The Medical Press offered a story this week titled, “Pellet guns and children” to offer thoughts and insight following a tragic shooting of a young boy who had a pellet gun that he aimed at a police officer. Instead of having a true expert comment on this issue, writer Tyra Damm writes:

I grew up with no exposure to guns, no interest in weapons. I don’t understand the fascination that people have with shooting virtual people on video games or shooting real people with pellets or paintballs. But I recognize it exists and that it’s the culture I’m raising my own children in.

She is clearly no expert. In fact, in reading her article we can’t tell if she has confused “pellet guns,” which are not toys and should never be used in games where one shoots another person, with Airsoft guns, which are used in such a game. From this point on the article digresses into explaining that girls play with Barbie, and boys play at war. She does offer some reasonably sound advice in the proper way to use a pellet gun, as in with adult supervision, but by this point the issue is clouded that we have to wonder why she bothered in the first place!

The fatal police shooting earlier this month of a Texas middle school student clutching a BB gun — the latest in a series of incidents involving imitation firearms — spotlights how localities and states have struggled to identify and control both look-alike toys and guns that fire something other than bullets.

Now we agree this was a tragedy, and one that shouldn’t have happened, but this news article doesn’t address all sides of the issue. Instead it limits the focus and throws in no shortage of bias:

And, even though some U.S. cities and states forbid it, kids regularly play with increasingly real-looking guns in neighborhood streets, parks or forests and in their own yards, sometimes attracting police attention that ends in children’s deaths.

Again, we agree these can be tragedies that should and could be avoided. But should we only blame the toy guns? Children have played with realistic looking toy guns for decades. Isn’t part of this really that police are being told too often to shoot first and ask questions second? How often are 10-years shooting at police?

Whilst we understand that this country has seen too many school shootings in the past 20 years, we should understand that the majority of kids aren’t killers and are just playing.

But this article doesn’t address another issue – collectors. If replica guns were banned, it would truly hurt collectors, re-enactors and history buffs. No collector is going to want an orange musket to hang on the wall! Of course these anti-gun zealots don’t care about preserving history when it comes to vintage firearms in the first place!

Case in point, this week The New York Daily News ran a piece titled, “Toy guns for sale from vending machine in Bronx store have parents upset.” This sounded as if the store was selling toys that could actually be confused with real guns. The headline makes it sound so. But a closer read reveals:

Bronx parents are up in arms over a gun-ball machine that dispenses an arsenal of tiny weapons — all for just 50 cents a pop. A half-dozen plastic mini-guns, everything from assault rifles to handguns, are for sale to children outside a Brook Ave. bodega in the Mott Haven section.

So these come from a gumball machine and reportedly are about two inches in size! In other words they are guns that could be used with action figures.

The article then tries to link these toys with the local crime rate, providing these details:

NYPD statistics show murders in the 40th Precinct, which includes the La Placita De Ponce Grocery, are up from 14 to 18 through Nov. 20 of this year. The number of shooting victims in the Bronx neighborhood increased 34.5% so far in 2011, and felony assaults were up 2.3%, according to the NYPD.

Is it really necessary to link crime to a gumball machine?

The article took aim (no pun intended) at how gun control isn’t the answer. The editorial noted:

“One need look no further than last month’s rioting in London to see that violence and chaos do not end when the populace has been disarmed. At least 100 homes burned to the ground, and shopkeepers watched helplessly as their businesses were pillaged and their livelihoods destroyed. London’s Metropolitan Police issued a 13-point list of ‘crime prevention’ tips that boiled down to a few basic recommendations: Remove valuable items from view, fire up closed-circuit surveillance cameras and call the police emergency number when the rioters arrive. Not that placing one of the 20,800 calls received in a night would have done much good. By the time the bobbies restored order, damage estimates exceeded $300 million.

“When chaos hit the streets of Los Angeles in 1992, police beat a hasty retreat. Shop owners in Asian neighborhoods, by contrast, took matters into their own hands. They organized themselves and stood watch from rooftops with their personal rifles, shotguns and pistols. They opened fire on local gangs and approaching looters, enabling the good guys to end the day with their places of business unmolested and their lives spared.

“Leftists prefer everyone to become victims. Allowing good people to defend themselves requires the intolerant admission that there’s a difference between good and evil. It’s safer for them to put all of their reliance upon government and blame society when the state isn’t up to the task.”

And maybe this is the issue. Leftists do seem to prefer everyone is the victim. Perhaps a riot is seen as a way of wealth redistribution, a Robin Hood mentality of sorts. Let the poor have their way as the rich are unarmed.

It seems that the group Fathers Armed Together to Help, Educate, Restore and Save (FATHERS) and a pizza parlor teamed up to offer a buyback. As the Buffalo News noted:

“The idea was simple: Don’t let kids get used to firing weapons, even if they’re toys.”

Today more and more kids spent their time in front of video games or watching TV instead of going outside to actually “play.” And now they’re being treated to some pizza – and in fairness a notebook and dress shirt – to hand in their toys.

Can’t we just let kids play? And what are the feelings that this sort of buyback might not create a type of mystery to guns in general. Will this ever encourage kids to seek out guns because they have been banned? How many kids are tempted to try smoking, drugs or alcohol simply because of the mystery involved?

Wouldn’t teaching responsibility be a better answer than taking away Nerf guns?

