlightened Reader in
America, 28 American Quarterly 262, 273 (1976) (hereinafter
Lundberg). And Rousseau’s Emile, a treatise on education, was more
widely advertised and distributed than his political work, The
Social Contract. Fliegelman 29; see also Lundberg 285. In general,
the most popular books in the Colonies on the eve of the American
Revolution were not political discourses but ones concerned with
child rearing. See Mintz & Kellogg 45. 2 Locke’s and
Rousseau’s writings fostered a new conception of childhood.
Children were increasingly viewed as malleable creatures, and
childhood came to be seen as an important period of growth,
development, and preparation for adulthood. See Mintz & Kellogg
17, 21, 47; M. Grossberg, Governing the Hearth 8 (1985)
(hereinafter Grossberg). Noah Webster, called the father of
American education, wrote that “[t]he impressions received in early
life usually form the characters of individuals.” On the Education
of Youth in America (1790) (hereinafter Webster), in Essays on
Education in the Early Republic 43 (F. Rudolph ed. 1965)
(hereinafter Rudolph); cf. Slater, Noah Webster: Founding Father of
American Scholarship and Education, in Noah Webster’s First Edition
of an American Dictionary of the English Language (1967). Elizabeth
Smith, sister-in-law to John Adams, similarly wrote: “The Infant
Mind, I beleive[,] is a blank, that eassily receives any
impression.” M. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters 101 (1996) (internal
quotation marks omitted) (hereinafter Norton); see also S. Doggett,
A Discourse on Education (1796) (hereinafter Doggett), in Rudolph
151 (“[I]n early youth, … every power and capacity is pliable and
susceptible of any direction or impression”); J. Abbott, The Mother
at Home 2 (1834) (hereinafter Abbott) (“What impressions can be
more strong, and more lasting, than those received upon the mind in
the freshness and the susceptibility of youth”). Children lacked
reason and decisionmaking ability. They “have not Judgment or Will
of their own,” John Adams noted. Letter to James Sullivan (May 26,
1776), in 4 Papers of John Adams 210 (R. Taylor ed. 1979); see also
Vol. 1 1787: Drafting the Constitution, p. 229 (W. Benton ed. 1986)
(quoting Gouvernor Morris in James Madison’s notes from the
Constitutional Convention explaining that children do not vote
because they “want prudence” and “have no will of their own”).
Children’s “utter incapacity” rendered them “almost wholly at the
mercy of their Parents or Instructors for a set of habits to
regulate their whole conduct through life.” J. Burgh, Thoughts on
Education 7 (1749) (hereinafter Burgh). This conception of childhood
led to great concern about influences on children. “Youth are ever
learning to do what they see others around them doing, and these
imitations grow into habits.” Doggett, in Rudolph 151; see also B.
Rush, A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools (1786)
(hereinafter Rush), in Rudolph 16 (“The vices of young people are
generally learned from each other”); Webster, in Rudolph 58
(“[C]hildren, artless and unsuspecting, resign their hearts to any
person whose manners are agreeable and whose conduct is
respectable”). Books therefore advised parents “not to put children
in the way of those whom you dare not trust.” L. Child, The
Mother’s Book 149 (1831) (hereinafter Child); see also S. Coontz,
The Social Origins of Private Life 149–150 (1988) (noting that it
was “considered dangerous to leave children to the supervision of
servants or apprentices”). As a result, it was widely
accepted that children needed close monitoring and carefully
planned development. See B. Wishy, The Child and the Republic
24–25, 32 (1968) (hereinafter Wishy); Grossberg 8. Managing the
young mind was considered “infinitely important.” Doggett, in
Rudolph 151; see also A. MacLeod, A Moral Tale 72–73 (1975)
(hereinafter MacLeod). In an essay on the education of youth in
America, Noah Webster described the human mind as “a rich field,
which, without constant care, will ever be covered with a luxuriant
growth of weeds.” Rudolph 54. He advocated sheltering children from
“every low-bred, drunken, immoral character” and keeping their
minds “untainted till their reasoning faculties have acquired
strength and the good principles which may be planted in their
minds have taken deep root.” Id., at 63; see also Rush, in id., at 16 (“[T]he most useful citizens have been formed
from those youth who have never known or felt their own wills till
they were one and twenty years of age”); Burgh 7 (“[T]he souls of
Youth are more immediately committed to the care of Parents and
Instructors than even those of a People are to their
Pastor”). The Revolution only amplified
these concerns. The Re-public would require virtuous citizens,
which necessi- tated proper training from childhood. See Mintz 54,
71; MacLeod 40; Saxton, French and American Childhoods, in Children
and Youth in a New Nation 69 (J. Marten ed. 2009) (hereinafter
Marten); see also W. Cardell, Story of Jack Halyard, pp. xv–xvi
(30th ed. 1834) (hereinafter Cardell) (“[T]he glory and efficacy of
our institutions will soon rest with those who are growing up to
succede us”). Children were “the pivot of the moral world,” and
their proper development was “a subject of as high interest, as any
to which the human mind ha[d] ever been called.” Id., at
xvi. 3 Based on these
views of childhood, the founding generation understood parents to
have a right and duty to govern their children’s growth. Parents
were expected to direct the development and education of their
children and ensure that bad habits did not take root. See Calvert
58–59; MacLeod 72; Mintz & Kellogg 23. They were responsible
for instilling “moral prohibitions, behavioral standards, and a
capacity for self-government that would prepare a child for the
outside world.” Mintz & Kellogg 58; see also Youth’s Companion,
Apr. 16, 1827, p. 1 (hereinafter Youth’s Companion) (“Let
[children’s] minds be formed, their hearts prepared, and their
characters moulded for the scenes and the duties of a brighter
day”). In short, “[h]ome and family bore the major responsibility
for the moral training of children and thus, by implication, for
the moral health of the nation.” MacLeod 29; see also Introduction,
in Marten 6; Reinier, p. xi; Smith, Autonomy and Affection: Parents
and Children in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Families, in Growing
up in America 54 (N. Hiner & J. Hawes eds. 1985). This conception
of parental rights and duties was exemplified by Thomas Jefferson’s
approach to raising children. He wrote letters to his daughters
constantly and often gave specific instructions about what the
children should do. See, e.g., Letter to Martha Jefferson
(Nov. 28, 1783), in S. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas
Jefferson 44 (1939) (dictating her daily schedule of music,
dancing, drawing, and studying); Letter to Martha Jefferson (Dec.
22, 1783), in id., at 45–46 (“I do not wish you to be
gaily clothed at this time of life … . [A]bove all things and
at all times let your clothes be neat, whole, and properly put
on”). Jefferson expected his daughter, Martha, to write “by every
post” and instructed her, “Inform me what books you read [and] what
tunes you learn.” Letter (Nov. 28, 1783), in id., at 44.
He took the same approach with his nephew, Peter Carr, after Carr’s
father died. See Letter (Aug. 19, 1785), in 8 The Papers of Thomas
Jefferson 405–408 (J. Boyd ed. 1953) (detailing a course of reading
and exercise, and asking for monthly progress reports describing
“in what manner you employ every hour in the day”); see also 3
Dictionary of Virginia Biography 29 (2006). Jefferson’s rigorous
management of his charges was not uncommon. “[M]uch evidence
indicates that mothers and fathers both believed in giving their
children a strict upbringing, enforcing obedience to their commands
and stressing continued subjection to the parental will.” Norton
96. Two parenting books published in the 1830’s gave prototypical
advice. In The Mother’s Book, Lydia Child advised that “[t]he first
and most important step in management is, that whatever a mother
says, always must be done.” Child 26. John Abbott, the
author of The Mother at Home, likewise advised that “[o]bedience is
absolutely essential to proper family government.” Abbott 18.
Echoing Locke, Abbott warned that parents who indulged a child’s
“foolish and unreasonable wishes” would doom that child to be
indulgent in adulthood. Id., at 16. The concept of total parental
control over children’s lives extended into the schools. “The
government both of families and schools should be absolute,”
declared Noah Webster. Rudolph 57–58. Dr. Benjamin Rush concurred:
“In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible.” Id., at 16. Through the
doctrine of in loco parentis , teachers assumed the
“ ‘sacred dut[y] of parents … to train up and qualify their
children’ ” and exercised the same authority “ ‘to
command obedience, to control stubbornness, to quicken diligence,
and to reform bad habits.’ ” Morse v. Frederick , 551 U. S. 393 , 413–414
(2007) (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting State v. Pendergrass , 19 N. C. 365, 365–366 (1837)); see also
Wishy 73. Thus, the quality of teachers and schools had to “be
watched with the most scrupulous attention.” Webster, in Rudolph
64. For their part, children were
expected to be dutiful and obedient. Mintz & Kellogg 53; Wishy
31; cf. J. Kett, Rites of Passage 45 (1977). Schoolbooks instructed
children to do so and frequently featured vignettes illustrating
the consequences of disobedience. See Adams, “Pictures of the
Vicious ultimately overcome by misery and shame”: The Cultural Work
of Early National Schoolbooks (hereinafter Adams), in Marten 156.
One oft-related example was the hangings of 19 alleged witches in
1692, which, the schoolbooks noted, likely began with false
complaints by two young girls. See J. Morse, The American Geography
191 (1789); see also Adams, in Marten 164. An entire genre of books,
“loosely termed ‘advice to youth,’ ” taught similar lessons
well into the 1800’s. J. Demos, Circles and Lines: The Shape of
Life in Early America 73 (2004); cf. Wishy 54. “Next to your duty
to God,” advised one book, “is your duty to your parents” even if
the child did not “understand the reason of their commands.” L.
Sigourney, The Girl’s Reading Book 44 (14th ed. 1843); see also
Filial Duty Recommended and Enforced, Introduction, p. iii (c.
1798); The Parent’s Present 44 (3d ed. 1841). “Disobedience is
generally punished in some way or other,” warned another, “and
often very severely.” S. Goodrich, Peter Parley’s Book of Fables 43
(1836); see also The Country School-House 27 (1848) (“[T]he number
of children who die from the effects of disobedience to their
parents is very large”). 4 Society’s concern with children’s development
extended to the books they read. “Vice always spreads by being
published,” Noah Webster observed. Rudolph 62. “[Y]oung people are
taught many vices by fiction, books, or pub- lic exhibitions, vices
which they never would have known had they never read such books or
attended such pub- lic places.” Ibid.; see also Cardell,
p. xii (cautioning parents that “[t]he first reading lessons for
children have an extensive influence on the acquisitions and habits
of future years”); Youth’s Companion 1 (“[T]he capacities of
children, and the peculiar situation and duties of youth, require
select and appropriate reading”). Prominent children’s authors
harshly criticized fairy tales and the use of anthropomorphic
animals. See, e.g., S. Goodrich, 2 Recollections of a
Lifetime 320, n.* (1856) (describing fairy tales as “calculated to
familiarize the mind with things shocking and monstrous; to
cultivate a taste for tales of bloodshed and violence; to teach the
young to use coarse language, and cherish vulgar ideas; … and to
fill [the youthful mind] with the horrors of a debased and
debauched fancy”); 1 id., at 167 (recalling that
children’s books were “full of nonsense” and “lies”); Cardell, p.
xiv (“The fancy of converting inferior animals into ‘teachers of
children,’ has been carried to ridiculous extravagance”); see also
MacDonald 83, 103 (noting that fables and works of fantasy were not
popular in America in the 1700’s). Adults carefully controlled what they
published for children. Stories written for children were dedicated
to moral instruction and were relatively austere, lacking details
that might titillate children’s minds. See MacLeod 24–25, 42–48;
see also id., at 42 (“The authors of juvenile fiction
imposed the constraints upon themselves in the name of duty, and
for the sake of giving children what they thought children should
have, although they were often well aware that children might
prefer more excit- ing fare”); Francis, American Children’s
Literature, 1646–1880, in American Childhood 208–209 (J. Hawes
& N. Hiner eds. 1985). John Newbery, the publisher often
credited with creating the genre of children’s literature, removed
traditional folk characters, like Tom Thumb, from their original
stories and placed them in new morality tales in which good
children were rewarded and disobedient children punished. Reinier
12 . Parents had total
authority over what their children read. See A. MacLeod, American
Childhood 177 (1994) (“Ideally, if not always actually,
nineteenth-century parents regulated their children’s lives fully,
certainly including their reading”). Lydia Child put it bluntly in
The Mother’s Book: “Children … should not read anything without a
mother’s knowledge and sanction; this is particularly necessary
between the ages of twelve and sixteen.” Child 92; see also id., at 143 (“[P]arents, or some guardian friends, should
carefully examine every volume they put into the hands of young
people”); E. Monaghan, Learning to Read and Write in Colonial
America 337 (2005) (reviewing a 12-year-old girl’s journal from the
early 1770’s and noting that the child’s aunts monitored and guided
her reading). 5 The
law at the time reflected the founding generation’s understanding
of parent-child relations. According to Sir William Blackstone,
parents were responsible for maintaining, protecting, and education
their children, and therefore had “power” over their children. 1
Commentaries on the Laws of England 434, 440 (1765); cf. Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U. S. 702 , 712
(1997) (Blackstone’s Commentaries was “a primary legal authority
for 18th- and 19th-century American lawyers”). Chancellor James
Kent agreed. 2 Commentaries on American Law *189–*207. The law
entitled parents to “the custody of their [children],” “the value
of th[e] [children’s] labor and services,” and the “right to the
