It's true the world depicted in violent video games is often a dark, soupy mix of cruelty and rage. But finding a way to restrict children from getting access to that world can be a murky proposition itself.

The problem arises because — unlike alcohol, drugs and tobacco — there is no way to measure the amount of negative influence video-game images have on people. Like the consumer who sues fast-food chains for making him fat, there are so many other variables and influences in the matter that casting blame requires a wide net.

For such reasons, Rep. Jim Matheson wants to make it a federal offense for an outlet to sell a "mature" or "adult" video game to a child. Instead of trying to control the content of the games — which is fraught with free-speech concerns — the congressman wants to sting people at the cash register — where a person's age is not a matter of opinion.

Matheson isn't the only one alarmed by the violent nature of many new games. The National Institute on Media and the Family is in his camp. The ploy is to turn the game industry's own rating system against it — like a judo artist turning an opponent's own power against him.

As with Matheson's other measure to tax Internet pornography, we wish him well.

We believe there is a direct relationship between the violence in video games and violent behavior. True, many video gamers — who tend to live in an isolated world of dreams — may not end up committing carjackings and gangster crimes, but the negative and, at times, hopeless vision of the world that those games depict can drive teens to make desperate decisions.

The industry counters that growing up playing cops and robbers didn't twist young minds. Cops and robbers video games will have little effect as well. The problem is, nobody knows. Common sense, however, says what we see does influence how we feel, think and act. If it weren't so, advertisers wouldn't pay millions of dollars to place their company logos in movies.

As a newspaper, we take the First Amendment to the Constitution very seriously. We believe freedom of expression is sacrosanct. But when images and words are used to alter the chemical makeup of the brains of boys and girls, we also believe society has a right — and a duty — to safeguard them in the name of public safety and health.

Curbing the havoc wreaked by — and in — video games may not be possible at the moment.

Curbing the practice of selling that havoc to impressionable young people, however, is very much an option.