Subj: Re: Toy Guns
Date: 96-02-19 18:50:31 EST
From: jshood@ix.netcom.com (John Hood)
At 10:46 AM 2/19/96 -0800, you wrote:

>Toy Guns

>========

>Also about the relevance of violence and the violence of censorship. Also in
>protest of the oddly named "Decency Act."

For this reason I consider the "Decency Act" even more dangerous than toy
guns. In places, such as the Philippines where I lived for 5yr. Real guns
are synonymous with the state enforcement of decency. It is a trust thing,
and I have yet to meet anyone I would trust with enforcement of standards on
others, including myself..

>Nor let there be in neighborhood or mailbox
>any dealer in or advertiser of anything that could possibly construed or
>used as a toy gun."

>And wherever you see these restrictions enforced, you find kids pointing
>their fingers at each other and saying "bang."

And people pointing fingers at each other will all kinds of accusations
about their "decency."

>Shooting toy guns, they begin to understand the ultimate fiction of power.

When in state control of ficition there is even more power!

>Especially people who act like our parents, even though they're only elected representatives.

And we want to give them real guns?

Subj: Toy Guns
Date: 96-02-19 10:59:09 EST
From: BSnyder726

Major Fun, We watch the news, and to my suprise we structure much of our media information around violence and the willfull pretence of killing with play weapons. You play at violence you learn violence. You teach violence, and you experience violence. B. you may have grown up in a home with a clear and healthy attitude towards weapons, but some of us have actualy experienced the power of weapons first hand. They are not a toy, even if represented by an unarmed finger. No, I don't feel that letting your children play with toy guns will make them serial killers, but, why give them a step in that dirrection by teaching them that killing and mortality are games. My children know exactly why we don't allow toy guns in our home. At three and four years old, they realise that the world is much more complex and wonderfull if fear and violence are not a part of your daily immaginings. E me if you would care to discuss it further. By the way, I have a bullett hole in my leg, from a person who thought to shoot before asking what I was doing on a country road on foot at eleven years old in the late evening. I was returning from a friends home. I was on a public road, and bothering no one.

Subj: Toy Guns
Date: 96-03-01 14:42:16 EST
From: bill.humphries@msn.fullfeed.com (Bill Humphries:)

A friend of mine has a young child, a boy who plays at ninja and
Power Rangers with his friends. She has a rule about toy guns (or
even index finger and thumb): "Do Not Shoot or Aim at Mom (or other
people who aren't playing.)"

From: Sarah Gage-Hunt
Organization: Lane community College

My favorite gun story is about my son and a friend of his (female) both
age 3 at the time. I really disapprove of guns, and my friend (the other
mother involved) shared my beliefs. We were all at the house of the
little girl, and my son and her daughter were playing with a toy camel,
and a toy house. It wasn't long before they started "shooting" at each
other with these objects. I have come to believe that it is so ingrained
in our society, that we cannot simply say "no toy guns" because then our
children will simply pick up their camels and houses and start shooting
them!

From: john.shriner@tallahassee.net
Subject: toy guns
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 19:38:51 -0500

As a daddy of long standing I agree with you to a certain extent. I have
had and still do keep real guns in my home. I teach my children what a
gun is and what it caan do at an early age. They grow up with a respect
for guns. They are super careful with them and have not given a moment
for concern.

Now to my real reason for disagreeing with you. Parents must realize that
small children are blood thirsty little devils. Letting them play with
a toy gun or not does not have anything to do with it. They are intent on
doing violence in some form or fashion. Educating them about guns
precludes that as a means but does not curtail their lust for violence.

As a small child I hit my brother with anything handy and available. He
reciprocated in kind.

I believe the only assured way to curtail violence is through
sterilization.

Date: Fri, 12 Jul 96 15:16:49 UT
From: "Tom Jones" <jones_associates@msn.com>
Subject: toy guns

I am in total agreement with what was said here. I have been trying to
find a toy gun for my seven year old son to replace one that was recently
lost. I have checked everywhere I can think to find one, including the
Internet, but they have all disappeared from the store shelves. It's obviously
a concerted effort by the Thought Police, because the sudden mass extinction
of toy guns wouldn't just happen spontaneously. What bothers me the most is
how wrong they all are.

