Dangerous Toys
WATCH released its list of the top 10 most dangerous toys. The number 10 most dangerous is a toy gun. An Uzi, to be exact. Says WATCH:
In today’s world, there is no excuse for outfitting children with realistic toy weapons designed to produce dangerous and unnecessary thrills.
So, the product is not really dangerous. This is just anti-gun hysteria packaged as a consumer alert.
There’s no need to buy those fake guns when the VPC provides a handy list of guns marketed to children.
November 17th, 2004 at 4:51 pm
S.U. I wonder what they thought about this study reported at the Scotsman.
Playing with guns is ‘good for boys’
November 17th, 2004 at 5:11 pm
Interestingly, my father-in-law is about as Republican as they come, and very, very much pro-gun, and he would agree that toy guns, particularly realistic looking ones, are dangerous. I doubt he would go so far as to ban them, but he never allowed his children (or, now, his grandchildren) to play with toy guns. From the earliest age, he harped on the point that a gun is not a toy.
November 17th, 2004 at 5:29 pm
I agree that they teach improper gun handling but WATCH was not inimating that. They were making a political statement about guns.
Besides, how realistic looking is the uzi, with its bright orange paint on the barrel?
November 18th, 2004 at 4:20 pm
What? You mean Bag o’ Glass wasn’t banned?? What were they thinking?
Seriously, the article doesn’t mention why specifically each toy was selected, only that “so poorly designed or tested that they pose a serious safety or health risk to children.”
I don’t think that hints at a value judgment against guns in general, of course. Only that something about that particular toy seems to them to be dangerous in some way. We don’t what, though, since the article doesn’t elaborate.
Of course, all this depends on the legitimacy of the organization, which I’ve never heard of, so the point may be moot.