What Do You Think About Violent Video Game Ruling?

California cannot regulate the sale or rental of violent video games to children, according to a Monday Supreme Court ruling, which threw out the state's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

The ruling said governments don't have the power to "restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed," according to Huffington Post reports.

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," Justice Antonin Scalia said, according to the report. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

According to the Huffington Post report, California law would have prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18. Retailers who violated the act would have been fined up to $1,000 for each infraction.

The court majority said the games are protected by the First Amendment right of free speech.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, "Like protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas -- and even social messages.

"That suffices to confer First Amendment protection," Scalia wrote.

The court ruled on a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose in 2005 by two industry groups, the Entertainment Merchants Association and the Entertainment Software Association.

The high court upheld rulings by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose in 2007 and the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco in 2009 that struck down the law.

The 2005 law was authored by state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, who was then an assemblyman. It was blocked from going into effect by an injunction issued by Whyte.

Bay City News contributed to this report.