Blacknarwhal
Let's Go Brandon!
I open up Firefox and what do I find in the Pocket section but THIS little number. Enjoy in good health. Some poor liberal mother is just distraught that her son---GASP!---LIKES TOY GUNS. Clearly this person must be converted to a woman as soon as possible lest the testosterone get too thick in him and he starts objectifying women and spreading colonialism!
Fair use cited so on and so forth.
I’m Horrified by My Kid’s Obsession With Toy Guns. What to Do?
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
April 26, 2024
My son is a freshman in high school and has recently become obsessed with Nerf and airsoft guns. He wants to upgrade his arsenal with a new “rifle” for $250. I’m a pacifist and am horrified by his love of playing war with his friends in the neighborhood while there are two actual wars going on in Gaza and Ukraine, not to mention the threat of mass shootings at schools and elsewhere. Also, the pew-pew-pew that might seem cute in a little kid wielding a neon orange toy gun is very different in an almost-6-foot male wearing camo and eye protection and putting orange tape on the muzzle of the rifle to keep it from looking like a real weapon.
At the same time, this game-playing has gotten him and the neighborhood kids outdoors, which, given the lure of screen time and the isolating effects of the pandemic, feels like a gift. He is also creative and makes holsters and other things to give to his friends for the holidays, so there’s definitely an element of love and skill to his interest in these types of guns.
But the symbolism and his incessant requests that we bankroll a bigger, faster, more expensive version of these “rifles” is making me sick. I don’t know how to handle it. I have talked to him about wars and mass shootings and what these guns mean to me and other people in society. But I’m his mom, and as a teenager, he especially doesn’t want to listen to me. He says he understands, but then only days later, he is showing me a listing for the new model he wants for Christmas. (He enlisted the help of a friend to buy him his first toy rifle because he was too afraid to ask me.)
I really don’t want to encourage this type of role-playing, but how do I keep him outdoors and around kids he loves? I feel as if I’m walking a fine line between enabling a love of violence and overreacting. I wish he could be obsessed with something innocuous like hiking or origami. — Barb
From the Ethicist:
Secular culture, like religious culture, has its totems and taboos. For all of us, objects — a crucifix, a wedding ring, a sports car — take on meanings beyond their physical reality. So it makes sense that, for you, toy guns symbolize the harms you associate with real guns: the desire to exert control over others through intimidation or lethal force, the prospect of injury and death.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any risks associated with these toys in themselves. For one thing, their projectiles — even the softer, slower Nerf ones — can damage your eyes if you are hit and aren’t wearing protective glasses. There’s also the risk that these toys can be mistaken for real weapons. Though look-alikes are required to have an orange tip, that measure may not suffice, and replicas are banned in some jurisdictions. In 2016, two years after a police officer killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was playing with an airsoft replica handgun, a Washington Post analysis found that 43 people with toy guns were killed by the police in the previous year. Forty-three people a year is, of course, 43 too many. But given that millions of people use toy guns (Nerf said it sold 40 million blasters in 2020), and given that your son, with his eye protection, seems to be safety-conscious, his being physically injured by his war games probably shouldn’t be high on your list of things to worry about.
Fair use cited so on and so forth.
I’m Horrified by My Kid’s Obsession With Toy Guns. What to Do?
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
April 26, 2024
My son is a freshman in high school and has recently become obsessed with Nerf and airsoft guns. He wants to upgrade his arsenal with a new “rifle” for $250. I’m a pacifist and am horrified by his love of playing war with his friends in the neighborhood while there are two actual wars going on in Gaza and Ukraine, not to mention the threat of mass shootings at schools and elsewhere. Also, the pew-pew-pew that might seem cute in a little kid wielding a neon orange toy gun is very different in an almost-6-foot male wearing camo and eye protection and putting orange tape on the muzzle of the rifle to keep it from looking like a real weapon.
At the same time, this game-playing has gotten him and the neighborhood kids outdoors, which, given the lure of screen time and the isolating effects of the pandemic, feels like a gift. He is also creative and makes holsters and other things to give to his friends for the holidays, so there’s definitely an element of love and skill to his interest in these types of guns.
But the symbolism and his incessant requests that we bankroll a bigger, faster, more expensive version of these “rifles” is making me sick. I don’t know how to handle it. I have talked to him about wars and mass shootings and what these guns mean to me and other people in society. But I’m his mom, and as a teenager, he especially doesn’t want to listen to me. He says he understands, but then only days later, he is showing me a listing for the new model he wants for Christmas. (He enlisted the help of a friend to buy him his first toy rifle because he was too afraid to ask me.)
I really don’t want to encourage this type of role-playing, but how do I keep him outdoors and around kids he loves? I feel as if I’m walking a fine line between enabling a love of violence and overreacting. I wish he could be obsessed with something innocuous like hiking or origami. — Barb
From the Ethicist:
Secular culture, like religious culture, has its totems and taboos. For all of us, objects — a crucifix, a wedding ring, a sports car — take on meanings beyond their physical reality. So it makes sense that, for you, toy guns symbolize the harms you associate with real guns: the desire to exert control over others through intimidation or lethal force, the prospect of injury and death.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any risks associated with these toys in themselves. For one thing, their projectiles — even the softer, slower Nerf ones — can damage your eyes if you are hit and aren’t wearing protective glasses. There’s also the risk that these toys can be mistaken for real weapons. Though look-alikes are required to have an orange tip, that measure may not suffice, and replicas are banned in some jurisdictions. In 2016, two years after a police officer killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was playing with an airsoft replica handgun, a Washington Post analysis found that 43 people with toy guns were killed by the police in the previous year. Forty-three people a year is, of course, 43 too many. But given that millions of people use toy guns (Nerf said it sold 40 million blasters in 2020), and given that your son, with his eye protection, seems to be safety-conscious, his being physically injured by his war games probably shouldn’t be high on your list of things to worry about.