When I heard about the recent toy gun buyback by Stop Shootin’ Inc in Newark, I thought, here we go again. The goal of trying to decrease the culture of violence that exists in many communities across our country is an admirable one, however a toy gun buyback program does little to address the problem, just as a real gun buyback program doesn’t do much to make our communities safer. It’s merely symbolic to take away toy guns when kids are exposed to extreme violence in movies, television shows, gaming and the internet – what is really missing is parent involvement, encouraging imaginative play and getting kids active and engaged with each other. A one day focus on destroying plastic toys does none of this, even with selective programming. Where is the follow through?

When I was growing up, my parents couldn’t always send the six of us to camp in the summer so we were sent off to play outside. There was no Xbox so we hit the backyard and the game of choice was Cowboys and Indians. My sisters and I would meet up with the other neighborhood kids following breakfast and head off for the woods. We broke off into teams and spent the day climbing trees, searching for cover and taking prisoners. We only came home when we were hungry and our parents didn’t tell us to make sure we brought our cell phones with us.

There are very few opportunities for kids today to play freely as we did in an unstructured, uncontrolled environment. There is a fear of letting kids be free, to connect with nature and each other, so instead they sit inside in front of the Xbox and connect via the internet. They don’t get to go wherever their imagination takes them, even to an innocent game of Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers.

As adults we are all guilty of allowing this to happen, and it is easy to blame the results, especially in the inner cities, on an evil “gun culture”. The fear of allowing our kids to roam freely today does have merit, the streets of any suburban neighborhood can be a dangerous place for children. But it can be overblown too and it does affect the psyche of our children. It is easier to lock them inside than to teach them how to engage safely with the world around them. We should be focusing on ways to allow our children to experience the freedom of previous generations, so they can foster good connections to other people, to communities and to nature even in places like Newark, NJ.

I believe violence is taught either by example or by omission of important values – it is not learned from a plastic gun inside a cardboard box. Yes, if you want to say children, particularly boys are attracted to guns, fine. Educating children on how to be safe around real guns is the easier part. Responsible ways to handle or not handle guns can be taught by responsible parents, or New Jersey schools can promote programs designed for this purpose, like the Eddie Eagle program. The harder part will be changing the way we think about giving kids opportunities to make positive connections. If we continue to control the way this generation is raised, to lock down access to freedoms and choices and opportunities for imaginative play for our children, one has to wonder what they will think about their freedoms when they get older.

At our house, the Spivack family Nerf wars will continue. I love to see my children, who at a wide range of ages often have a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, band together, plan and execute against their parents to play out the Nerf battles. It’s not about taking down anyone in a blaze of glory – it’s about teamwork, and it’s about family fun, the same way it is when we play Scrabble or Monopoly. I’d much rather hear “stick ‘em up” coming from the playroom than nothing but the noise from the television and video games.

She seems to ask a question, but then interjects with an opinion that makes it impossible for any reader to really give their own thought to the issue:

“Should more communities offer this family friendly event? A positive and hopeful message these children went home with healthy options to toy guns. No one should play with guns, especially children.”

We agree that guns are not toys, so the statement, “no one should play with guns, especially children” is apt, except that this is about “toy guns” not real guns. There is a major and significant distinction. Children shouldn’t drive cars, but they play with toy cars, and even drive battery powered toy cars.

Conflict resolution and “fighting monsters” or other evils is part of childhood, and by taking away toys – even toy guns – we are in essence controlling how children play. Isn’t play supposed to be about independent expression? Instead we are saying, “conflict is bad, so don’t do it.” We’ll have to see how this plays out.

“They’re getting books in their hands, positive toys.”

But the story also noted that “Booker acknowledged there is no evidence linking childhood gun play to violent behavior later.”

Fortunately this particular piece also included insight from Theodore Petti, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who “said children are more at risk of acting violently if they are bullied, abused, neglected, in gang or use drugs or alcohol.”

Petti was quoted saying:

“…sticks, pieces of Lego, anything can be considered a gun and is used as a gun.”

This is just another example of trying to solve a problem that isn’t there. Many children play “army” or “cops and robbers,” and yet don’t grow up to serve in the military or enter the police force, or even become a robber! It is just playtime, but some want to solve society’s problems by changing our society.

It made us think for a moment. How times have changed. Toy guns used to be solid, well made items that were worth collecting. Today, because of the nanny state that we live in toy guns are clear plastic, bright red and have little actual character except not looking like guns.

The reason stated is that it is hard for police to know a real gun from a toy, and yet it isn’t more than that. Isn’t it that many anti-gun types worry so much about protecting everyone from the womb to the tomb that we no longer can enjoy toys such as these?

Consider that many communities have even banned toy guns. Makes it hard for the collectors like Ken Posch, doesn’t it?

But is all this necessary? How is it that for year’s children played with toy guns and toy swords and other toy weapons? Are we so obsessed with gun control that we need to ban toy guns or make them look utterly unlike real guns?

We have concerns with this as well. What about pink guns – as in real guns marketed to women? Wouldn’t those be confused with toys? And couldn’t criminals paint their guns to look like toys? Will it be a crime to paint a toy gun black – by the sounds of it, it would be.

We don’t want to make the job of the police harder, but isn’t this about responsible parenting too? Isn’t it about telling children to respect even toy guns? Not to use them in areas where it could cause concern, and not to point them at adults – especially the police.