Sometimes we're wrong.

In 2004, this page editorialized in support of then Assemblyman Leland Yee's bill that would bar retailers from selling extremely violent interactive video games to children. Violators were subject to fines up to $1,000. At the time, it seemed like the right stand to take, to protect kids and families.

After all, the video games the law targeted were shocking. In one, a black man crawls on the ground begging for mercy. The game player guns him down and then douses the still writhing victim with gasoline and sets him afire.

In another game, the player shoots a police officer and then, as the officer lies on the ground, continues to pump bullets into his inert body as a pool of blood oozing from the dead officer grows bigger and bigger.

As vile as these video games may be, seven of the Supreme Court's nine justices ruled this week they are protected speech and can't be treated differently than other forms of speech. In particular, they do not fall within the well-established categories where the courts have determined free speech can be curtailed – incitement, fighting words and obscenity.

Writing for the majority, Antonin Scalia argues persuasively that the California law restricting children's access to violent video games treats one kind of speech – interactive video games – differently than others. Movies, books or cartoons on TV are obvious examples.

"The books we give children to read or read to them," Scalia wrote for the majority, "contain no shortage of gore." He goes on to remind us of the wicked queen in "Snow White," "who is made to dance in red hot slippers 'til she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.' "

In "Hansel and Gretel," children kill "their captor by baking her in an oven."

Many high school reading lists contain include Homer's "The Odyssey," in which the hero blinds Cyclops "by grinding out his eye with a heated stake."

Scalia also argues that the harm California argues the interactive videos cause is unproven. Psychologists may have found correlations, but "correlation is not causation," he writes.

Correlations between depictions of violence in movies, books and cartoons and violent behavior in children have also been shown, but the state has not sought restrictions on access to these forms of speech.

As violent as some video games are, parents must be the ultimate arbiters of what their children have access to – whether it be in stores, on the Web or on bookshelves.

Moreover, experts have found the video game industry has steadily improved its rating system in recent years. That should give parents some comfort as they gauge the appropriateness of a video game for minors just as they do on Netflix or Xfinity when renting a movie.

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