Boys like toy guns. They always have and they always will. Yet to
assume that it eventually translates into a blood thirsty, gun crazed adult is
both naive and simplistic. I feel it is the opposite. They learn the
difference between reality and play, and at the same time they satiate their
urge to play with guns while they are young a satisfied with ones that don't
shoot real bullets. That is what happened with me personally.

What is most ironic about the lack of toy guns on the store shelves is
that the only options left are guns that actually shoot something. If you
want a Dart Gun, Water Gun, Disk Shooter, BB Gun, Ball Shooter, or real Bullet
Shooting Gun, no problem there are plenty of them. If you want something that
is safer, and less obtrusive except for a little noise, forget it, you're out
of luck.

From: Jason Castle <bear@infocom.com>
Subject: toy guns

Hi! I would like to respond to your article on letting kids play with
toy guns. And I totally agree with you that kids know the differance
between pretend and reality, but by the same token why encourge that
behavior just because most of our society accepts it's. Should we let
our children pretend everything they see or here about? Yikes! Rape,
drinking booze, .... So what, tell them as long as you know it's pretend
, O.K.? I don't think so. I think letting kids do it just because our
society accepts it is the total american copout. Instead we choose to
talk about them to our son alot talk  about who uses them and why, and
that if someday when he's older if he decides that he has an intrest in
them then we will educate him more and and hope he makes smart decions
with them. I think it is really sad that a kid can walk up to you in
store or anywhere a act like he's blowing your damn head off and people
can actually laugh and think that's o.k. Well I sure you are ready for
me to be done so, thanks for listening!

From: Boyne Family <chris.boyne@ns.sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: chris.boyne@ns.sympatico.ca

i am 12 years old and play splatshot with guns all the time. i also
dream about owning real guns.. i own 1 pelletgun and i am violent. i
also like to kill animals with it. guns are cool.

chris boyne

"guns don't kill people.....i do (using a gun)"

From: Frantz Sturm <ml2826@power-net.net>
Subject: Guns and toys....
 

Guns are not toys as well as toys are not guns.  Children seem to get
the reality of these differances, why cant adults?

I am the owner of many guns and have yet to see any of them leave my
home on their own and commit harm to others.  People will tell you that
without guns, less people will die from violent crimes, but this is a
lie to all including themselves.  If one wants to kill, he or she will
fins a way.  They will use a knife, a bat or any other means neccesary
to complete there wish to persue death.  An if they can't, if we ban and
destroy all these weapons of death, they will simply go out, get drunk
and kill someone with their car.

To: Major Fun
Subject: Toy guns

Historically, chilren, mainly boys, have played with weapons. I will
speak now from my Native American point of view. These weapons, while
used for play, were also a part of training skills that they would use
later in life. This "play" was also preparation, and never thought of as
"just children playing." A child who hit the target was praised, and
special acknowledgement was given for the first kill. The meat was shared
or given to an elder member of the family. The connection between a
weapon and pain or death was acknowledged very early.

 The weapons play of today is quite different. Except for
the children in the inner-cities, there is no real connection made
between weapons and the pain, destruction and death that weapons cause.
Young children see the chicken in the supermarket shelf, or on a
commercial with Mr. Purdue. They are not training to hunt. Most children
who play with guns are playing cops and robbers..but they are not going
to be members of a warrior society, so is it really necessary to shoot
each other with toy guns?

 The reality is, our children have advanced from toy guns, to
video games where they can destroy cities and planets, with little
connection to blood and lives lost.

 I thinks it's time to teach our children what guns really do, if
we allow them to play with guns. Better yet, lets move away from a gun
society as we step into to the year 2000.

      No-qui-si

From: Ribrownzs@aol.com
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 17:52:20 EST
To: Major Fun
Mime-Version: 1.0
Subject: toy guns
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 38

I'm confused...

Has anyone out there ever seen a child,   a dead child?

Has anyone out there ever seen a child who was dead because he thought he was only playing?