exercise of such discipline as may be requisite for the discharge
of their sacred trust.” Id., at *193, *203. Children, in
turn, were charged with “obedience and assistance during their own
minority, and gratitude and reverance during the rest of their
lives.” Id., at *207. Thus,
in case after case, courts made clear that parents had a right to
the child’s labor and services until the child reached majority. In
1810, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts explained, “There
is no question but that a father, who is entitled to the services
of his minor son, and for whom he is obliged to provide, may, at
the common law, assign those services to others, for a
consideration to enure to himself.” Day v. Everett, 7 Mass. 145, 147; see also Benson v. Remington , 2 Mass. 113, 115 (1806) (opinion of Parsons,
C. J.) (“The law is very well settled, that parents are under
obligations to support their children, and that they are entitled
to their earnings”). Similarly, the Supreme Court of Judicature of
New Hampshire noted that the right of parents to recover for the
services of their child, while a minor, “cannot be contested.” Gale v. Parrot , 1 N. H. 28, 29 (1817). And
parents could bring tort suits against those who knowingly enticed
a minor away from them. See, e.g., Kirkpatrick v. Lockhart , 2 Brev. 276 (S. C. Constitutional Ct.
1809); Jones v. Tevis , 4 Litt. 25 (Ky. App.
1823). Relatedly, boys
could not enlist in the military without parental consent. Many of
those who did so during the Revolutionary War found, afterwards,
that their fathers were entitled to their military wages. See Cox,
Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution, in Marten 21–24. And after
the war, minors who enlisted without parental consent in violation
of federal law could find themselves returned home on writs of
habeas corpus issued at their parents’ request. See, e.g., United States v. Anderson , 24 F. Cas. 813 (No.
14,449) (CC Tenn. 1812); Commonwealth v. Callan ,
6 Binn. 255 (Pa. 1814) (per curiam) . Laws also set age
limits restricting marriage without parental consent. For example,
from 1730 until at least 1849, Pennsylvania law required parental
consent for the marriage of anyone under the age of 21. See 4
Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania 153 (J. Mitchell & H.
Flanders eds. 1897) (hereinafter Pa. Stats. at Large); General Laws
of Pennsylvania 82–83 (J. Dunlop 2d ed. 1849) (including the 1730
marriage law with no amendments); see also Perpetual Laws of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts 253 (1788), in The First Laws of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts (J. Cushing ed. 1981). In general,
“[p]ost-Revolutionary marriage law assumed that below a certain
age, children could … no[t] intellectually understand its
significance.” Grossberg 105. Indeed, the law
imposed age limits on all manner of activities that required
judgment and reason. Children could not vote, could not serve on
juries, and generally could not be witnesses in criminal cases
unless they were older than 14. See Brewer 43, 145, 148, 159. Nor
could they swear loyalty to a State. See, e.g., 9 Pa.
Stats. at Large 111 (1903 ed.). Early federal laws granting aliens
the ability to become citizens provided that those under 21 were
deemed citizens if their fathers chose to naturalize. See, e.g., Act of Mar. 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 104; Act of Jan. 29,
1795, ch. 20, 1 Stat. 415. C The
history clearly shows a founding generation that believed parents
to have complete authority over their minor children and expected
parents to direct the development of those children. The Puritan
tradition in New England laid the foundation of American parental
authority and duty. See MacDonald 6 (“The Puritans are virtually
the inventors of the family as we know it today”). In the decades
leading up to and following the Revolution, the conception of the
child’s mind evolved but the duty and authority of parents
remained. Indeed, society paid closer attention to potential
influences on children than before. See Mintz 72 (“By weakening
earlier forms of patriarchal authority, the Revolution enhanced the
importance of childrearing and education in ensuring social
stability”). Teachers and schools came under scrutiny, and
children’s reading material was carefully supervised. Laws
reflected these concerns and often supported parental authority
with the coercive power of the state. II A In
light of this history, the Framers could not possibly have
understood “the freedom of speech” to include an unqualified right
to speak to minors. Specifically, I am sure that the founding
generation would not have understood “the freedom of speech” to
include a right to speak to children without going through their
parents. As a consequence, I do not believe that laws limiting such
speech—for example, by requiring parental consent to speak to a
minor—“abridg[e] the freedom of speech” within the original meaning
of the First Amendment. We
have recently noted that this Court does not have “freewheeling
authority to declare new categories of speech outside the scope of
the First Amendment.” Stevens , 559 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 9). But we also recognized that there may be “some
categories of speech that have been historically unprotected [and]
have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in
our case law.” Ibid. In my opinion, the historical
evidence here plainly reveals one such category.[ Footnote 2 ] B Admittedly, the original public understanding
of a constitutional provision does not always comport with modern
sensibilities. See Morse , 551 U. S., at 419 (Thomas, J.,
concurring) (treating students “as though it were still the 19th
century would find little support today”). It may also be
inconsistent with precedent. See McDonald , 561 U. S., at
___–___ (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment)
(slip op., at 48– 52) (rejecting the Slaughter-House
Cases , 16 Wall. 36 (1873), as inconsistent with the original
public meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment). This,
however, is not such a case. Although much has changed in this
country since the Revolution, the notion that parents have
authority over their children and that the law can support that
authority persists today. For example, at least some States make it
a crime to lure or entice a minor away from the minor’s parent.
See, e.g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. §272(b)(1) (West 2008);
Fla. Stat. §787.03 (2010). Every State in the Union still
establishes a minimum age for marriage without parental or judicial
consent. Cf. Roper v. Simmons , 543 U. S. 551 , 558
(Appendix D to opinion of Court) (2005). Individuals less than 18
years old cannot enlist in the military without parental consent.
10 U. S. C. §505(a). And minors remain subject to curfew laws
across the country, see Brief for Louisiana et al. as Amici Curiae 16, and cannot unilaterally consent to most
medical procedures, id., at 15. Moreover, there
are many things minors today cannot do at all, whether they have
parental consent or not. State laws set minimum ages for voting and
jury duty. See Roper , supra, at 581–585
(Appendixes B and C to opinion of Court). In California (the State
at issue here), minors cannot drive for hire or drive a school bus,
Cal. Veh. Code Ann. §§12515, 12516 (West 2010), purchase tobacco,
Cal. Penal Code Ann. §308(b) (West 2008), play bingo for money,
§326.5(e), or execute a will, Cal. Probate Code Ann. §6220 (West
2009). My understanding
of “the freedom of speech” is also consistent with this Court’s
precedents. To be sure, the Court has held that children are
entitled to the protection of the First Amendment, see, e.g., Erznoznik v. Jacksonville , 422 U. S. 205 ,
212–213 (1975), and the government may not unilaterally dictate
what children can say or hear, see id., at 213–214; Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School
Dist. , 393 U.
S. 503 , 511 (1969). But this Court has never held, until today,
that “the freedom of speech” includes a right to speak to minors
(or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the
minors’ parents. To the contrary, “[i]t is well settled that a
State or municipality can adopt more stringent controls on
communicative materials available to youths than on those available
to adults.” Erznoznik , supra, at 212; cf. post , at 3 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The Court’s
constitutional jurisprudence “historically has reflected Western
civilization concepts of the family as a unit with broad parental
authority over minor children.” Parham v. J. R. , 442 U. S. 584 , 602
(1979). Under that case law, “legislature[s] [can] properly
conclude that parents and others, teachers for example, who have …
primary responsibility for children’s well-being are entitled to
the support of laws designed to aid discharge of that
responsibility.” Ginsberg v. New York , 390 U. S. 629 , 639
(1968); see also Bellotti v. Baird , 443 U. S. 622 , 635
(1979) (opinion of Powell, J.) (“[T]he State is entitled to adjust
its legal system to account for children’s vulnerability and their
needs for concern, … sympathy, and … paternal attention” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). This is because “the tradition of
parental authority is not inconsistent with our tradition of
individual liberty; rather, the former is one of the basic
presuppositions of the latter.” Id., at 638; id. ,
at 638–639 (“Legal restrictions on minors, especially those
supportive of the parental role, may be important to the child’s
chances for the full growth and maturity that make eventual
participation in a free society meaningful and
rewarding”). III The
California law at issue here prohibits the sale or rental of
“violent video game[s]” to minors, defined as anyone “under 18
years of age.” Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§1746.1(a), 1746 (West 2009). A
violation of the law is punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000.
§1746.3. Critically, the law does not prohibit adults from buying
or renting violent video games for a minor or prohibit minors from
playing such games. Cf. ante , at 10 (Alito, J., concurring
in judgment); post , at 10 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The
law also does not restrict a “minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt,
uncle, or legal guardian” from selling or renting him a violent
video game. §1746.1(c). Respondents, associations of companies in the
video game industry, brought a preenforcement challenge to
California’s law, claiming that on its face the law violates the
free speech rights of their members. The Court holds that video
games are speech for purposes of the First Amendment and finds the
statute facially unconstitutional. See ante , at 2–3,
11–17. I disagree. Under any of this
Court’s standards for a facial First Amendment challenge, this one
must fail. The video game associations cannot show “that no set of
circumstances exists under which [the law] would be valid,” “that
the statute lacks any plainly legitimate sweep,” or that “a
substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged
in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Stevens , 559 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 10) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Even assuming that video games are
speech, in most applications the California law does not implicate
the First Amendment. All that the law does is prohibit the direct
sale or rental of a violent video game to a minor by someone other
than the minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or legal
guardian. Where a minor has a parent or guardian, as is usually
true, the law does not prevent that minor from obtaining a violent
video game with his parent’s or guardian’s help. In the typical
case, the only speech affected is speech that bypasses a minor’s
parent or guardian. Because such speech does not fall within “the
freedom of speech” as originally understood, California’s law does
not ordinarily implicate the First Amendment and is not facially
unconstitutional.[ Footnote
3 ] *  *  * “The
freedom of speech,” as originally understood, does not include a
right to speak to minors without going through the minors’ parents
or guardians. Therefore, I cannot agree that the statute at issue
is facially unconstitutional under the First
Amendment. I
respectfully dissent. Footnote 1 Justice Alito
concludes that the law is too vague to satisfy due process, but
neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals addressed that
question. Ante , at 2–9 (opinion concurring in judgment).
As we have often said, this Court is “one of final review, ‘not of
first view.’ ” FCC v. Fox Television Stations,
Inc. , 556 U. S. ___, ___ (2009) (slip op., at 25) (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson , 544 U. S. 709 , 718,
n. 7 (2005)). Footnote 2 The majority
responds that “it does not follow” from the historical evidence
“that the state has the power to prevent children from hearing …
anything without their parents’ prior consent .” Ante , at 7, n. 3. Such a conclusion, the majority
asserts, would lead to laws that, in its view, would be undesirable
and “obviously” unconstitutional. Ibid. The majority’s
circular argument misses the point. The question is not whether
certain laws might make sense to judges or legislators today, but
rather what the public likely understood “the freedom of speech” to
mean when the First Amendment was adopted. See District of
Columbia v. Heller , 554 U. S. 570 , 634–635
(2008). I believe it is clear that the founding public would not
have understood “the freedom of speech” to include speech to minor
children bypassing their parents. It follows that the First
Amendment imposes no restriction on state regulation of such
speech. To note that there may not be “precedent for [such] state
control,” ante , at 8, n. 3, “is not to establish that
[there] is a constitutional right,” McIntyre v. Ohio
Elections Comm’n , 514 U. S. 334 , 373 (1995) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). Footnote 3 Whether the
statute would survive an as-applied challenge in the unusual case
of an emancipated minor is a question for another day. To decide
this case, it is enough that the statute is not unconstitutional on
its face. BREYER, J., DISSENTING BROWN V. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSN. 564 U. S. ____ (2011) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 08-1448 EDMUND G. BROWN, Jr., GOVERNOR OF CAL- IFORNIA,
et al., PETITIONERS v. ENTERTAIN- MENT MERCHANTS
ASSOCIATION et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 27, 2011]

