Boys and Their Toys

Last Wednesday afternoon, Harrison and I were sitting on the front porch playing with some of the neighborhood kids when I looked over and saw that he had a gun. An orange plastic toy gun. He had discovered the trigger and was trying to figure out how to push it (why do they call it pull the trigger?). As far as I know, he'd never seen or played with a toy gun before. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with it or how to hold it, aim it, or shoot it.

Seeing him with that toy gun made me cringe, but I didn't take it away.

When I told Doug about it later, he said, "So what? I played with toy guns all the time as a kid."

I know this is true. And I know that I played with my share of cap and water guns too, and I'm not a violent, firearm-wielding lunatic. Still--are guns--even orange plastic toy guns---suitable playthings for children?

On the one hand, I think that a gun's singular purpose to hurt or kill an animal or another person makes it an unacceptable plaything for a young child, especially since we live in a city that has the unfortunate distinction of being the murder capital of New York State, with eight out of 54 homicide vicitims last year being children.

On the other hand, I know that Harrison is more likely to be killed in a car accident or in a pool than by a gun. I also know that generations of kids, especially boys, have grown up roleplaying Army guys and cowboys and indians, and not every one of them is a violent, firearm-wielding lunatic either.

But I am still troubled by this.

I can't help but think that part of Americans' aggression and generally complacent attitude toward violence both in our own personal lives and internationally is tied to this sense that real-life gunplay and war are mere games. (After all, they don't call Dubya the "cowboy president" for nothin'.)

When you're a kid, it's easy to make a distinction between the good guys and the bad guys, but the reality is that sometimes it is the Army guys that are the bad guys and it's the indians that are the good guys. And it's not cowboys on the range but grade schoolers going to school in my city's poor urban neighborhoods that are carrying guns for protection.

We live in a scary and violent world. Why does play have to be scary and violent too?