Do toy guns look exactly like real guns or have I been mislead?

Do we need to let our children play with guns? If so, why?

I've seen kids who were dead.  Some because they thought they were playing, some because they knew they weren't.  Accidents, russian roullette, blatant murder (kids killing kids).  I've personally seen all three.  I can't agree with you.  I try.  I want my kid to have the fantasy power.  I want my
kid to play with what he wants.  I want my kid to live.  I played with toy guns, not much, but they were there.  It's not a necessary thing.  Where does it start, where did it stop?  Water guns, play guns, paint guns, air guns, bb guns, pellet guns...???  Is Goldeneye for nintendo 64 ok, or do we really need to show our kids that a head shot kills instantly and that it takes two or three shots to the body to bring 'em down?  Tomb raider,  Turok,  in all of these games, don't they always come back to life?

Like I said before, I'm confused.  I love shoot 'em  up games.  I love Tomb Raider.  I love the fantasy play. It's a different world today than when I grew up.  Guns are more of a way of life, and of death.  I've never been a parent before, and I don't always claim that I even have a clue, but I'm pretty sure that our kids wouldn't be hurt if they didn't have toy guns.

From: "Mark L." <snipper670@hotmail.com>
To: Major Fun
Subject: toy guns
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 11:13:36 PST

i am 12yrs old and i love guns. i cant get real guns so i go for toys.

well, im allowed to get toy guns but nobody sells them. ive managed to get a couple of cool replica guns and they suit me just fine. and i have a reaL gun that doesent work any more. me and my friends play SWAT team or ARMY or Spies with them. every one is okay with that. why cant us kids play with what we reely want to.
 
 

Major FUN responds:

Dear Mark,

It used to be that kids couldn't play with what they really want to because of adults who had trouble knowing when kids are playing and when they are not. Especially the adults who have real guns. Because when they saw kids playing with guns that look just like theirs, it made them want to use their guns, too. For real.

So, if kids wanted to play with toy guns that look like real guns, just for play, they had to play with them where there were adults who understood, or where there were no adults at all.

Lately, it's getting harder and harder to play with toy guns that look like real guns. Because today there are kids who have real guns.  Not just adults, but kids, younger even than you. And some of these kids also don't understand when other kids are playing or not. And even though all you want to do is play when you wave your real-looking toy gun at them, they may not be thinking about fun. And even though your gun really can't hurt anybody, theirs can. Which makes you almost wish you had a real gun, too. And then nobody would be playing.

That's why I like toy guns that really look like toys. I like un-gun-colored, un-gun-shaped guns that are made of bright plastic and squirt. They don't look real, but they look like fun, and that's what it's all for, isn't it?

From: LYNX Scout <LYNXScout@aol.com>
To: Major Fun
Subject: Toy Guns

Call me crazy, but I can stand evenly on both sides of this issue.

When I was a little girl (that's right, a girl), I ran around in camouflage and played Army with the boys and we "shot" eachother with sticks.  It never occurred to me then that we didn't have "real" toy-guns, we just had sticks that were shaped like guns, and anyway, the sticks were heavier, and doubled as, well, sticks.  I guess imagination was a little stronger back then.

And yah, we learned the meaning of death, and the "lucky shot" and fair play, and laying in the grass staring up at the sky I *knew* death at five years old, for some sick reason.  I knew what the gun was capable of, it carried death, pain, and wounding.  It was the weapon of the soldier.

So when a family member died months later, I knew at five years old exactly what death meant.

With us, like in nature, the play of a child is the emulation of the actions that one must follow through with when they are adults.  Baby lions and the like jump on eachother's necks so that when they are older they can pull down the game, they attempt to hunt even though they are still being breast-fed so that when the mother is gone, they will be able to feed themselves.

 So we have a situation in today's society where there is a dichotomy of children being raised with guns and children who are not.  Think about this in an animalistic sense.  Which children will "win" in the end?

