While there are those who believe that the government knows better than parents what is best for children, it appears that most of the Supreme Court justices are not among that group. Seven of the nine justices agreed on Monday that it is unconstitutional for California to restrict the sale of video games to minors based on how violent those games appeared to be. It was a good decision.

Like so many laws, this attempt in California to govern individual behavior probably sounded like a good thing to many people. It certainly would have relieved parents of some responsibility for monitoring their children’s behavior. It would also have, once again, signaled that parents should simply turn over to authority another aspect of their children’s upbringing, a tremendously dangerous trend that is as likely as anything to ultimately erode the freedoms Americans now enjoy. Freedom and responsibility are so intertwined that to limit one inevitably limits the other.

Few parents see redeeming qualities in the most violent of video games, and we agree that kids shouldn’t be playing them. However, not everyone feels that way and, indeed, three’s little or no proof that exposure to game-based violence has much impact on children’s development. Thus, as with so many things, parents ought to be the final arbiters of what their children can and can not do — and they certainly can do it better than the government can. If a given set of parents is comfortable letting their teenager buy a violent video game, they do not need the government telling them it is unacceptable.

While the Supreme Court’s decision has immediate effect only for California, it also sets the groundwork for any state that might consider similar laws. We’re glad that the court did not allow California, or any state in the future, to further erode parents’ responsibilities and freedoms.