															   Justice Breyer, dissenting.

															   California imposes a civil fine
of up to $1,000 upon any person who distributes a violent video
game in California without labeling it “18,” or who sells or rents
a labeled violent video game to a person under the age of 18. Rep-
resentatives of the video game and software industries, claiming
that the statute violates the First Amendment on its face, seek an
injunction against its enforcement. Applying traditional First
Amendment analysis, I would uphold the statute as constitutional on
its face and would consequently reject the industries’ facial
challenge.

															I

															A

															   California’s statute defines a
violent video game as: A game in which a player “kill[s], maim[s],
dismember[s], or sexually assault[s] an image of a human
being,” and “[a] reasonable person, considering the game as
a whole, would find [the game] appeals to a deviant or morbid
interest of minors,” and “[the game] is patently offensive to prevailing
standards in the community as to what is suitable for
minors,” and “the game, as a whole, … lack[s] serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”
Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §1746(d)(1) (West 2009). The statute in effect forbids the sale of such
a game to minors unless they are accompanied by a parent; it
requires the makers of the game to affix a label identifying it as
a game suitable only for those aged 18 and over; it exempts
retailers from liability unless such a label is properly affixed to
the game; and it imposes a civil fine of up to $1,000 upon a
violator. See §§1746.1–1746.3. B A facial challenge to this
statute based on the First Amendment can succeed only if “a
substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged
in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” United
States v. Stevens , 559 U. S. __, __ (2010) (slip op.,
at 10) (internal quotation marks omitted) . Moreover, it is
more difficult to mount a facial First Amendment attack on a
statute that seeks to regulate activity that involves action as
well as speech. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma , 413 U. S. 601 ,
614–615 (1973). Hence, I shall focus here upon an area within which
I believe the State can legitimately apply its statute, namely
sales to minors under the age of 17 (the age cutoff used by the
industry’s own ratings system), of highly realistic violent video
games, which a reasonable game maker would know meet the Act’s
criteria. That area lies at the heart of the statute. I shall
assume that the number of instances in which the State will enforce
the statute within that area is comparatively large, and that the
number outside that area (for example, sales to 17-year-olds) is
comparatively small. And the activity the statute regulates
combines speech with action (a virtual form of target
practice).

															C

															   In determining whether the
statute is unconstitutional, I would apply both this Court’s
“vagueness” precedents and a strict form of First Amendment
scrutiny. In doing so, the special First Amendment category I find
relevant is not (as the Court claims) the category of “depictions
of violence,” ante , at 8, but rather the category of
“protection of children.” This Court has held that the “power of
the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the
scope of its authority over adults.” Prince v. Massachusetts , 321 U. S. 158 , 170
(1944). And the “ ‘regulatio[n] of communication addressed to
[children] need not conform to the requirements of the [F]irst
[A]mendment in the same way as those applicable to adults.’ ” Ginsberg v. New York , 390 U. S. 629 , 638, n. 6
(1968) (quoting Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First
Amendment, 72 Yale L. J. 877, 939 (1963)).

															   The majority’s claim that the
California statute, if upheld, would create a “new categor[y] of
unprotected speech,” ante , at 3, 6, is overstated. No one
here argues that depictions of violence, even extreme violence, automatically fall outside the First Amendment’s
protective scope as, for example, do obscenity and depictions of
child pornography. We properly speak of categories of
expression that lack protection when, like “child pornography,” the
category is broad, when it applies automatically, and when the
State can prohibit everyone, including adults, from obtaining
access to the material within it. But where, as here, careful
analysis must precede a narrower judicial conclusion (say, denying
protection to a shout of “fire” in a crowded theater, or to an
effort to teach a terrorist group how to peacefully petition the
United Nations), we do not normally describe the result as creating
a “new category of unprotected speech.” See Schenck v. United States , 249 U. S. 47 , 52 (1919); Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project , 561 U. S. __
(2010).

															   Thus, in Stevens, after rejecting the
claim that all de-pictions of animal cruelty (a category)
fall outside the First Amendment’s protective scope, we went on to
decide whether the particular statute at issue violates the First
Amendment under traditional standards; and we held that, because
the statute was overly broad, it was invalid. Similarly, here the
issue is whether, applying traditional First Amendment standards,
this statute does, or does not, pass muster.

