Four years ago, I wrote a column on the controversy over boys and toy guns. In my column today in USA Today I return to the issue to discuss some recent research in the area.
Four years ago, I was publicly identified as a danger to children. As the doting father of four, it was a bit of a surprise, but my “outing” occurred after my boys and I built an authentic Conestoga wagon to ride in our Northern Virginia neighborhood’s “Wheel Day.” Mid-parade, an irate mother confronted me after spotting toy guns in the covered wagon — objecting to my instilling violent values in my boys. I later received an e-mail from another parent that this covered wagon was no “innocent fantasy” since I must be aware “what guns were used for in the Old West?” It turns out that my kids were apparently rehearsing the genocidal massacre of Native Americans.
Truth be known, I actually did not view the wagon as a tribute to ethnic cleansing. But the real issue was not Western fantasies or phobias. It was guns.
I let my boys play with toy guns and swords. With many parents and schools enforcing a zero-tolerance policies toward toy guns, such toys are producing an increasing divide on playgrounds and play dates.
Early this year, a 7-year-old in Oklahoma City was suspended from school for pointing his finger like a gun and shooting at a wall. He is not the first “finger-gun” suspension — part of zero-tolerance policy in schools that recently have led to the suspension of kids for everything from drawing stick figures with guns to wearing a hat with an image of an armed soldier on it. In December, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch organized an annual “bashing” of toy guns at which parents bring their children to destroy toy guns in exchange for non-violent toys such as puzzles. In January, Hawaii legislators sought, but ultimately failed, to make it a crime to sell a toy gun to anyone younger than 18. While the crackdown on toy guns has continued to grow, this debate has been remarkably detached from developmental studies and seems to be more about parents than their kids.
Toys and gender
As someone on the nature side of this debate, a new study in Current Biology magazine caught my eye. After 14 years of observing young chimpanzees in Uganda, leading researchers found that they shared the same innate preferences in toys and games as human children. Males and females were found to gravitate toward what are called “biological predilections” in toys. The researchers found that females tended to treat sticks like dolls to mimic their mothers while males used sticks as weapons. Most interesting, when Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and co-author Sonya Kahlenberg of Bates College gave juvenile monkeys sex-stereotyped human toys, the females tended to play with the dolls while the males are more apt to play with “boys’ toys,” such as trucks.
Joyce Benenson, associate professor of psychology at Emmanuel College, told Discovery News that this study reinforces her own research that “biological mechanisms (underlie) children’s toy preferences” and “suggests … a biological basis for human sex differences.”
Of course, who needs a Uganda chimp research center? I had Madie. Surrounded by brothers (now 12, 10 and 8), Madie (now 5) grew up in a house overflowing with boys and boy toys. Madie is certainly competent with every model of Nerf weapon. However, she primarily maintains a legion of dolls with enough clothes to outfit an Army division.
Psychologist and author Glen David Skoler has argued that games involving toy guns and swords most often occur as boys are transitioning from the “amoral, self-centered, and unsocialized” world of toddlers. He calls this an “intermediary level of moral functioning,” where boys experiment with “games of good guys vs. bad guys and epic struggles between good and evil.” Child psychologist Penny Holland reached the same conclusion in her book We Don’t Play with Guns Here, saying that toy gun play is often “part of … timeless themes of the struggle between good and evil.”
Potsdam vs. pirates
In truth, my kids are not obsessed with guns and show no signs of being nascent Hannibal Lecters graduating to higher and higher forms of carnage. Ironically, I grew up in a zero-tolerance household, where my mother destroyed any toy guns that she found. We became obsessed with secretly hiding squirt guns around the house like adolescent drug users.
What is astonishing to me is how detached the zero-tolerance movement is not just from research but also from reality. One Mothering magazine article advised mothers on how to respond to their boys found playing with guns or swords. The writer suggested that parents take their boys aside and “emphasize healing” and show their boys how to make “magical medicines.” The magazine also advised that parents could also “transform guns into magical wands” and “channel energy into other games.” My personal favorite, however, was that parents should stop such games and have the kids play “peacemaking” by creating “a roundtable with a mediator and write a peace accord.”
Perhaps Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could pull off the peace accord game, but I doubt that most kids would find re-enacting the Potsdam Conference of World War II to be a good substitute for a pirate war.
Toy guns are no more the cause of violence than toy kitchen sets are the cause of obesity. Hundreds of millions of men grew up with toy guns and never turned to a life of spasmodic violence. On this issue, kids seem a lot more sophisticated than their parents. They know it’s just a game.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
March 8, 2011
Despite the objections of Republicans, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people are alive today or lived full lives because they were wearing the seat belts mandatory in cars since the mid-80’s. They were not killed or maimed or seriously injured in car accidents they were involved in because people had the forsight to require all cars be eqipped with safety belts.
These people did not have their lives cut short. They were able to graduate from high school and/or marry and/or have children, see their children grow and marry and have children.
