Toy Guns and Violence

Throughout the years toy guns have been an increasingly popular toy for children with various TV shows, movies and cartoons providing ample advertisement to promote certain types of toy guns and lead them to become international bestsellers in the toy world. However, it should be noted that although widely seen as innocent and harmless fun in the past, a simple child’s game of cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians now stirs up a vast debate into the increasingly questionable moral values which such games instill in youngsters.

Violence in the Media

With the proliferation of gun violence and the magnitude of real life shootings increasing globally the ‘innocent fun’ has been brought under the microscope. Many argue that the use of army toys and toy guns as a play item can desensitize a child to the real world implications of gun usage and potentially lead to a higher risk of violence in later life. However, it is clear that this is not a simple debate and it can easily be argued that there is a much higher degree of influence wielded by the violence shown on TV and in computer games. Children will always have a propensity to play and as far back as recorded have mimicked the behavior of adults with all forms of toys from the likes of wooden playhouses to toy weapons, and  so why now should this be brought under such scrutiny. The influence of TV, films and computer games showing graphic violence and gun usage to the point where, in the past emotions of shock and outrage would have been provoked which now does not even lead to so much as a batted eyelid, must be examined closely to determine what effect this has and evidence from various studies does conclude that the most detrimental effects to a child’s behavior is seen where little or no social communication is brought into play.

This is not to say that toy guns can be excused from blame for the increasing gun violence in today’s world as perhaps the ever more realistic function and look some of the guns and vast array of features included are leading to are leading to a greater increase in desensitization.

Education and Common Sense

Ultimately the choice to let a child play with toy guns is up to the parents or guardians. However, wider issues are at play in this discussion, and though numerous factors influence a child’s future behavior, possibly the most important side to this is that parents educate their children properly and supervise their play, alerting them to the dangers of guns. The damage is done not by the act of play itself but by the underlying connotations behind it. To stop the perpetuation of gun violence is clearly a mammoth task that needs to be tackled from the roots, which comes down to a common sense approach and proper education.

Toy Guns

Filed under: Toy Guns Debate