															II

															   In my view, California’s statute
provides “fair notice of what is prohibited,” and consequently it
is not impermissibly vague. United States v. Williams , 553 U. S. 285 , 304
(2008). Ginsberg explains why that is so. The Court there
considered a New York law that forbade the sale to minors of a

															“picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion
picture film, or similar visual representation or image of a person
or portion of the human body which depicts nudity . . . ,” that “predominately appeals to the prurient,
shameful or morbid interest of minors,” and “is patently offensive to prevailing standards
in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable
material for minors,” and “is utterly without redeeming social importance
for minors.” 390 U. S., at 646–647. This Court upheld the New York statute in
Ginsberg (which is sometimes unfortunately confused with a
very different, earlier case, Ginzburg v. United
States , 383 U.
S. 463 (1966)). The five-Justice majority, in an opinion
written by Justice Brennan, wrote that the statute was suf-
ficiently clear. 390 U. S., at 643–645. No Member of the Court
voiced any vagueness objection. See id. , at 648–650
(Stewart, J., concurring in result); id. , at 650–671
(Douglas, J., joined by Black, J., dissenting); id. , at
671–675 (Fortas, J., dissenting).

															   Comparing the language of California’s statute
(set forth supra , at 1–2) with the language of New York’s
statute (set forth immediately above), it is difficult to find any
vagueness-related difference. Why are the words “kill,” “maim,” and
“dismember” any more difficult to understand than the word
“nudity?” Justice Alito objects that these words do “not perform
the narrowing function” that this Court has required in adult
obscenity cases, where statutes can only cover “ ‘hard
core’ ” depictions. Ante , at 6 (opinion concurring in
judgment). But the relevant comparison is not to adult obscenity
cases but to Ginsberg , which dealt with “nudity,” a
category no more “narrow” than killing and maiming. And in any
event, narrowness and vagueness do not
necessarily have anything to do with one another. All that is
required for vagueness purposes is that the terms “kill,” “maim,”
and “dismember” give fair notice as to what they cover, which they
do.

															   The remainder of California’s definition
copies, almost word for word, the language this Court used in Miller v. California , 413 U. S. 15 (1973), in
permitting a total ban on material that satisfied its
definition (one enforced with criminal penalties). The
California law’s reliance on “community standards” adheres to Miller , and in Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana , 489
U. S. 46 , 57–58 (1989) , this Court specifically upheld
the use of Miller’ s language against charges of vagueness.
California only departed from the Miller formulation in
two significant respects: It substituted the word “deviant” for the
words “prurient” and “shameful,” and it three times added the words
“for minors.” The word “deviant” differs from “prurient” and
“shameful,” but it would seem no less suited to defining and
narrowing the reach of the statute. And the addition of “for
minors” to a version of the Miller standard was approved
in Ginsberg , 390 U. S., at 643, even though the New York
law “dr[ew] no distinction between young children and adolescents
who are nearing the age of majority,” ante , at 8 (opinion
of Alito, J.).

															   Both the Miller standard and the law
upheld in Ginsberg lack perfect clarity. But that fact
reflects the dif- ficulty of the Court’s long search for words
capable of protecting expression without depriving the State of a
legitimate constitutional power to regulate. As is well known, at
one point Justice Stewart thought he could do no better in defining
obscenity than, “I know it when I see it.” Jacobellis v. Ohio , 378
U. S. 184 , 197 (1964) (concurring opinion). And Justice Douglas
dissented from Miller ’s standard, which he thought was
still too vague. 413 U. S., at 39–40. Ultimately, however, this
Court accepted the “community standards” tests used in Miller and Ginsberg . They reflect the fact that
sometimes, even when a precise standard proves elusive, it is easy
enough to identify instances that fall within a legitimate
regulation. And they seek to draw a line, which, while favoring
free expression, will nonetheless permit a legislature to find the
words necessary to accomplish a legitimate constitutional
objective. Cf. Williams , supra , at 304 (the
Constitution does not always require “ ‘perfect clarity and
precise guidance,’ ” even when “ ‘expressive
activity’ ” is involved).

															   What, then, is the difference between Ginsberg and Miller on the one hand and the
California law on the other? It will often be easy to pick out
cases at which California’s statute directly aims, involving, say,
a character who shoots out a police officer’s knee, douses him with
gasoline, lights him on fire, urinates on his burning body, and
finally kills him with a gunshot to the head. (Foot- age of one
such game sequence has been submitted in the record.) See also ante , at 14–15 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment). As in Miller and Ginsberg , the California law clearly protects even the most violent games that possess serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
§1746(d)(1)(A)(iii). And it is easier here than in Miller or Ginsberg to separate the sheep from the goats at the
statute’s border. That is because here the industry it- self has
promulgated standards and created a review process, in which adults
who “typically have experience with children” assess what games are
inappropriate for minors. See Entertainment Software Rating Board,
Rating Process, online at http://www.esrb.org/ratings/&ratings_
process.jsp (all Internet materials as visited June 24, 2011, and
available in Clerk of Court’s case file).

															   There is, of course, one obvious difference:
The Ginsberg statute concerned depictions of “nudity,”
while California’s statute concerns extremely violent video games.
But for purposes of vagueness, why should that matter? Justice
Alito argues that the Miller standard sufficed because
there are “certain generally accepted norms concerning expression
related to sex,” whereas there are no similarly “accepted standards
regarding the suitability of violent entertainment.” Ante ,
at 7–8. But there is no evidence that is so. The Court relied on
“community standards” in Miller precisely because of the
difficulty of articulating “accepted norms” about depictions of
sex. I can find no difference—historical or otherwise—that is relevant to the vagueness question. Indeed, the majority’s
examples of literary descriptions of violence, on which Justice
Alito relies, do not show anything relevant at all.

															   After all, one can find in literature as many
(if not more) descriptions of physical love as descriptions of
violence. Indeed, sex “has been a theme in art and literature
throughout the ages.” Ashcroft v. Free Speech
Coalition , 535
U. S. 234 , 246 (2002) . For every Homer, there is a
Titian. For every Dante, there is an Ovid. And for all the
teenagers who have read the original versions of Grimm’s Fairy
Tales, I suspect there are those who know the story of Lady
Godiva.

															   Thus, I can find no meaningful
vagueness-related dif-ferences between California’s law and the New
York law upheld in Ginsberg . And if there remain any
vagueness problems, the state courts can cure them through
interpretation. See Erznoznik v. Jacksonville , 422 U. S. 205 ,
216 (1975) (“[S]tate statute should not be deemed facially invalid
unless it is not readily subject to a narrowing construction by the
state courts”). Cf. Ginsberg , supra , at 644
(relying on the fact that New York Court of Appeals would read a
knowledge requirement into the statute); Berry v. Santa Barbara , 40 Cal. App. 4th 1075, 1088–1089, 47 Cal.
Rptr. 2d 661, 669 (1995) (reading a knowledge requirement into a
statute). Consequently, for purposes of this facial challenge, I
would not find the statute unconstitutionally vague.

															III

															   Video games combine physical
action with expression. Were physical activity to predominate in a
game, government could appropriately intervene, say by requiring
parents to accompany children when playing a game in-volving actual
target practice, or restricting the sale of toys presenting
physical dangers to children. See generally Consumer Product Safety
Improvement Act of 2008, 122 Stat. 3016 (“Title I—Children’s
Product Safety”). But because video games also embody important
expressive and artistic elements, I agree with the Court that the
First Amendment significantly limits the State’s power to regulate.
And I would determine whether the State has exceeded those limits
by applying a strict standard of review.

															   Like the majority, I believe that
the California law must be “narrowly tailored” to further a
“compelling interest,” without there being a “less restrictive”
alternative that would be “at least as effective.” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union , 521 U. S. 844 , 874, 875,
879 (1997). I would not apply this strict standard “mechanically.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group,
Inc. , 529 U. S.
803 , 841 (2000) (Breyer, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J.,
and O’Connor and Scalia, JJ., dissenting). Rather, in applying it,
I would evaluate the degree to which the statute injures
speech-related interests, the nature of the potentially-justifying
“compelling interests,” the degree to which the statute furthers
that interest, the nature and effectiveness of possible
alternatives, and, in light of this evaluation, whether, overall,
“the statute works speech-related harm . . . out of proportion to
the benefits that the statute seeks to provide.” Ibid. See
also Burson v. Freeman , 504 U. S. 191 , 210
(1992) (plurality opinion) (applying strict scrutiny and finding
relevant the lack of a “significant impingement” on speech).

															   First Amendment standards applied in this way
are difficult but not impossible to satisfy. Applying “strict
scrutiny” the Court has upheld restrictions on speech that, for
example, ban the teaching of peaceful dispute resolution to a group
on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, Holder , 561 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 22–34); but cf. id. , at ___ (slip op., at 1 ) (Breyer, J.,
dissenting), and limit speech near polling places, Burson , supra , at 210–211 (plurality opinion). And applying less
clearly defined but still rigorous standards, the Court has allowed
States to require disclosure of petition signers, Doe v. Reed , 561 U. S. ___ (2010), and to impose campaign
contribution limits that were “ ‘closely drawn’ to match a
‘sufficiently important interest,’ ” Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC , 528 U. S. 377 , 387–388
(2000).

															   Moreover, although the Court did not specify
the “level of scrutiny” it applied in Ginsberg , we have
subsequently described that case as finding a “compelling interest”
in protecting children from harm sufficient to justify limitations
on speech. See Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC , 492 U.
S. 115 , 126 (1989). Since the Court in Ginsberg specified that the statute’s prohibition applied to material that
was not obscene, 390 U. S., at 634, I cannot dismiss Ginsberg on the ground that it concerned obscenity. But
cf. ante , at 6 (majority opinion). Nor need I depend upon
the fact that the Court in Ginsberg insisted only that the
legislature have a “rational” basis for finding the depictions
there at issue harmful to children. 390 U. S., at 639. For in this
case, California has substan-tiated its claim of harm with
considerably stronger evidence.

