Could toting a toy gun be more dangerous than we think?

From the Stuff.co.nz website this morning:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/p...-than-we-think

MICHELLE DUFF

OPINION: My son grabbed the imitation AK47, tearing out the door and onto the lawn. "Rat tat tat tat tat tat," rang the toy machine gun's tinny volley.

"It's a gun mummy!" yelled my little angel. "Look!"

"Yup," I said, reaching for the plastic assault rifle I had used as part of a costume once, and which had re-appeared in the bottom of an old box. "We don't play with guns, though. Mummy's just going to put this away."

Tears ensued, obviously. You don't take anything off a two-and-a-half year old without expecting a full-on war of the wills.

But neither did I want him turning our backyard into a war zone.

Last week, childcare chain Evolve Education announced they had created a set of resources to teach gun safety to pre-schoolers.

Developed by the New Zealand arm of an American PR agency, the programme - which includes books, targets, and cut-out guns - has been especially designed for around 40 of Evolve's more rural daycare centres nationwide; the chain owns about 130 centres all-up.

At first, this seemed fairly innocuous. It's not like Evolve are the first to think of gun licences for kids - when I reported this story in 2011, I spoke to kindergartens around the country who were introducing a version of them.

The reasons for doing so seemed pretty solid - kids are going to pretend play with guns anyway, so why not put some rules around it. Don't point them at people's faces, that kind of thing. Makes sense.

But there is a difference between a few kindergartens drawing up homemade gun licences and guiding play with some common-sense rules, and a large corporate chain developing a set of resources that initiate kids into gun use.

Of course banning kids from playing with pretend guns won't work. Even just trying to get my toddler to eat something he's decided he doesn't like is to encourage full-scale rebellion.

But proactively teaching kids about gun safety at daycare marks a cultural shift. Early childhood educators and this programme's supporters are kidding themselves if they think, as relayed to the NZ Herald, that it does not promote gun use. Actively discussing guns and their use as a regimented part of early childcare can only serve to normalise these weapons.

This, and the fact it's being promoted by a corporate childcare chain backed by a PR company should be cause for alarm. Who is making money off this, and was this slick website really launched with children's wellbeing front of mind?

Sure, I get that guns might be part of the lives of rural kids, but it should be the responsibility of their parents to teach them age-appropriate gun safety - not for it to be entrenched as one of their earliest learnings.

In the United States last year, Louisiana state representative Dodie Horton - a pro-life, pro-gun Republican - raised the ire of her fellow Republicans when she tried to introduce a bill that would prohibit the carrying of replica guns into schools. The local sheriff wanted the law as a measure to protect kids carrying the realistic-looking weapons from being shot by law enforcement.

But America's powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, wouldn't have it. As reported on This American Life, opponents thought banning toy guns would be a "slippery slope" towards banning real ones. It was not a concession they were willing to make. The bill was quietly binned.

Here, similar logic could be applied. Could the official promotion of toy guns lead to the next generation of adults thinking it logical to pick up a real one?

Seems a bit far-fetched, right? It's not like we're America. Yet.

- Stuff

Far better for them to listen to racial, anti woman music while blasting up innocent people on the latest and greatest video game smoking synthetic weed while buying meat wrapped in plastic than teaching them gun safety. Be parents FFS not sheep!

well in the old days 30+ years ago when our lifestyle in NZ recognized that firearms had a valid reason and were at times a tool to feed provide for the family, training at schools wasn't really required.
They weren't demonized and used by nutters here and overseas.
They were immortalised by characters like Barry Crump, and we had a heritage of the good keen man scouring the bush not only for work but for a passion.
Air rifles abounded, used and abused. 22's were brought in at an early age and generally the one shot one kill mentality was instilled.
The great depression and WW2 wasn't that long before and you didn't want to waste anything and even for the cityfolk there was always a relly or an old friend on the farm that you would go and stay at, and some of that lifestyle would be visible and embraced in stories when you went back to the big smoke.
With urbanisation this has slowly faded and with the official mentality that "why do you need a gun if you live in the city" that is quite prevalent in Aussie from the antis, it certainly does us no favours with acceptance.
And Australia does have a disconnect when you consider Sydney alone has over 4 million people. The country people know what it is all about, but the vast majority of the townies certainly don't.
Long gone are the days where a hunter could walk through the street from a gun shop with the offending article slung over his shoulder (although it was still etiquette to at least have it in a gun bag), or the culler coming off the hill and managing to jag a bus ride back into town rifle and all. It was fine and people saw it for what it was.
I went to pick up a shotgun for my son a few months back and took the motorbike and the (very good) store person shook his head and said even in a bag it probably isn't a good thing. I never considered it an issue. Was I wrong?
Where I'm going with this is that less people were scared of them but more people were also aware of not only what they could do, but also how to safely handle them and showed them the proper respect. They weren't taboo but also not scary either.
One of NZ's earlier mass shooting in Kowhitirangi by Stan Graham in the 40's was done with a bolt action rifle, but there was certainly no talk of getting rid of them all. it was the man not the machine to blame.
If we don't have it in the social atmosphere then maybe we could have it introduced in schools by learning providers and maybe they wont be seen as something a bullied teen or a brain addled video gamer would use to wipe out an office full of people.

I used to "keep and bear" toy guns when I was a kid. Now look- I now own some real ones. It obviously had a terrible effect on me. My father taught me a bit about the safe handling of "real guns", using my toy ones to dedmonstrate. When I later went out with him to shoot rabbit and turkey, I managed to avoid shooting him, or anyone/anything I shouldn't. The media/Cahill-driven hysteria over firearms needs to be reined-in a bit

All of us who use firearms for our chosen sport/hunting, are fully aware of how to use a firearm SAFELY.
If there was an equally vigorous push on background checks for motor vehicle license applications, the road toll might be reduced quite dramatically.
It makes sense IMHO, to teach kinder kids about the basic rules for the safe use of firearms, when their brains are like sponges - absorbing everything they hear/see/feel.
Who cares who is developing the program - it's the first positive step in the safe use of firearms I've seen, since high school Cadets, Air Training Corps and Army service.
We have a high proportion of firearms ownership in NZ and we are DEFINITELY NOT AMERICAN in the free access to specialist/MSSA/handguns, that allow the callous use of these weapons, by unstable people.
My only complaint is that I loved using handguns in the US, some years ago, and unless I jump through some pretty wearisome hoops, that pleasure is denied me.
I think it's a great idea and needs support from the firearms community.

Had heaps of toy guns as a kid, some quite realistic ones at that. Now I own the same guns except they are real. Worked out great.

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Originally Posted by systolic

From the Stuff.co.nz website this morning:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by systolic

The reasons for doing so seemed pretty solid - kids are going to pretend play with guns anyway, so why not put some rules around it. Don't point them at people's faces, that kind of thing. Makes sense.
But there is a difference between a few kindergartens drawing up homemade gun licences and guiding play with some common-sense rules, and a large corporate chain developing a set of resources that initiate kids into gun use.

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A difference? Erh...no!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by systolic

Of course banning kids from playing with pretend guns won't work. Even just trying to get my toddler to eat something he's decided he doesn't like is to encourage full-scale rebellion.
But proactively teaching kids about gun safety at daycare marks a cultural shift. Early childhood educators and this programme's supporters are kidding themselves if they think, as relayed to the NZ Herald, that it does not promote gun use. Actively discussing guns and their use as a regimented part of early childcare can only serve to normalise these weapons.
- Stuff

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I've heard similar arguments used against sex education, or teaching about drugs and alcohol. And such arguments get widely ignored primarily because they emanate from a cloud cuckoo land divorced from the realities of life.