Free speech lives

The U.S. Supreme Court was wise to strike down a California law banning sales and rentals of violent video games to minors.

The First Amendment to the Constitution is not to be trifled with - not even in the case of repulsively gory interactive fare that depicts murder and rape.

The 7-to-2 ruling, written by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and opposed by the odd-couple pair of liberal Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and conservative Clarence Thomas, made clear that government must make a compelling case to restrict speech and narrowly tailor the restriction.

Citing "Grimm's Fairy Tales," Dante's "Inferno," Odysseus' blinding of the Cyclops and television cartoons, Scalia wrote:

"California's argument would fare better if there were a long-standing 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."

Though critics argue that the vivid and interactive nature of violent video games affects the developing brain - and desensitizes young people to violence as other depictions have not - the court found the evidence unpersuasive.

You don't have to be a fan of video games full of sex and blood - from Grand Theft Auto, in which shooting of police is permitted, to Postal 2, in which players go on murderous rampages - to recognize that the government ought to keep its most powerful weapon, the ability to restrict freedom of speech, in the holster, except in the most extreme circumstances. This isn't one of them.

- The Daily News, New York