Not so for Eileen Bolha, a high school classmate of mine who died in a car crash one week before graduation in 1967. Also not so for Elaine M’s husband’s boyhood friend who died in a gun related accident. Eileen would have survived her crash had she been wearing a seat belt. Mr. M’s friend would have benefitted from the idea expressed above that no one should ever touch a gun–real or toy.
Give em Guns and Knives…. They need to learn the respect and usefulness of both….. More people have been slain by the pen than a gun….. (this is attributed to somebody but forgot who…..)
Elaine,
That is horrible. Kids and real guns are a dangerous mix.
rafflaw,
When my husband was young, he lost one of his good neighborhood friends. His friend was shot accidentally by his brother who was playing with a gun that was kept in their house.
Elaine,
Great links to the statistics of gun deaths and children. I have to admit that I hate guns of all types. I have never owned a gun and never will. My wife and I tried to not purchase any toy guns for our son or our 3 daughters when they were young, but my son would use ketchup bottles in the grocery as a gun and shoot the bad guys! Of course, he went on to be a Marine. I do not think we need guns for any self defense purposes and if you are not hunting, I see only trouble coming from them. I am in favor of strong restrictions on guns, but I do not believe in getting rid of all of them.
The kids are going to play with toy guns even if they have to make their own. Common sense is a rare commodity these days and Professor Turley found that out with his neighbors complaints from the parade. But these same neighbors are on school boards deciding that pointing a finger at a wall and pretending to shoot the wall are dangerous things and must be controlled or the world will explode. Common sense needs to control the day, but I don’t think common sense is winning the battle.
Blouise,
“I learned to hunt with a bow and arrow.”
You Amazon, you! And a humorous one at that! 😀
R. Pennington brings up a very good point:
“I wish someone would start worrying about the psychoactive drugs that are being given to children vs playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians or earth men and aliens. Those drugs are far more destructive than a kid with a cap gun.”
Today’s kids are far too medicated. Sadly, many parents and doctors see an active 5 year-old and immediately think, “ADHD” or some other syndrome and completely ignore that many kids are just … being kids.
My daughter’s kindergarten teacher was concerned because my daughter wasn’t “focused” and suggested her father and I have her tested for ADHD and a whole host of other “ailments.” While my ex bought into the hype, I did not but humored the two of them knowing full well that my daughter was just being a kid. Lo and behold, she wasn’t anywhere near the spectrum. Gee, how shocked was I …
KV also brings up a good point, as echoed by OS:
“I also think that when someone starts handling a real firearm (for me, that was single digit years) the toy guns need to go away.”
While I am not a proponent of everyone and their mother owning a gun, the above statement is just good old-fashioned common sense.
Thanks for the statistics, Elaine
My grandfather was born in a sod-house in the Oklahoma Territory after his parents took part in the land-run. He hunted for food with a gun until one season, after his 65th birthday, he was almost shot twice. “Too many amateurs out there,” he said when he came home early. He sold his guns and that was that.
Based on my grandfather’s actual experiences, I would tell your neighbor that an authentic Conestoga wagon is not complete without guns. No guns … no food. No food … dead homesteaders.
I learned to hunt with a bow and arrow. I never used a gun, but then my family wasn’t depending on my kill for dinner.
My brothers and I both had toy guns … I objected strenuously because they had two six shooters where as my “Dale Evan’s” outfit was a single six shooter. Why did the boys get 2 and I only got 1? My parents never gave me an explanation I found acceptable. We all had Davy Crockett rifles.
There is a huge difference today … notice Sheriff Woody from Toy Story … his holster is empty.
I would correct R. Pennington in that most gun deaths of children are accidental shootings in the home. I could go get the statistics again but I’ve quoted them many times … anybody can go look them up … use Google.
I support strict gun-control … I do not support banning of all guns.
As to children playing with toy guns … that’s up to individual parents and absolutely none of my business one way or another.
From University of Michigan Health System
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm
Gun Safety for Kids and Youth
What are the statistics about young people and firearm deaths and injuries?
The 2002 edition of Injury Facts from the National Safety Council reports the following statistics [1] :
• In 1999, 3,385 children and youth ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries.
• This is equivalent to about 9 deaths per day, a figure commonly used by journalists.
• The 3,385 firearms-related deaths for age group 0-19 years breaks down to:
o 214 unintentional
o 1,078 suicides
o 1,990 homicides
o 83 for which the intent could not be determined
o 20 due to legal intervention
• Of the total firearms-related deaths:
o 73 were of children under five years old
o 416 were children 5-14 years old
o 2,896 were 15-19 years old
In addition to firearm deaths, we need to look at how many children and young people are hurt by guns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in 1997, 2,514 children aged 0-14 were non-fatally injured by guns. In the same year, 30,225 young people aged 15-24 sustained nonfatal firearm injuries. These statistics include suicide attempts and both intentional and accidental shootings [2].