															A

															   California’s law imposes no more
than a modest restriction on expression. The statute prevents no
one from playing a video game, it prevents no adult from buying a
video game, and it prevents no child or adolescent from obtaining a
game provided a parent is willing to help. §1746.1(c). All it
prevents is a child or adolescent from buying, without a parent’s
assistance, a gruesomely violent video game of a kind that the
industry itself tells us it wants to keep out of the hands
of those under the age of 17. See Brief for Respondents 8.

															   Nor is the statute, if upheld,
likely to create a prece- dent that would adversely affect other
media, say films, or videos, or books. A typical video game
involves a significant amount of physical activity. See ante , at 13–14 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment) (citing
examples of the increasing interactivity of video game
controllers). And pushing buttons that achieve an interactive,
virtual form of target practice (using images of human beings as
targets), while containing an expressive component, is not just
like watching a typical movie. See infra , at 14.

															B

															   The interest that California
advances in support of the statute is compelling. As this Court has
previously described that interest, it consists of both (1) the
“basic” parental claim “to authority in their own household to
direct the rearing of their children,” which makes it proper to
enact “laws designed to aid discharge of [parental]
responsibility,” and (2) the State’s “independent interest in the
well-being of its youth.” Ginsberg , 390 U. S., at 639–640.
Cf. id. , at 639, n. 7 (“ ‘[O]ne can well distinguish
laws which do not impose a morality on children, but which support
the right of parents to deal with the morals of their children as
they see fit’ ” (quoting Henkin, Morals and the Constitution:
The Sin of Obscenity, 63 Colum. L. Rev. 391, 413, n. 68 (1963))).
And where these interests work in tandem, it is not fatally
“underinclusive” for a State to advance its interests in protecting
children against the special harms present in an interactive video
game medium through a default rule that still allows parents to
provide their children with what their parents wish.

															   Both interests are present here.
As to the need to help parents guide their children, the Court
noted in 1968 that “ ‘parental control or guidance cannot
always be provided.’ ” 390 U. S., at 640. Today, 5.3 million
grade-school-age children of working parents are routinely home
alone. See Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, Who’s Minding the
Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2005/Summer 2006, p. 12
(2010), online at http:// www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p70-121.pdf.
Thus, it has, if anything, become more important to supplement
parents’ authority to guide their children’s development.

															   As to the State’s independent interest, we
have pointed out that juveniles are more likely to show a
“ ‘lack of maturity’ ” and are “more vulnerable or
susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures,” and that
their “character . . . is not as well formed as that of an adult.” Roper v. Simmons , 543 U. S. 551 , 569–570
(2005). And we have therefore recognized “a compelling interest in
protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors.” Sable Communications , supra , at 126.

															   At the same time, there is considerable
evidence that California’s statute significantly furthers this
compelling interest. That is, in part, because video games are
excellent teaching tools. Learning a practical task often means
developing habits, becoming accustomed to performing the task, and
receiving positive reinforcement when performing that task well.
Video games can help develop habits, accustom the player to
performance of the task, and reward the player for performing that
task well. Why else would the Armed Forces incorporate video games
into its training? See CNN, War Games: Military Train- ing Goes
High-Tech (Nov. 22, 2001), online at
http://articles.cnn.com / 2001–11–2 / tech /2war.games_1_ict-
bill-swartout-real-world-training?_s=PM:TECH.

															   When the military uses video games to help
soldiers train for missions, it is using this medium for a
beneficial purpose. But California argues that when the teaching
features of video games are put to less desirable ends, harm can
ensue. In particular, extremely violent games can harm children by
rewarding them for being violently aggressive in play, and thereby
often teaching them to be violently aggressive in life. And video
games can cause more harm in this respect than can typically
passive media, such as books or films or television programs.

															   There are many scientific studies that support
California’s views. Social scientists, for example, have found causal evidence that playing these games results in harm.
Longitudinal studies, which measure changes over time, have found
that increased exposure to violent video games causes an increase
in aggression over the same period. See Möller & Krahé,
Exposure to Violent Video Games and Aggression in German
Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis, 35 Aggressive Behavior 75
(2009); Gentile & Gentile, Violent Video Games as Exemplary
Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis, 37 J. Youth & Adolescence 127
(2008); Anderson et al., Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video
Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States, 122 Pediatrics
e1067 (2008); Wallenius & Punamäki, Digital Game Violence and
Direct Aggression in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of the Roles
of Sex, Age, and Parent-Child Communication, 29 J. Applied
Developmental Psychology 286 (2008).

															   Experimental studies in laboratories have
found that subjects randomly assigned to play a violent video game
subsequently displayed more characteristics of aggression than
those who played nonviolent games. See, e.g. , Anderson
et al., Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent
Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior, 36 Advances in
Experimental Soc. Psychology 199 (2004).

															   Surveys of 8th and 9th grade students have
found a correlation between playing violent video games and
aggression. See, e.g. , Gentile, Lynch, Linder, &
Walsh, The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits On Adolescent
Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance, 27 J.
Adolescence 5 (2004).

															   Cutting-edge neuroscience has shown that
“virtual violence in video game playing results in those neural
patterns that are considered characteristic for aggressive
cognition and behavior.” Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, Does
Playing Violent Video Games Induce Aggression? Empirical Evidence
of a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study, 8 Media
Psychology 39, 51 (2006).

															   And “meta-analyses,” i.e. , studies of
all the studies, have concluded that exposure to violent video
games “was positively associated with aggressive behavior,
aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect,” and that “playing
violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term
harmful outcomes.” Anderson et al., Violent Video Game Effects
on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and
Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review, 136 Psychological
Bulletin 151, 167, 169 (2010) (emphasis added).

															   Some of these studies take care to explain in
a common- sense way why video games are potentially more harmful
than, say, films or books or television. In essence, they say that
the closer a child’s behavior comes, not to watching, but to acting out horrific violence, the greater the potential
psychological harm. See Bushman & Huesmann, Aggression, in 2
Handbook of Social Pscyhology 833, 851 (S. Fiske, D. Gilbert, &
G. Lindzey eds., 5th ed. 2010) (video games stimulate more
aggression because “[p]eople learn better when they are actively
involved,” players are “more likely to identify with violent
characters,” and “violent games directly reward violent behavior”);
Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, Experimental Study of the
Differential Effects of Playing Versus Watching Violent Video Games
on Children’s Aggressive Behavior, 34 Aggressive Behavior 256
(2008) (finding greater aggression resulting from playing, as
opposed to watching, a violent game); C. Anderson, D. Gentile,
& K. Buckley, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and
Adolescents 136–137 (2007) (three studies finding greater effects
from games as opposed to television). See also infra , at
15–16 (statements of expert public health associations agreeing
that interactive games can be more harmful than “passive” media
like television); ante , at 12–17 (Alito, J., concurring in
judgment).

															   Experts debate the conclusions of all these
studies. Like many, perhaps most, studies of human behavior, each
study has its critics, and some of those critics have produced
studies of their own in which they reach different conclusions. (I
list both sets of research in the appendixes.) I, like most judges,
lack the social science expertise to say definitively who is right.
But associations of public health professionals who do possess that
expertise have reviewed many of these studies and found a
significant risk that violent video games, when compared with more
passive media, are particularly likely to cause children harm.

															   Eleven years ago, for example, the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child &
Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, the
American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family
Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association released a
joint statement, which said:

															“[O]ver 1000 studies . . . point overwhelmingly to
a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior
in some children . . . [and, though less research had been done at
that time, preliminary studies indicated that] the impact of
violent interactive entertainment (video games and other
interactive media) on young people . . . may be significantly
more severe than that wrought by television, movies, or
music.” Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on
Children (2000) (emphasis added), online at
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/jstmtevc.htm.

															   Five years later, after more
research had been done, the American Psychological Association
adopted a resolution that said:

															“[C]omprehensive analysis of violent interactive
video game research suggests such exposure . . . increases
aggressive behavior, . . . increases aggressive thoughts, . . .
increases angry feelings, . . . decreases helpful behavior, and . .
. increases physio- logical arousal.” Resolution on Violence in
Video Games and Interactive Media (2005), online at
http:// www.apa.org / about / governance / council / policy/
interactive-media.pdf.

															The Association added:

															“[T]he practice, repetition, and rewards for acts
of violence may be more conducive to increasing aggressive
behavior among children and youth than passively watching violence
on TV and in films.” Ibid. (emphasis added).

															Four years after that, in 2009, the American
Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in significant part about
interactive media. It said:

															“Studies of these rapidly growing and
ever-more-sophisticated types of media have indicated that the
effects of child-initiated virtual violence may be even more
profound than those of passive media such as television. In
many games the child or teenager is ‘embedded’ in the game and uses
a ‘joystick’ (handheld controller) that enhances both the
experience and the aggressive feelings.” Policy Statement—Media
Violence, 124 Pediatrics 1495, 1498 (2009) (emphasis added).

															It added:

															“Correlational and experimental studies have
revealed that violent video games lead to increases in aggressive
behavior and aggressive thinking and decreases in prosocial
behavior. Recent longitudinal studies . . . have revealed that in
as little as 3 months, high exposure to violent video games
increased physical aggression. Other recent longitudinal studies .
. . have revealed similar effects across 2 years.” Ibid. (footnotes omitted).

															   Unlike the majority, I would find
sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this
Court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the
video games in question are particularly likely to harm children.
This Court has always thought it owed an elected legislature some
degree of deference in respect to legislative facts of this kind,
particularly when they involve technical matters that are beyond
our competence, and even in First Amendment cases. See Holder , 561 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 28–29) (deferring,
while applying strict scrutiny, to the Government’s national
security judgments); Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC , 520 U.
S. 180 , 195–196 (1997) (deferring, while applying intermediate
scrutiny, to the Government’s technological judgments). The
majority, in reaching its own, opposite conclusion about the
validity of the relevant studies, grants the legislature no
deference at all. Compare ante , at 12–13 (stating that the
studies do not provide evidence that violent video games “cause”
harm (emphasis deleted)), with supra , at 12–13 (citing
longitudinal studies finding causation).

