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The Toy Weapon Debate

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At a daycare center, a 7 year old boy and a 5 year old boy are playing together when the older of the two children makes a toy gun out of some blocks. He pretends to “kill” the 5 year old boy who he was playing with. The teacher saw him commit this “fake murder” and he got in trouble. Once the parents came to pick him up the teacher told them what happened and the parents were not angry with him. They said he knows it’s just pretend and not a real gun and cannot hurt anyone. Parenting is a big part of children knowing the difference between real violence and playing cowboys and indians or cops and robbers. The issue of children and toy guns is discussed in the article “Why I Bought My Son a Toy Gun” by Michael Golden, and “Why I Won't Buy My Sons Toy Guns” by Robert Shaffer. Between Golden and Shaffer they are both have a negative attitude towards toy guns and share the same view of imagination and the influence of TV but differ in their tone. Both Golden and Shaffer have a negative attitude towards toy guns. Golden is a very non-violent person who has only “touched a caulking gun and staple gun” (204). Even though Golden dislikes the idea of his son having any type of toy gun, he ends up buying his son the pirate pistol. Three years after he bought his son the toy gun he states, “Joan and I are convinced that the purchase of that gun did not signify a lapse in our moral judgment” (Golden 205). Likewise Shaffer shares the same views as Golden. He feels that toy weapons teach children to be violent. Shaffer claims, “Toy weapons, to develop children’s skills and coping mechanisms. But the lesson toy guns teach is that solving problems with violence is acceptable” (206) Golden and Shaffer are both non-violent people who dislike the idea of their children playing with toy guns. Golden and Shaffer both feel that a child’s imagination has a both a positive and negative outlook. According to Golden children

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