According to the CDC, the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries [3].
What do we know about kids and gun accidents and suicides?
When researchers studied the 30,000 accidental gun deaths of Americans of all ages that occurred between 1979-1997, they found that preschoolers aged 0-4 were 17 times more likely to die from a gun accident in the 4 states with the most guns versus the 4 states with the least guns. Likewise, school kids aged 5-14 were over 13 times more at risk of accidental firearm death in the states with high gun ownership rates. The findings indicate that gun availability is associated with accidental death by shooting [4].
Most guns involved in self-inflicted and unintentional firearm injuries (that is, in suicides and accidents) came either from the victim’s home or the home of a friend or relative [5].
Where and how safely do families with kids store their guns?
More than a third (35%) of homes with children—that’s 22 million children ages 18 and under in more than 11 million homes—had at least one firearm, found researchers in a RAND-UCLA study [6]. But only 39% of these families keep their firearms locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. 43% of these U.S. homes with children and guns reported keeping one or more firearms in an unlocked place and without a trigger lock. Nine percent keep their guns loaded as well as unlocked. This analysis is based on data from 1994 interviews conducted in tens of thousands of households by the National Center for Health Statistics. (See Guns in the Family: Firearm Storage Patterns in U.S. Homes with Children for a fuller report.)
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From
National Education Association
Health Information Network
http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoolsafety/gunsafety/statistics.htm
CHILDREN AND GUN VIOLENCE
• America is losing too many children to gun violence. Between 1979 and 2001, gunfire killed 90,000 children and teens in America. (Children’s Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics)
• In one year, more children and teens died from gunfire than from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined. (Children’s Defense Fund)
• The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
AMERICA AND GUN VIOLENCE
• Every day, more than 80 Americans die from gun violence. (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence)
• The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control)
KV
Never touch a gun. Never let anyone you love touch a gun. Never let anyone you’ve ever met ever touch a gun. Never let anyone you’ve never met ever touch a gun. If no one ever touches guns, no one dies from guns. Unless one somehow thinks a bullet is a good thing, nothing good ever came from the barrel of a gun. Nothing. Not ever.
As far as I can tell, most gun deaths of young people happen in the pursuit of criminal activity. Or occur due to medications given to children to modify behaviours.
I wish someone would start worrying about the psychoactive drugs that are being given to children vs playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians or earth men and aliens. Those drugs are far more destructive than a kid with a cap gun.
There is nothing wrong with firearms, they are just a tool, an inanimate object.
And what would that be, rcampbell?
“Kids are literal minded, and may get the two confused. Or maybe not, but who would want to take a chance on that….”
There is, of course, one best way to prevent any possibility of this kind of tragedy. It is a far better and far safer solution for everyone in both the short term and long term. And it would prevent a very large percentage of all gun deaths from ever happening.
Nal,
“I find the subject of gender differences fascinating. Generally, I think men understand that these differences go beyond sociological factors more than women.”
Maybe you’re talking to the wrong women!
😉
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I played with guns when I was a kid–as did my husband. Cowboy TV shows and movies were popular when we were growing up. Yet, we’re two adult people who would never own guns–and we’re also anti-war.
KV raises a good point. When or if a caregiver starts teaching a kid how to use a real firearm, then it is time to put away the toys. Kids are literal minded, and may get the two confused. Or maybe not, but who would want to take a chance on that. At any rate, when I got my first Red Ryder BB gun at the age of six, I was no longer allowed to even point a play gun at any of the other kids. My dad was a stickler on gun safety and I learned early on that a real gun was never, ever to be pointed at anyone unless I really intended to shoot them. Fortunately, that eventuality has never happened and I hope it never does.
I’m a proponent of an armed populace and RKBA. I think that toy guns have their place. I also think that when someone starts handling a real firearm (for me, that was single digit years) the toy guns need to go away.
It’s a moot point for me as I won’t be a father. Vasectomy for the win. I guess you could say, my gun is shooting blanks.
I find the subject of gender differences fascinating. Generally, I think men understand that these differences go beyond sociological factors more than women. Each of the genders tries to fathom the other, and each gender only has themselves as a model to compare with. When it comes to gender differences, using your own gender as a model for the opposite gender is going to lead to inaccurate conclusions.
Sometimes political correctness and purity goes WAAAAAAYYY too far. I too have seen the kinds of overreactions you describe and it leaves me scratching my head. My daughter got in trouble a couple of times because her t-shirt had a Grateful Dead logo on it. We discovered the school had a policy against pictures of skulls and/or bones. It is a freaking album cover, for Pete’s sake! And I thought everyone owned a skull of their very own, but I came to the conclusion that some school administrators and teachers left theirs at home.
We have both guns and swords in my house. The upshot of it all is that my kids became interested in law enforcement although they went on to other professional careers. That leaves my rebel daughter, she of the Grateful Dead shirts, who now wears tiny handcuff earrings and wants to attend the Police Academy.