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Updated: 28 December 2012 | 6:25 am in conversations
Should the sale of toy guns be discouraged?
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A Gazette letter writer says the sale of toy guns — or as he describes them, “death toys” — should be discouraged.
“Recently, I viewed an ad on television promoting a plastic ‘automatic shooter’ that fired 9 mm Nerf bullets,” says the letter, written by John A. Gross of Iowa City. “The ad showed adults shooting each other in a backyard setting. I believe that this type of toy provides an unacceptable opportunity for people to ‘practice’ killing other people.
For those who are drugged, demented or drunk, it is a short step to replacing the Nerf bullets and shooter with real bullets in a real gun,” Gross added.
What do you think? Should retailers discourage, or even ban, the sale of toy guns?
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Should the sale of toy guns be discouraged?
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Baloney! Whenever there is an event like the Sandy Hook massacre we hear from the uninformed and the foolish. The problem at hand is to identify disturbed people with mental health issues. Let’s discuss the real problem and dispense with tomfoolery.
What kind of disturbed people with mental health issues are we talking about, Mr Ellis. And what do you propose we do with them once they are identified.
Each year 30,000 Americans die as a result of gunshot.
87% of all kids killed by guns in the 23 wealthiest countries are American kids.
Gun violence is one of the leading causes of premature death in the U.S, and is well on its way to becoming the leading cause.
Firearm-related deaths and injuries result each year in medical and loss of productivity costs of about $32 billion.
This is all done by crazy people?
Rampage shooters—and that’s what’s under discussion here—overwhelming have no prior history of mental illness, no prior record of criminal behavior. Background checks show no red flags.
Some of these shooters were diagnosed with serious mental illness after the fact. Notable exception was the Virginia Tech shooter. But both the Aurora and Tucson shooters, for example, showed a sudden onset of symptoms. The Sandy Hook shooter had a developmental disability. He was not, by any standard, mentally ill.
You can’t solve this problem by scapegoating people with mental health issues.
The overwhelming vast majority of people who kill people are not mentally ill. The overwhelming vast majority of people with, as you call it, “issues”, do not kill people.
Over two thirds of the murders committed in the United States are committed using a gun. We have 13,000 homicides and 53,000 non-fatal deliberate gunshot injuries. Homicide rates are 114% higher in states with high gun ownership than states with low.
The common denominator in gun violence is guns, not mental illness.
There is more to the Bill of Rights than just the Second Amendment. There’s also something called due process, the right to be secure in our homes , the right to a fair trial, the right to be safe from cruel and unusual punishment.
Are you so attached to your guns that you are willing to throw out the Bill of Rights when it comes to people who suffer from one or another of a whole slew of illnesses that you, apparently, do not understand
See the Gazette ediotorial, “Many young die violently every day” for a well reasoned piece about a more important story in regard to young deaths.
Yes the sale of “toy guns” should discouraged as well as violent vidoe games and movies. Your children become what you teach. We should also discourage or discontinue the liberal policies that have created more death and destruction of any developed country in the world.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/28/16212238-grim-milestone-chicago-records-500th-homicide-of-2012?lite
Yes, toy guns should be discouraged. Just as Gary says above “The problem is to identify disturbed people with mental health issues. Let’s discuss the real problem and dispense with tomfoolery.” Disallowing children to play with toy guns should actually be mentally healthy for our children.
Good Grief. There are more pressing issues today than toy gun sales. Should we consider cutting off the fingers of kids who pretend to shoot someone with their fingers while we are at it? No more water guns, water balloons (could lead to grenades following the logic of the argument).
Playing with toys is an opportunity to talk to your kids about the difference between “play” and real life. If you think your kid doesn’t grasp the difference, then that is an issue that should be addressed. The catch is that you must actually play with your children instead of just giving them toys and video games and then ignoring them.
Regarding the reference to “drugged, demented, or drunk” people going from nerf guns to real guns, perhaps we should address the “drugged, demented, and drunk” aspect of the reference. Drugged, demented, and drunk people do destructive things everyday that don’t involve guns.
I grew up in a place and time when every boy waited until is father decided their son had matured enough to get their first BB GUN. With the GUN came lessons, reprimands, punishment. and learning, by dads example. NEVER point the gun at a living thing unless you intended on killing it.
I can not grasp the liberal mentality that says we must educate kindergartners on Gays, grade school kids on sex, and high school kids that as long as you have ‘protection’ do what feels good. The liberal response is more education is the answer to teenage pregnancy. But GUNS? Censor any mention or likeness, they will just cease to exist. Problem solved.
Hypocrisy?
Mr Williamson,
BB guns are not toys. They are real guns. And they are perfectly capable of inflicting serious injuries. We had safety classes in school that included gun safety as well as look both ways before you cross the street and don’t try to pet strange dogs
Your entire world view does not work in an urban or suburban setting where most people don’t hunt and don’t want to and first responders show up within minutes. That’s the world most Americans live in.
In the world where I grew up, children played with cap guns, not BB guns, and people called 911 when they needed help. This was a world where people got involved in politics and worked elections and voted if they wanted to have a say in how they were governed. They didn’t stockpile weapons and plot revolution. They didn’t talk about the Constitution as if the Second Amendment were the only part that mattered and they certainly didn’t talk about it as if it gave them a God given divine right to have an arsenal in their basement, shoot people they were afraid of, or yatter about insurection and certainly not about “Second Amendment” solutions.
The overwhelming vast majority of people living in this country do not need to have guns. What people like you have done is create a nightmare where the only thing the rest of us need guns for is to protect ourselves from people who have guns
It took more that 3 generations of time before the colonists joined to form ‘a more perfect union’ . Hence the Constitution……..of enumerated and limited powers. That was insufficient protection from the govt they were creating according to the people. They required even more assurances that this new federal govt did not follow large all powerful govts of the past to rule the people instead of govern. The people demanded a Bill of Rights. Rights that all people were endowed with by their creator. Not the govt.
The 2cnd amendment was to assure the people that they, as individuals could always defend themselves against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. While the constitution allows for the govt to have a standing army, that provision never was a replacement for the individuals responsibility to protect themselves and their communities.
It is gratifying that the citizens of some states still understand their responsibilities and take them seriously.
Doesn’t common sense dictate that we look at what is working and try to recreate those successes?
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55534344-78/class-utah-concealed-teachers.html.csp
Mr Williamson,
The .357 Magnum in the photo that went with the story you linked to is perfectly capable of sending a bullet through a brick wall.
Sorry, but a handgun, even a .357, is no match for a shooter with an AR-15, 30 (or more) round clips, cop killer bullets, and kevlar.
Plus your newspaper article provides no evidence whatsoever that arming teachers and staff in schools prevents, has prevented, or would prevent the kind of thing that happened at Sandy Hook.
However, making it difficult, if not impossible, and prohibitively expensive for people to have the kind of guns and ammunition that Adam Lanza used would prevent what happened at Sandy Hook. Refer Port Arthur Massacre
Oh and just a reminder. There were two armed, well trained, and experienced sheriff’s deputies inside the school at Columbine. One of them was there before the shooting started (he was assigned to patrol inside), the other arrived within minutes. The shooting stopped when the shooters got to that point in their psycho-drama where it was time to off themselves.
Would arming more people inside the school have helped? Probably not. SWAT teams go in looking for people with guns. Do you honestly think that adding even more people with guns runniing around inside a school—or shopping center or theater or workplace or any of the other open pulbic spaces where these things happen—makes their job any easier? Or does it increase the chances that faculty and staff are going to, by accident, shoot each other or, worse, be shot by the police?