The question about the difference between Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Postal 2 sounds like the set-up to a corny joke.  In fact, it was a subject discussed yesterday at the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices heard oral argument on a first Amendment challenge to a California statute banning the sale of violent video games to minors.  The New York Times reports on a spirited question and answer exchange between the justices and attorneys for each side in the dispute. 

According to the report, the law imposes a $1,000 fine for selling violent video games to anyone under the age of 18.  Violent video games are defined as those “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” in a “patently offensive way,” or a way that appeals to “deviant or morbid interests” while lacking “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” 

Justice Scalia’s comments and questions made it seem like he is leaning against the law, since he pointedly questioned both the definition of a “deviant violent video game,” and queried whether, since Grimm’s Fairy Tales are indeed grim, whether they, too should be banned.