Germany Godwins Itself
With 1945 still fresh in a lot of people's minds, Germany is trying to ban violent video games. Like a reformed drunk that refuses to walk past a tavern on the way home, they figure it's best to avoid temptation altogether. But is it legal to ban them?
Some German officials link these games to an increase in violence among the young and cite at least one instance where a gamer applied the lessons learned from a first-person shooter to a real-life murderous rampage. Remove the connection, they argue, and you prevent further violence.
Germany has a lot of gamers, but the violence found in many of these games is widely criticized there. It has some of the strictest video-game censorship laws in the Western world. For example, laws prohibit the sale of Counter-Strike and other titles with blood-depicting graphics switched on. But for many politicians, the laws don't go far enough.
