Where Politics And Video Games Collide

It also fails on point 2: Using the game industry's ratings
That was said to be unconstitutional because the ESRB is not part of the government and thus can not be given such authority.

This is one the many reasons legislation is not possible...
Using the ESRB ratings would be unconstitutional... making a gov't body that would make ratings in place of the ESRB would also smack of a free speech offense since the gov't is getting a say on exactly what does or does not pass... and the last remaining option would be to define violence as Obscene and make it an exception to the 1st amendment; however as we've seen in the past, not only could you not do this without including other forms of media, it's impossible to get a clear definition as to what "So violent, that it's obscene" is... Unlike things that are sexually explicit, there is no clear line for violence...

Throwing a punch is one thing, but what if you throw enough punches that you beat a person to death? how about a gunshot? someone getting shot could be seen as only pg13... how many times can a person get shot before you jump up to R rating? Hell even decapitation could work itself into PG-13 level... and then there's the whole issue of excluding cartoon violence which involves defining "what is a cartoon?" (one reason i recall a piece of legislation failing is because they realized bugs bunny carttons would fit their definition)... and the answer "anything animated" won't work; adult swim and lots of animes prove that to be dead wrong have shown that animation can do adult level stuff too... not to mention that games would fit under "something animated" as well (thus render the legislation moot for games =p)...