 It is a nice thought to say all toy guns should be neon orange (I say this with a touch of agony as I am currently seeking an old Larami MP-5 replica battery-operated water pistol from the eighties), but think of it this way -- to keep children ignorant of guns period is a bad move.  I can see it now;

 Child 1: "Stop or I'll shoot you!"
 Child 2: "Hah, nyah nyah, sure ya will."
 (*bang*).

Sometimes fear is an important thing to teach, too.  Our individual Families do not live in a vacuum; we are all influenced by eachother, and at some point(seven degrees, is it?) we are all interconnected.  So if a child plays with toy guns, make sure they understand what they're playing with, and if they're not allowed to play with toy guns, make sure they know what the real ones look like -- besides the ever present TV-eye view of humankind's grand inventions.

And as for the crimes committed with guns, I don't think the gun is the reason as much as the vehicle for the crime - it would have been committed with sticks, knives, bottles, or whatever people found empowering at the time.

From:  robert morris

Thank you for latest communique. It evokes memories of my childhood in
Chicago when two cousins and I also "played" with guns cleverly
disguised as sticks. Then we learned how to carve them to look even more
like guns...and even less like sticks. Then we received as "gifts", toy
pistols with real leather holsters and belts laced with un-real bullets.
Years later, our gifts were Daisy air rifles which we often used to
"kill" little metal soldiers after carefully placing them within the
trenches we carefully dug for them. Then on to shooting sparrows which
we attracted with bread crumbs. Well before Viet Nam, we (as
children-warriors-hunters) already knew how to measure success in terms
of body count. I dimly recall a sense of fun when "winning" and great
frustration when I "lost." I also realize, decades later, that "winning"
was more like "losing"...with the loss unknown to me then but painfully
clear this Saturday AM. SDuch is my heritage of physical violence. I
haven't even begun to reflect on my heritage of verbal violence.

Thrty minutes ago, when I returned my four year-old granddaughter to her
home nearby after she stayed the night, I found her older sister and two
younger brothers (as usual) in the TV ("family") room engrossed in
cartoons. I guess because the violence is animated, it's OK. Whatever
else we have experienced and then forgotten, most (if not all) of us
clearly remember that moment when we realized that Bambi's mother had
been killed. Was that violence OK? The eldest of the four (age 7) gave
me a big smile and said they were having "a really fun time." Will any
of the grandchildren, decades hence, recall those cartoons and
understand their influence then which they do not (cannot?) realize now?

From: anniem@virgo.wkac.ac.uk

I have to respond to this guns business...it just makes me so mad.  cf
the killing of a 6 yr. old yesterday by a 4 yr. old in the US.  Over
here, because we do not live in a gun culture these events are
unimaginable.  The last respondent's assumption that we have to learn
about guns is facile and unquestioning particularly to folks coming
from a culture where guns are not the norm.  If the debate was
refocused and a proper discourse engendered on the dismantling of US
gun culture was begun these fatuous remarks would be unnecessary.  I'm
sorry to sound mad...but it seems to me that in the States the gun
lobby has you all in a stranglehold such that you cannot even begin to
debate the questions in a rationale way.

HRRRUMPH

fom Jed Hartman

  While I don't necessarily recommend this approach to everyone, it did
work in my family: my mother made it quite clear from as early as I can
remember that she didn't like guns and that we weren't allowed toy ones (of
any kind).  I don't remember any explicit statement that imaginary toy guns
(sticks, fingers, whatever) were inappropriate, but I don't remember ever
having any urge to play at imaginary guns -- that just wasn't in my
repertoire of games...  Well, okay,  it's possible that our superhero games
had imaginary rayguns now and then, but that wasn't a major facet.
   I'm sure that the lack of toy guns wasn't the only reason I became a
pacifist -- but I suspect it was one of the reasons.  And the role-playing
type games I played as a kid tended to involve more talking than fighting,
even if we were being superheroes.
   (Then again, we didn't have a TV through most of my childhood and
adolescence, so I wasn't nearly as heavily exposed as most kids to the
guns-are-cool culture.  And I grew up in safe/sheltered places, so was
never exposed to the guns-in-school culture either.)
   We did have occasional waterfights -- with squirt bottles and sometimes
water balloons.  Nothing gun-shaped.  The gun shape is not integral to
having fun with water.
   So I guess I would say if parents want to give their kids
brightly-colored non-realistic-looking squirt guns to play with, that's not
such a big deal (certainly not as big a deal as giving them lovingly
detailed realistic guns, or for that matter *real* guns) -- but that the
main reason to play with something gun-shaped is to pretend it's a real
gun.  Yes, kids have fun playing with gun toys -- but kids also have fun
taunting other kids, beating them up, or being generally cruel to them, and
we have no problem saying that those kinds of fun are inappropriate.
   At the very least, I think it should be made clear (or as clear as
possible, anyway) to kids who play with guns that the toys are toys, and
that real guns are something very different -- much as I would hope that
parents would make clear that things on TV or in movies (or in books) are
not real, are just stories.  Once that distinction is made, kids can get
really into it even at pretty early ages.

