Yesterday’s meeting between President Donald Trump, game industry executives, and anti-game-violence crusaders was nothing more than theater. Trump couldn’t possibly have expected anything to come out of it, except the appearance that he and Congress are doing something about the ongoing epidemic of school shootings while actually doing nothing at all.

But if it was theater, why wasn’t the meeting televised, as the gun control meeting held late last month was? It may have been out of fear of Trump overreaching again: had the President been seen calling for government censorship of Constitutionally protected speech a short time after he’d called for skipping due process and taking people’s guns, we’d have seen him advocating trampling the First and Fifth Amendments in consecutive meetings. That’s not a good look.

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“ The meeting gave the appearance of doing something about school shootings while actually doing nothing at all.

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This happened conclusively in 2011 when, in a 7-2 decision, the United States Supreme Court struck down a California law that would’ve banned the sale of M-rated games to minors. Brown v Entertainment Merchants Association firmly established games as free speech, protected by the First Amendment, and thus immune to government censorship of any kind. In the ruling, the Justices decisively stated that after viewing the evidence presented by the state, including the best available scientific studies, they remained unconvinced of any causal link between video game violence and real-world violence that might’ve created an incitement exception to the right to free speech.In the past, the government was able to pressure industries like comic books and movies with the threat that unless they self-regulated, the government would come in and impose its own restrictions. That kind of threat led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. Even the games industry came up with the Electronic Software Ratings Board (the ESRB) to self-regulate and avoid government interference. But those threats were never acted on, so until Brown v EMA there was no precedent protecting a specific art form from government censorship. Today there is, and it renders the government all but toothless.

Above: See the gory montage anti-game critics showed President Trump.

“ Neither Trump nor Congress can restrict the sale of violent video games, and they know it.

Trump and his administration are certainly aware of this, and they must also be aware that any similar legislation won’t survive a court challenge. New laws wouldn’t even make it to the Supreme Court – they’d decline to hear the case based on precedent and allow the lower court’s ruling to stand. Even a state-level tax levied specifically at violent games almost certainly wouldn’t survive a court challenge because it would be the government attempting to squelch a form of speech.This entire event was moot before it began: neither Trump nor Congress can restrict the sale of violent video games, and they know it.So why have this meeting at all? Though they know nothing real will come of it, the President and Congress can use the performance to generate media coverage in which they look like they’re doing something about school shootings, without adopting expensive mental health programs or running afoul of their pro-gun supporters in the process. By claiming a link between games and violence – even without evidence to support it – they create the illusion of a threat. Then, they create the illusion of dealing with that threat.At best, Congress would draw up a bill to limit the sale of violent games. It would likely die before it comes to a vote, as several other attempts have, because most senators and congressional representatives have enough good sense to know it would be unconstitutional. But even if a law were to pass, the ESA and other groups would immediately file suit, the courts would strike it down, and the law would never go into effect.Everyone’s time would be wasted, except the lawmakers would then be able to say that they’d passed a law to address the situation – and technically they wouldn’t be lying. People who don’t follow the news very closely might not understand how cynically they’d been manipulated. Once again, blaming video games is just an extremely disingenuous – but potentially effective – maneuver to take the focus off of real, practical solutions to the problem of gun violence in America.For more on the renewed attempt to blame violence on video games, follow our list of everything the government has said about games since the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Dan Stapleton is IGN's Reviews Editor. You can follow him on Twitter to hear gaming rants and lots of random Simpsons references.