Pundits and columnists like Campbell Brown have called on President Obama to show some bravery and take on the entertainment lobby. But does anyone on the left or right honestly think the world would be a better place or that we would have less massacres if the government told Hollywood how much violence is appropriate?

Individual movie studios and actors had the right to determine whether their film was appropriate to release around the time of shootings like in Florida (the Ben Stiller movie Neighborhood Watch was pushed back and retitled The Watch in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting) and in Aurora (the trailer for Gangster Squad had to be re-edited to remove a scene depicting gun violence in a movie theater). But they also have the right to stand by their work and its independence from current events. Quentin Tarantino is a perfect example of this, given how passionately he defended the violence in Django Unchained…

Hollywood does not need to further censor itself, because Hollywood is not driving anyone to commit acts of violence. And neither are video games, for that matter. We’ve been over this time and again. I’m all in favor of giving parents the tools to make more informed decisions about what they let their children watch and play, but that’ a problem that needs to be dealt with between families, not by demanding Hollywood satisfy everyone’s desire for how much less violence they ought to allow.