From: Roderick Zirkle
 

There was a time in recent history (by that I mean there are still people alive who remember it) when you could walk into a store and buy a realistic looking metal toy gun.  It was unthinkable that a child would posess a real firearm, unsupervised anyway.  Also, proportionately speaking, a larger percentage of the population owned guns, or at least didn't verbally oppose them as part of a personal agenda.  There were less gun laws.  There was less crime.  We are discussing symptoms of a larger problem.  Toy guns and real guns and new laws will not solve these problems.  I have no idea what will...I'm not even certain, specifically, what this prblem is.  It saddens me that children will never know things that brought me such joy as a child, though as an adult I can't justify that joy to those who now call it evil.  As I said I offer no answers but the extinction of toy guns has obviously not solved anything.

From:  RPK91642@aol.com

I personally feel that toy guns do not in any way influence young minds to
violence. I do feel very strongly that as long as the human ANIMAL exists on
earth, some form of violence will exist. It has from the start of humanity and
will at the end of humanity. Todays "stats" do not reflect true numbers on
violence. 50 years ago the population density was a lot less hence less
violence! Pack a group of any species of animal in a confined space and see
what happens - disputes arise (violence). Violence can be minimized only by a
conserted effort to teach youngsters dicipline and respect , toy gun or no toy
gun.

Subject: guns are not the problem
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 23:18:41 -0400
From: Demetrius

When I was a child, my brother and I played with toy cap guns, yes the
metal kind, and when I was at cub scout day camp we learned to use the
bow and arrow and shoot BB guns.  Otherwise, I never have owned a real
gun or even a BB gun.  I have to agree that it is a larger problem and
that playing with toy guns does not contribute to kids growing up and
killing people.  What we are seeing in society today was brought about
by a large percentage of the baby boomer generation weening their
children on this pop-psych garbage in which children were not
disciplined as strictly as they should have been.  Instead of a good
whack in the ass, adults began discussing feeling with kids as if they
were adults.  If you ask me it's not toy guns that are the problem but a
lack of discipline.  A lack of discipline for small infractions leads to
a child getting away with more and more until he/she does something big
enough to get arrested.  That used to be handled well in the courts, but
now, it's never the criminals fault.  There can always be some way to
blame society or something in the criminals past..  We need better
discipline and fewer lawyers in this country!

Good Day.

From: Robert Atkinson

Sorry, I have to get in on this discus'.  I am conservative about gun laws,
and the issue of letting kids have toy guns.

There were a lot of kids in my neighborhood when I was growing up.  Our
favorite game was "playing guns."  We used toy guns, cap guns(usually
without caps), laser tag guns, super soakers, the laser tag like guns that
had the headpiece vibrate when you hot "hit", and then, much later, we got
paintball guns.  My point is, none of us ever physically fought, with each
other or otherwise.  We had access to air guns and (secretly)our dad's real
guns.  Not one of us ever shot a hard projectile at high velocity at anyone,
though we were shot by air guns one day walking through the woods.

I am an avid shooter, and a very safety minded one at that.  I fear that
future generations (at the rate we're going, maybe not even my generation)
will be allowed to have real guns.  That's not good, gun control was one of
Hitler's best (well, it wasn't good, but you know what I meant) plans.  I
want my children to be able to have toy guns, if anything, it is a way to
let out frustration without hurting anyone.

