I love explosions. I’m also against killing innocent people and don’t like cleaning up messes, so Halo Rocket Launchers are the perfect fix.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez disagreees, calling violent video games “poison.”

Violent video games became illegal in Venezuela last year and are punishable by three years in prison.

Though it may seem imprudent to compare the United States with Chavez’s totalitarian regime, the same overbearing impulse is present in American politicians. Though you can avoid neighbors trying to tell you what to do, there is no escape from Congressional attempts to help us “for our own good.”

In response to the growing outcry from parents about the time kids now spend on violent video games, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to help revamp the ratings system. “If the industry fails to act,” in voluntarily improving their ratings systems, “then my administration will,” Obama said.

The president was right to call youth video game playing a problem, but he was wrong to advocate federal intervention in the matter. Problems of bad personal habits are best solved by teachers, friends, churches and, most importantly, mom and dad.

But as columnist Laurence Vance notes, our mentality has changed over the past several decades. “Instead of ‘father knows best,’ it’s now ‘government knows best.'”

In 2005, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton implied that teens playing violent games may lack control over their thoughts and behavior. She then introduced the Entertainment Protection Act, which, if passed, would’ve imposed thousands of dollars of fines on salesmen selling minors “M” rated games.

But most studies contradict the notion that playing a violent video game makes one more likely to commit violence.

Henry Jenkins, the director of comparative studies at MIT, reports that rates of juvenile violence are declining and people not playing video games are actually more likely to commit violence.

Undoubtedly, there are many real problems, such as bad grades, associated with violent gaming.

Like one too many ranch skillets at the Davis Diner, getting hooked to blowing up imaginary things can cause the same thing to happen to you in a very real sense.

But advocating the initiation of force by threatening to prosecute and fine people – be they parents, teens or people selling games – is not conducive to a free society.

Instead, individuals and groups opposed to violent video games should focus on private ways to offer young people alternative ways to spend their free time.