In one of his columns for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King openly chastised the Massachusetts legislator for trying to enact a law that would ban kids under 18 from purchasing violent video games. I’m convinced he can only make me love him more.

In so many words, he believes it should be in the hands of the parents to control what their kids do and don’t see and yes, I wholeheartedly agree. He even brought up a rather valid point: a seventeen year old can walk into a movie theater and see the next slash ‘em up flick yet he won’t be able to go to Target and purchase Grand Theft Auto. Makes sense, right? O_o

Scary enough as this is that parents just can’t bring themselves to break their friendship with their children to ban things from their own house, it could get even scarier if they started banning certain books that minors would otherwise have access to. Yes, yes, I know. The idiots* have been attempting to do this for years. God forbid Mark Twain, the civil war era writer, didn’t use “African American” in his works. Racist propagandizer he is! But think about it. In the same scenario as above, a seventeen year old can go see Saw 47 but can’t pick up The Shining. Please tell me I’m not the only one going cross-eyed at that prospect.

I echo King’s point pretty much down to the letter. Parents need to start putting a hand in to raise their children, to put their foot down and not allow things they find objectionable into their homes instead of suing this company or that for exposing their child to it, nevermind it was their money that bought the product to begin with. At the same time the government needs to take a step back and stop going to such lengths to protect us from ourselves. I was 4 or 5 the first time I saw the first Poltergeist and probably about 7 or 8 the first time I saw The Exorcist. Did I try to masturbate with a crucifix? No. Why? Because by parents liked the movies, watched them with me and explained things to me, explained that it wasn’t real (regardless of the fact my mom wouldn’t allow a Ouija board in the house thanks to Linda Blair) and I wasn’t allowed to watch these things on my own.

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