															C

															   I can find no “less restrictive”
alternative to California’s law that would be “at least as
effective.” See Reno , 521 U. S., at 874. The majority
points to a voluntary alternative: The industry tries to prevent
those under 17 from buying extremely violent games by labeling
those games with an “M” (Mature) and encouraging retailers to
restrict their sales to those 17 and older. See ante , at
15–16. But this voluntary system has serious enforcement gaps. When
California enacted its law, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study
had found that nearly 70% of unaccompanied 13- to 16-year-olds were
able to buy M-rated video games. FTC, Marketing Violent
Entertainment to Children 27 (2004), online at
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2004/ 07/040708kidsviolencerpt.pdf.
Subsequently the volun- tary program has become more effective. But
as of the FTC’s most recent update to Congress, 20% of those under
17 are still able to buy M-rated video games, and, breaking down
sales by store, one finds that this num- ber rises to nearly 50% in
the case of one large national chain. FTC, Marketing Violent
Entertainment to Chil- dren 28 (2009), online at
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/12/ P994511violententertainment.pdf. And
the industry could easily revert back to the substantial
noncompliance that existed in 2004, particularly after today’s
broad ruling reduces the industry’s incentive to police itself.

															   The industry also argues for an
alternative technological solution, namely “filtering at the
console level.” Brief for Respondents 53. But it takes only a quick
search of the Internet to find guides explaining how to circum-
vent any such technological controls. YouTube viewers, for example,
have watched one of those guides (called “How to bypass parental
controls on the Xbox 360”) more than 47,000 times. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= CFlVfVmvN6k.

															IV

															   The upshot is that California’s
statute, as applied to its heartland of applications
( i.e., buyers under 17; extremely violent, realistic video
games), imposes a restriction on speech that is modest at most.
That restriction is justified by a compelling interest
(supplementing parents’ efforts to prevent their children from
purchasing potentially harmful violent, interactive material). And
there is no equally effective, less restrictive alternative.
California’s statute is consequently constitutional on its
face—though litigants remain free to challenge the statute as
applied in particular instances, including any effort by the State
to apply it to minors aged 17.

															   I add that the majority’s
different conclusion creates a serious anomaly in First Amendment
law. Ginsberg makes clear that a State can prohibit the
sale to minors of depictions of nudity; today the Court makes clear
that a State cannot prohibit the sale to minors of the most violent
interactive video games. But what sense does it make to forbid
selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude
woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an
interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds
and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her? What kind of First
Amendment would permit the government to protect children by
restrict- ing sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman—bound, gagged, tortured, and killed—is
also topless?

															   This anomaly is not compelled by the First
Amendment. It disappears once one recognizes that extreme violence,
where interactive, and without literary, artistic, or similar
justification , can prove at least as, if not more, harmful to
children as photographs of nudity. And the record here is more than
adequate to support such a view. That is why I believe that Ginsberg controls the outcome here a fortiori. And it is why I believe California’s law is constitutional on its
face.

															   This case is ultimately less about censorship
than it is about education. Our Constitution cannot succeed in
securing the liberties it seeks to protect unless we can raise
future generations committed cooperatively to making our system of
government work. Education, however, is about choices. Sometimes,
children need to learn by making choices for themselves. Other
times, choices are made for children—by their parents, by their
teachers, and by the people acting democratically through their
governments. In my view, the First Amendment does not disable
government from helping parents make such a choice here—a choice
not to have their children buy extremely violent, interactive video
games, which they more than reasonably fear pose only the risk of
harm to those children.

															   For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

															APPENDIXES

															   With the assistance of the
Supreme Court Library, I have compiled these two appendixes listing
peer-reviewed academic journal articles on the topic of
psychological harm resulting from playing violent video games. The
library conducted a search for relevant articles on the following
databases: PsycINFO, PubMed, Academic Search Premier, ArticleFirst
(OCLC), and Dialog (files 1, 7, 34, 98, 121, 142, 144, 149). The
following search terms were used: “(video* or computer or arcade or
online) and (game*) and (attack* or fight* or aggress* or violen*
or hostil* or ang* or arous* or prosocial or help* or desens* or
empathy).” After eliminating irrelevant matches based on title or
abstract, I categorized these articles as either supporting the
hypothesis that violent video games are harmful (listed in Appendix
A), or not supporting/rejecting the hypothesis that violent video
games are harmful (listed in Appendix B).

															   Many, but not all, of these
articles were available to the California Legislature or the
parties in briefing this case. I list them because they suggest
that there is substantial (though controverted) evidence supporting
the expert associations of public health professionals that have
concluded that violent video games can cause children
psychological harm. See supra , at 15–16. And consequently,
these studies help to substantiate the validity of the original
judgment of the California Legislature, as well as that judgment’s
continuing validity.

															A

															Anderson & Bushman, Effects of Violent Video
Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive
Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A
Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature, 12 Psychological
Science: J. Am. Psychological Society 353 (2001).

															Anderson & Dill, Video Games and Aggressive
Thoughts, Feelings, & Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life,
78 J. Personality & Soc. Psychology 772 (2000).

															Anderson et al., Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of
Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior, 36 Advances in
Experimental Soc. Psychology 199 (2004).

															Anderson & Ford, Affect of the Game Player: Short-Term
Effects of Highly and Mildly Aggressive Video Games, 12 Personality
& Soc. Psychology Bull. 390 (1986).

															Anderson & Morrow, Competitive Aggression Without
Interaction: Effects of Competitive Versus Cooperative Instructions
on Aggressive Behavior in Video Games, 21 Personality & Soc.
Psychology Bull. 1020 (1995).

															Anderson et al., Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video
Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States, 122 Pediatrics
e1067 (2008).

															Anderson et al., Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression,
Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A
Meta-Analytic Review, 136 Psychological Bull. 151 (2010).

															Anderson, An Update on the Effects of Playing Violent Video
Games, 27 J. Adolescence 113 (2004).

															Anderson et al., The Influence of Media Violence on Youth,
4 Psychological Science in the Public Interest 81 (2003).

															Anderson & Carnagey, Causal Effects of Violent Sports Video
Games on Aggression: Is it Competitiveness or Violent Content? 45
J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 731 (2009).

															Anderson & Murphy, Violent Video Games and Aggressive
Behavior in Young Women, 29 Aggressive Behavior 423 (2003).

															Arriaga, Esteves, Carneiro, & Monteiro, Violent Computer
Games and Their Effects on State Hostility and Physiological
Arousal, 32 Aggressive Behavior 358 (2006).

															Arriaga, Esteves, Carneiro, & Monteiro, Are the Effects of
Unreal Violent Video Games Pronounced When Playing With a Virtual
Reality System? 34 Aggressive Behavior 521 (2008).

															Baldaro et al., Aggressive and Non-Violent Videogames:
Short-Term Psychological and Cardiovascular Effects on Habitual
Players, 20 Stress & Health: J. Int’l Society for Investigation
of Stress 203 (2004).

															Ballard, Hamby, Panee, & Nivens, Repeated Exposure to Video
Game Play Results in Decreased Blood Pressure Responding, 8 Media
Psychology 323 (2006).

															Ballard & Lineberger, Video Game Violence and Confederate
Gender: Effects on Reward and Punishment Given by College Males, 41
Sex Roles 541 (1999).

															Ballard & Wiest, Mortal Kombat (tm): The Effects of Violent
Videogame Play on Males’ Hostility and Cardiovascular Responding,
26 J. Applied Soc. Psychology 717 (1996).

															Barlett, Branch, Rodeheffer, & Harris, How Long do the
Short-Term Violent Video Game Effects Last? 35 Aggressive Behavior
225 (2009).

															Barlett, Rodeheffer, Baldassaro, Hinkin, & Harris, The
Effect of Advances in Video Game Technology and Content on
Aggressive Cognitions, Hostility, and Heart Rate, 11 Media
Psychology 540 (2008).

															Barlett, Harris, & Baldassaro, Longer You Play, the More
Hostile You Feel: Examination of First Person Shooter Video Games
and Aggression During Video Game Play, 33 Aggressive Behavior 486
(2007).

															Barlett, Harris, & Bruey, The Effect of the Amount of Blood
in a Violent Video Game on Aggression, Hostility, and Arousal, 44
J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 539 (2008).

															Barlett & Rodeheffer, Effects of Realism on Extended Violent
and Nonviolent Video Game Play on Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings,
and Physiological Arousal, 35 Aggressive Behavior 213 (2009).

															Barlett, Anderson, & Swing, Video Game Effects—Confirmed,
Suspected, and Speculative: A Review of the Evidence, 40 Simulation
& Gaming 377 (2009).

															Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, Correlates and Consequences of
Exposure to Video Game Violence: Hostile Personality, Empathy, and
Aggressive Behavior, 31 Personality & Soc. Psychology Bull.
1573 (2005).

															Bartholow & Anderson, Effects of Violent Video Games on
Aggressive Behavior: Potential Sex Differences, 38 J. Experimental
Soc. Psychology 283 (2002).

															Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, Chronic Violent Video Game
Exposure and Desensitization to Violence: Behavioral and
Event-Related Brain Potential Data, 42 J. Experimental Soc.
Psychology 532 (2006).

															Bluemke, Friedrich, & Zumbach, The Influence of Violent and
Nonviolent Computer Games on Implicit Measures of Aggressiveness,
36 Aggressive Behavior 1 (2010).

															Brady & Matthews, Effects of Media Violence on
Health-Related Outcomes Among Young Men, 160 Archives of Pediatrics
& Adolescent Med. 341 (2006).

															Browne & Hamilton-Giachritsis, The Influence of Violent
Media on Children and Adolescents: A Public-Health Approach, 365
Lancet 702 (2005).

															Bushman & Anderson, Violent Video Games and Hostile
Expectations: A Test of the General Aggression Model, 28
Personality & Soc. Psychology Bull. 1679 (2002).