BTW-I am 18, and my college won't allow guns.  I feel like I'm loosing a
part of my soul.  I will miss the recoil, and the satisfaction of seeing a
hole appear right where I wanted it.

There is a hobby much more politically incorrect than paintball, but I won't
even tell you what it is, because I love it, and it is hard enough to do it
already.

from: Stroud Custer III
NRA Certified Firearms Safety Instructor
York and Adams Game and Fish Association

As to toy guns; when I was a lad, we played with toy guns, but never pointed them at
anyone, out of fear of the Almighty (that being my father).  Recently, I went looking for a toy
gun having decent sights, to be used as a training aid in my classes.  Looking through five or
six different toy stores and discount stores, I could not find a toy gun which remotely resembled
anything of this earth, except for a few waterguns.

    My primary concern is, of course, the safe handling of firearms.  I would place the following
stipulations on allowing children to play with toy guns:

1.    The difference between real guns and toy guns should be clearly established, and the
correct response to finding a real gun should be clearly explained.  The NRA has developed a
program called Eddie Eagle, which uses the slogan "Stop.  Don't Touch.  Leave the area.  Tell
an adult."  to teach children what to do if they find a real gun.  I presented this program to
Tabby's Brownie troop, and it went over very well.  This program should be presented to all
children, regardless of whether they play with toy guns.  It saves lives.

2.  The toy guns should be used to teach the most important rule of safe gun handling, "Keep
the muzzle pointed in a safe direction."  Children should not be allowed to point a toy gun at
another person.

3.  Once a child begins to shoot real guns, the toy guns should go away.  All of my girls (except
Mackenzie of course), have started shooting, and are doing pretty well at it.

    That's my two cents.

I would take exception with one thing you said in your article; that everyone knows what guns
are for.  Unfortunately, most people have no more real understanding of hunting or competitive
shooting than they have do of high energy particle physics.  The media pretty much insists on
portraying an interest in firearms as either a sign of criminality or an emotional dysfunction.
Shooting well, whether in the field or on the range, requires a very high degree of mental
discipline, something that our society could certainly use a bit more of.

Greetings from Newport News, Virginia:

Toy guns, sticks, and fingers may be a symptom of a deeper cultural
issue that needs to be debated:  the proclivity youngsters and adults
toward unwarranted violence and a lessened value of life.   (I am
excluding violence legitimately used in defense of self or others from
harm).   Many solutions have been proposed to realign our values toward
respect and the value of life.

I enjoy hearing people say that we need to get back to the kind of
movies and TV shows of the 50s and 60s, which modeled solid family
values and behaviors.   Er....OK.   Let's think back a few years.  Do
you recall the physical approach the Three Stooges took with each
other?   Do you recall that cartoons were replete with extraordinary
(and strange) attempts to kill the Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, and a host
of others.

No good western could go 10 minutes without bandits robbing a train or
stage coach and killing some or all of the passengers,  engaging in a
shoot out at high noon, or killing off as many Native Americans as
possible.   War movies glorified killing the enemy, and the good guys
always survived.  It seems that the hero generally was the one with the
highest "body count."  Of course, the films were not as graphic as ones
today, so we didn't see so clearly the horror, gore, and tragedy of
death.   We enjoyed depictions of killing the "right" people for the
betterment of mankind,  and killing in a sanitized way without apparent
consequences.   Of course, women were kept at home where they belonged.

These are the values to which we should return?  It is these values that
helped create the adults who are producing the movies and TV shows of
1998.

Here is an aside:  Of course, any hint of visually depicting a physical
expression of romantic love was evil.  We learned that certain acts of
killing were desirable and honorable, but beauty and intimacy were
inherently evil and immoral.  This concept dates to the Babylonian Code
of Hammurabi (circa 2000 BC) where consensual, extra-marital sexual
encounters were punishable by death to both participants.   Thus, even
today, it seems more acceptable to put a bullet through a body than to
remove clothing from it.

These are purely personal observations, and I hope they provide
something of interest to contemplate.

Bob Colvin