A Hidden Victory for Gun Rights The Weapons Effect suffers a blow. A significant gun-rights victory in the U.S. Supreme Court is being interpreted almost exclusively as a free-speech victory. Actually, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association is both, and the mistake is understandable. But it would be a shame to deny encouragement to Second Amendment advocates.
Brown revolved around California’s 2005 ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under 18. On June 27 the Supreme Court overturned the law, 7-2, and held (pdf) that “video games qualify for First Amendment protection.” It found further that “government lacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter, or content” except in historically unprotected speech such as incitement or obscenity. “[A] legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs….” (Emphasis added.) http://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/a-hidden-gun-rights-victory/ -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