															Bushman & Anderson, Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects
of Violent Media on Helping Others, 20 Psychological Science: J.
Am. Psychological Society 273 (2009).

															Bushman, Rothstein, & Anderson, Much Ado About Something:
Violent Video Game Effects and a School of Red Herring: Reply to
Ferguson and Kilburn, 136 Psychological Bull. 182 (2010).

															Calvert & Tan, Impact of Virtual Reality on Young Adults’
Physiological Arousal and Aggressive Thoughts: Interaction Versus
Observation, 15 J. Applied Developmental Psychology 125 (1994).

															Carnagey, Anderson, & Bartholow, Media Violence and Social
Neuroscience: New Questions and New Opportunities, 16 Current
Directions in Psychological Science 178 (2007).

															Carnagey & Anderson, Violent Video Game Exposure and
Aggression: A Literature Review, 45 Minerva Psichiatrica 1
(2004).

															Carnagey & Anderson, The Effects of Reward and Punishment in
Violent Video Games on Aggressive Affect, Cognition, and Behavior,
16 Psychological Science: J. Am. Psychological Society 882
(2005).

															Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, The Effect of Video Game
Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-life Violence, 43
J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 489 (2007).

															Chambers & Ascione, The Effects of Prosocial and Aggressive
Videogames on Children’s Donating and Helping, 148 J. Genetic
Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development 499
(1987).

															Chory & Cicchirillo, The Relationship Between Video Game
Play and Trait Verbal Aggressiveness: An Application of the General
Aggression Model, 24 Communications Research Reports 113
(2007).

															Cicchirillo & Chory-Assad, Effects of Affective Orientation
and Video Game Play on Aggressive Thoughts and Behaviors, 49 J.
Broadcasting & Electronic Media 435 (2005).

															Colwell & Payne, Negative Correlates of Computer Game Play
in Adolescents, 91 British J. Psychology 295 (2000).

															Cooper & Mackie, Video Games and Aggression in Children, 16
J. Applied Soc. Psychology 726 (1986).

															Deselms & Altman, Immediate and Prolonged Effects of
Videogame Violence, 33 J. Applied Soc. Psychology 1553 (2003).

															Dill & Dill, Video Game Violence: A Review of the Empirical
Literature, 3 Aggression & Violent Behavior 407 (1998).

															Do&dsign;an, Video Games and Children: Violence in Video
Games, 44 Yeni Symposium 161 (2006).

															Eastin, Video Game Violence and the Female Game Player: Self-
and Opponent Gender Effects on Presence and Aggressive Thoughts, 32
Human Communication Research 351 (2006).

															Emes, Is Mr Pac Man Eating Our Children? A Review of the Effect
of Video Games on Children, 42 Canadian J. Psychiatry 409
(1997).

															Farrar, Krcmar, & Nowak, Contextual Features of Violent
Video Games, Mental Models, and Aggression, 56 J. Communication 387
(2006).

															Fischer, Kastenmüller, & Greitemeyer, Media Violence and the
Self: The Impact of Personalized Gaming Characters in Aggressive
Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, 46 J. Experimental Soc.
Psychology 192 (2010).

															Funk, Children’s Exposure to Violent Video Games and
Desensitization to Violence, 14 Child & Adolescent Psychiatric
Clinics North Am. 387 (2005).

															Funk, Video Games, 16 Adolescent Med. Clinics 395 (2005).

															Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, Violence Exposure in
Real-Life, Video Games, Television, Movies, and the Internet: Is
There Desensitization? 27 J. Adolescence 23 (2004).

															Funk, Buchman, Jenks, & Bechtoldt, Playing Violent Video
Games, Desensitization, and Moral Evaluation in Children, 24 J.
Applied Developmental Psychology 413 (2003).

															Funk et al., Aggression and Psychopathology in Adolescents
with a Preference for Violent Electronic Games, 28 Aggressive
Behavior 134 (2002).

															Funk, Buchman, Jenks, & Bechtoldt, An Evidence-Based
Approach to Examining the Impact of Playing Violent Video and
Computer Games, SIMILE: Studies in Media & Information Literacy
Educ., vol. 2, no. 4, p. 1 (Nov. 2002).

															Gentile & Stone, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and
Adolescents: A Review of the Literature, 57 Minerva Pediatrica 337
(2005).

															Gentile et al., The Effects of Prosocial Video Games on
Prosocial Behaviors: International Evidence From Correlational,
Longitudinal, and Experimental Studies, 35 Personality & Soc.
Psychology Bull. 752 (2009).

															Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, The Effects of Violent
Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors,
and School Performance, 27 J. Adolescence 5 (2004).

															Gentile & Gentile, Violent Video Games as Exemplary
Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis, 37 J. Youth & Adolescence 127
(2008).

															Giumetti & Markey, Violent Video Games and Anger as
Predictors of Aggression, 41 J. Research in Personality 1234
(2007).

															Graybill, Kirsch, & Esselman, Effects of Playing Violent
Versus Nonviolent Video Games on the Aggressive Ideation of
Aggressive and Nonaggressive Children, 15 Child Study J. 199
(1985).

															Grigoryan, Stepanyan, Stepanyan, & Agababyan, Influence of
Aggressive Computer Games on the Brain Cortex Activity Level in
Adolescents, 33 Human Physiology 34 (2007).

															Hastings et al., Young Children’s Video/Computer Game Use:
Relations With School Performance and Behavior, 30 Issues in Mental
Health Nursing 638 (2009).

															Huesmann, Nailing the Coffin Shut on Doubts That Violent Video
Games Stimulate Aggression: Comment on Anderson et al., 136
Psychological Bull. 179 (2010).

															Huesmann, The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific
Theory and Research, 41 J. Adolescent Health S6 (2007).

															Huesmann & Taylor, The Role of Media Violence in Violent
Behavior, 27 Annual Rev. Public Health 393 (2006).

															Hummer et al., Short-Term Violent Video Game Play by
Adolescents Alters Prefrontal Activity During Cognitive Inhibition,
13 Media Psychology 136 (2010).

															Irwin & Gross, Cognitive Temp, Violent Video Games, and
Aggressive Behavior in Young Boys, 10 J. Family Violence 337
(1995).

															Kirsh & Mounts, Violent Video Game Play impacts Facial
Emotion Recognition, 33 Aggressive Behavior 353 (2007).

															Kirsh, Mounts, & Olczak, Violent Media Consumption and the
Recognition of Dynamic Facial Expressions, 21 J. Interpersonal
Violence 571 (2006).

															Kirsh, Olczak, & Mounts, Violent Video Games Induce an
Affect Processing Bias, 7 Media Psychology 239 (2005).

															Kirsh, The Effects of Violent Video Games on Adolescents: The
Overlooked Influence of Development, 8 Aggression & Violent
Behavior 377 (2003).

															Kirsh, Seeing the World Through Mortal Kombat-Colored Glasses:
Violent Video Games and the Development of a Short-term Hostile
Attribution Bias, 5 Childhood 177 (1998).

															Konijn, Bijvank, & Bushman, I Wish I Were a Warrior: The
Role of Wishful Identification in the Effects of Violent Video
Games on Aggression in Adolescent Boys, 43 Developmental Psychology
1038 (2007).

															Krahé & Möller, Playing Violent Electronic Games, Hostile
Attributional Style, and Aggression-related Norms in German
Adolescents, 27 J. Adolescence 53 (2004).

															Krcmar, Farrar, & McGloin, The Effects of Video Game Realism
on Attention, Retention and Aggressive Outcomes, 27 Computers in
Human Behavior 432 (2011).

															Krcmar & Lachlan, Aggressive Outcomes and Videogame Play:
The Role of Length of Play and the Mechanisms at Work, 12 Media
Psychology 249 (2009).

															Krcmar & Farrar, Retaliatory Aggression and the Effects of
Point of View and Blood in Violent Video Games, 12 Mass
Communication & Society 115 (2009).

															Kronenberger et al., Media Violence Exposure in Aggressive and
Control Adolescents: Differences in Self- and Parent-Reported
Exposure to Violence on Television and in Video Games, 31
Aggressive Behavior 201 (2005).

															Kronenberger et al., Media Violence Exposure and Executive
Functioning in Aggressive and Control Adolescents, 61 J. Clinical
Psychology 725 (2005).

															Kuntsche, Hostility Among Adolescents in Switzerland?
Multivariate Relations Between Excessive Media Use and Forms of
Violence, 34 J. Adolescent Health 230 (2004).

															Lee, Peng, & Klein, Will the Experience of Playing a Violent
Role in a Video Game Influence People’s Judgments of Violent
Crimes? 26 Computers in Human Behavior 1019 (2010).

															Lemmens & Bushman, The Appeal of Violent Video Games to
Lower Educated Aggressive Adolescent Boys From Two Countries, 9
CyberPsychology & Behavior 638 (2006).

															Mathiak & Weber, Toward Brain Correlates of Natural
Behavior: fMRI During VIolent Video Games, 27 Human Brain Mapping
948 (2006).

															Möller & Krahé, Exposure to Violent Video Games and
Aggression in German Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis, 35
Aggressive Behavior 75 (2009).

															Nowak, Krcmar, & Farrar, The Causes and Consequences of
Presence: Considering the Influence of Violent Video Games on
Presence and Aggression, 17 Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual
Environments 256 (2008).

															Olson et al., M-Rated Video Games and Aggressive or Problem
Behavior Among Young Adolescents, 13 Applied Developmental Science
188 (2009).

															Panee & Ballard, High Versus Low Aggressive Priming During
Video-Game Training: Effects on Violent Action During Game Play,
Hostility, Heart Rate, and Blood Pressure, 32 J. Applied Soc.
Psychology 2458 (2002).

															Persky & Blascovich, Immersive Virtual Environments Versus
Traditional Platforms: Effects of Violent and Nonviolent Video Game
Play, 10 Media Psychology 135 (2007).

