Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

I have no problems restricting sales of adult oriented games so that minors can’t buy them.

A key sequence in “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” requires the player to steal a police SWAT team tank, machine gun rival gang members and incinerate employees of a rival crack dealer–all acts covered by the “Mature” rating prominently displayed on each copy of the video game.

That rating, however, hasn’t stopped countless underage players from picking up virtual Uzis in the latest GTA installment, the top-selling video game of 2004. Advocacy groups say exposure to such material makes kids more aggressive and desensitizes them to real-world violence, an argument that’s winning increasing support from state and local lawmakers looking to ban the sale of such games to minors.

Frankly though, the parents should be the ultimate filters not the retailers who sell the games. Kids have a way of getting their hands on stuff that they shouldn’t have so parents are still going to have to be vigilant and know what their kids are doing.

I see no reason why underage kids should be playing trash like GTA anyway. There are lots and lots of great games out there (WOW anybody?) that don’t feed into the idiotic “gangsta” culture that seems so prevalent among teenagers and younger kids these days.

I suspect though that, given the popularity (and thus money involved) of games like GTA, we’re going to keep seeing more and more of them produced. Too bad.

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