You may be wondering what brought this about. I was reading an article today about a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who was disbarred from practicing law. If you don''''t know Jack, he''''s a Florida lawyer who''''s been a big opponent of violent video games. Apparently the court didn''''t like his handling of court cases and stripped him of his profession. So this begged the question in my mind of when is a child too young? I''''m not advocating for or against kids playing video games and especially violent ones. I do agree in the right to play what you want to play but what about protecting kids? It seems like an obvious question but when do we draw the line and say yes or no?

We''''ve seen in recent court cases examples of kids acting out video games (i.e. Columbine, etc). Kids can do stupid things. There''''s no denying it. They see something whether in a movie or a game and they think, "I can do that!!" Then they learn about the laws of physics and gravity or the law of consequences. Also, we could put this back on the parents. We could say that a parent should be monitoring their kid and making the decisions about whether they think they''''re mature enough to realize it''''s just fantasy. If you''''ve ever studied psychology, you know that kids learn mainly from watching others do something. They study behavior and learn to mimic that behavior. So this brings us back to the question at hand, when is a child too young to play video games?

I''''ve started a poll in our forums to ask this question and get everyone''''s input. I value this not only as a father but also as one who is unsure of how much the government should be involved (warning labels, etc). Let me know what you think.