															Persky & Blascovich, Immersive Virtual Video Game Play and
Presence: Influences on Aggressive Feelings and Behavior, 17
Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 57 (2008).

															Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, Experimental Study of the
Differential Effects of Playing Versus Watching Violent Video Games
on Children’s Aggressive Behavior, 34 Aggressive Behavior 256
(2008).

															Potera, Sex and Violence in the Media Influence Teen Behavior:
Three Studies Show a Correlation, 109 American J. Nursing 20
(2009).

															Richmond & Wilson, Are Graphic Media Violence, Aggression,
and Moral Disengagement Related? 15 Psychiatry, Psychology &
Law 350 (2008).

															Schaefer & Harrison, The Effects of Violent Fantasy on
Children’s Aggressive Behavior, 41 Psychology & Educ. 35
(2004).

															Schmierbach, “Killing Spree”: Exploring the Connection Between
Competitive Game Play and Aggressive Cognition, 37 Communication
Research 256 (2010).

															Sheese & Graziano, Deciding to Defect: The Effects of
Video-Game Violence on Cooperative Behavior, 16 Psychological
Science: J. Am. Psychological Society 354 (2005).

															Sherry, The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression. A
Meta-Analysis, 27 Human Communication Research 409 (2001).

															Shibuya, Sakamoto, Ihori, & Yukawa, The Effects of the
Presence and Contexts of Video Game Violence on Children: A
Longitudinal Study in Japan, 39 Simulation & Gaming 528
(2008).

															Sigurdsson, Gudjonsson, Bragason, Kristjansdottir, &
Sigfusdottir, The Role of Violent Cognition in the Relationship
Between Personality and the Involvement in Violent Films and
Computer Games, 41 Personality & Individual Differences 381
(2006).

															Silvern & Williamson, The Effects of Video Game Play on
Young Children’s Aggression, Fantasy, and Prosocial behavior, 8 J.
Applied Developmental Psychology 453 (1987).

															Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Cardador, Vulnerable Teens,
Vulnerable Times: How Sensation Seeking, Alienation, and
Victimization Moderate the Violent Media Content—Aggressiveness
Relation, 31 Communication Research 642 (2004).

															Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Anderson, Violent Media Content and
Aggressiveness in Adolescents: A Downward Spiral Model, 30
Communication Research 713 (2003).

															Staude-Müller, Bliesener, & Luthman, Hostile and Hardened?
An Experimental Study on (De-)sensitization to Violence and
Suffering Through Playing Video Games, 67 Swiss J. Psychology 41
(2008).

															Steward & Follina, Informing Policies in Forensic Settings:
A Review of Research Investigating the Effects of Exposure to Media
Violence on Challenging/Offending Behaviour, 8 British J. Forensic
Prac. 31 (2006).

															Swing & Anderson, The Unintended Negative Consequences of
Exposure to Violent Video games, 12 Int. J. Cognitive Tech. 3
(2007).

															Tamborini et al., Violent Virtual Video Games and Hostile
Thoughts, 48 J. Broadcasting & Electronic Media 335 (2004).

															Uhlmann & Swanson, Exposure to Violent Video Games Increases
Automatic Aggressiveness, 27 J. Adolescence 41 (2004).

															Vaughan, Inadvertent Script Change and Increased Propensity for
Violence: The Danger of Interactive Video Games, 34 Transactional
Analysis J. 30 (2004).

															Wallenius & Punamäki, Digital Game Violence and Direct
Aggression in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of the Roles of
Sex, Age, and Parent-Child Communication, 29 J. Applied
Developmental Psychology 286 (2008).

															Wallenius, Punamäki, & Rimpelä, Digital Game Playing and
Direct and Indirect Aggression in Early Adolescence: The Roles of
Age, Social Intelligence, and Parent-Child Communication, 36 J.
Youth and Adolescence 325 (2007).

															Wang et al., Short Term Exposure to a Violent Video Game
Induces Changes in Frontolimbic Circuitry in Adolescents, 3 Brain
Imaging & Behavior 38 (2009).

															Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, Does Playing Violent Video
Games Induce Aggression? Empirical Evidence of a Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study, 8 Media Psychology 39 (2006).

															Wiegman & van Schie, Video Game Playing and its Relations
With Aggressive and Prosocial Behaviour, 37 British J. Soc.
Psychology 367 (1998).

															Williams, The Effects of Frustration, Violence, and Trait
Hostility After Playing a Video Game, 12 Mass Communication &
Society 291 (2009).

															Ybarra et al., Linkages Between Internet and Other Media
Violence With Seriously Violent Behavior by Youth, 122 Pediatrics
929 (2008).

															B

															Bensley & Van Eenwyk, Video Games and Real-Life Aggression:
Review of the Literature, 29 J. Adolescent Health 244 (2001).

															Bösche, Violent Content Enhances Video Game Performance, 21 J.
Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications 145
(2009).

															Colwell & Kato, Video Game Play in British and Japanese
Adolescents, 36 Simulation & Gaming 518 (2005).

															Colwell & Kato, Investigation of the Relationship Between
Social Isolation, Self-Esteem, Aggression and Computer Game Play in
Japanese Adolescents, 6 Asian J. Soc. Psychology 149 (2003).

															Dominick, Videogames, Television Violence, and Aggression in
Teenagers, 34 J. Communication 136 (1984).

															Ferguson, Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video
Games be a Force For Good? 14 Rev. Gen. Psychology 68 (2010).

															Ferguson, Violent Video Games: Dogma, Fear, Pseudoscience, 33
Skeptical Inquirer 38 (2009).

															Ferguson, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review
of Positive and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games, 78
Psychiatric Q. 309 (2007).

															Ferguson & Meehan, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting:
Antisocial Traits, Fighting, and Weapons Carrying in a Large Sample
of Youth, 81 Psychiatric Q. 293 (2010).

															Ferguson et al., Violent Video Games and Aggression, 35
Crim. Justice & Behavior 311 (2008).

															Ferguson, Research on the Effects of Violent Video Games: A
Critical Analysis, 3 Soc. & Personality Psychology Compass 351
(2009).

															Ferguson & Rueda, The Hitman Study: Violent Video Game
Exposure Effects on Aggressive Behavior, Hostile Feelings, and
Depression, 15 European Psychologist 99 (2010).

															Ferguson, San Miguel, & Hartley, A Multivariate Analysis of
Youth Violence and Aggression: The Influence of Family, Peers,
Depression, and Media Violence, 155 J. Pediatrics 904 (2009).

															Ferguson, Evidence for Publication Bias in Video Game Violence
Effects Literature: A Meta-Analytic Review, 12 Aggression &
Violent Behavior 470 (2007).

															Ferguson, The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal
Relationship or Moral Panic? 5 J. Investigative Psychology &
Offender Profiling 25 (2008).

															Ferguson et al., Personality, Parental, and Media
Influences on Aggressive Personality and Violent Crime in Young
Adults, 17 J. Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 395 (2008).

															Ferguson & Kilburn, Much Ado About Nothing: The
Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects
in Eastern and Western Nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010),
136 Psychological Bull. 174 (2010).

															Fleming & Rickwood, Effects of Violent Versus Nonviolent
Video Games on Children's Arousal, Aggressive Mood, and Positive
Mood, 31 J. Applied Soc. Psychology 2047 (2001).

															Griffiths, Violent Video Games and Aggression: A Review of the
Literature, 4 Aggression & Violent Behavior 203 (1999).

															Griffiths, Video Games and Aggression, 10 The Psychologist 397
(1997).

															Ivory & Kalyanaraman, The Effects of Technological
Advancement and Violent Content in Video Games on Players' Feelings
of Presence, Involvement, Physiological Arousal, and Aggression, 57
J. Communication 532 (2007).

															Kestenbaum & Weinstein, Personality, Psychopathology, and
Developmental Issues in Male Adolescent Video Game Use, 24 J. Am.
Academy Child Psychology 329 (1985).

															Markey & Markey, Vulnerability to Violent Video Games: A
Review and Integration of Personality Research, 14 Rev. Gen.
Psychology 82 (2010).

															Markey & Scherer, An Examination of Psychoticism and Motion
Capture Controls as Moderators of the Effects of Violent Video
Games, 25 Computers in Human Behavior 407 (2009).

															Mitrofan, Paul, & Spencer, Is Aggression in Children With
Behavioural and Emotional Difficulties Associated With Television
Viewing and Video Game Playing? A Systematic Review, 35 Child:
Care, Health & Development 5 (2009).

															Olson, Media Violence Research and Youth Violence Data: Why Do
They Conflict? 28 Academic Psychiatry 144 (2004).

															Porter & Starcevic, Are Violent Video Games Harmful? 15
Australasian Psychiatry 422 (2007).

															Regenbogen, Herrmann, & Fehr, The Neural Processing of
Voluntary Completed, Real and Virtual Violent and NonViolent
Computer Game Scenarios Displaying Predefined Actions in Gamers and
Nongamers, 5 Soc. Neuroscience 221 (2010).

															Scott, The Effect of Video Games on Feelings of Aggression, 129
J. Psychology 121 (1995).

															Sestir & Bartholow, Violent and Nonviolent Video Games
Produce Opposing Effects on Aggressive and Prosocial Outcomes, 46
J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 934 (2010).

															Unsworth, Devilly, & Ward, The Effect of Playing Violent
Video Games on Adolescents: Should Parents be Quaking in Their
Boots? 13 Psychology, Crime & Law 383 (2007).

															Unsworth & Ward, Video Games and Aggressive Behavior. 36
Australian Psychologist 184 (2001).

															Williams & Skoric, Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of
Aggression in an Online Game, 72 Communication Monographs 217
(2005).

															Winkel, Novak, & Hopson, Personality Factors, Subject
Gender, and the Effects of Aggressive Video Games on Aggression in
Adolescents, 21 J. Research in Personality 211 (1987).

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that video games are protected under the First Amendment, striking down a California law that restricted the sale of violent video games to minors.