[Sam the Sham]

There is a lot of pious talk about how it is parental responsibility to keep games like these away from their kids, not "censorship" (as if censorship weren't the medium by which parents collectively control the moral content of media images).

Get real.

Parents cannot shield their kids from the media. They cannot shield their kids from other kids who have totally permissive parents who let them have anything they want (you can bet that every kid knows someone who has GTA). That is the reality of the latchkey kid whose parents see the videogame as an acceptable alternative to having their unsupervised kids hanging out on the streets.

If you libertarians want to live in a society where millions of young people have absorbed their life lessons from GTA:San Andreas because you think that it is "free speech" to be protected at all costs, you are foolishly unrealistic.

[Bella_Bru]

'Tis much better to have a nanny state, right? That way, you don't have to worry about your kids as everyone will suddenly have to live their lives as though they were responsible for them.

[Modernman]

Parents cannot shield their kids from the media. They cannot shield their kids from other kids who have totally permissive parents who let them have anything they want (you can bet that every kid knows someone who has GTA).

You can substitute "alcohol" or "tobacco" or "pornography" or "guns" into that statement and the argument is the same: You want to make the world completely kid-friendly by taking away the rights of adults to engage in any activity you consider naughty.

[discostu]

Yes they can. I never went over to any friends house until my mother met their parents, strict rule harshly enforced. And all TV use was heavily controlled by my mother. That's what raising a kid is all about. And I was a latchkey kid, but there were rules, and I got checked-up on. I wouldn't let a kid play GTA and any parent that does is a flaming moron, but that doesn't mean adults shouldn't be allowed to. Attempts to reduce reality to PG-13 to make it "safe" for kids that aren't actually being raised by their parents are doomed to failure and deserve ridicule.

[Dan from Michigan]

I'd rather have that then decisions made by a bunch of idiotic and ignorant mid level bureaucrats who neither are trustworthy or intelligent enough to make them.

Also. GTA is fiction, much like movies. I didn't surf on cars because of "Teen Wolf". I didn't lay down in the middle of the steet because of "The Program". I didn't imitate WWF.