Many, perhaps most, boys play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians or some similar game while growing up. Most of those who play such games use toy guns or, if no toy gun is available, a stick or anything else they can fashion into something along the lines of a gun.
It’s harmless fun, and the overwhelming majority of the children who play those games would never pick up a real gun and shoot an innocent person.
But that doesn’t seem to matter in Providence, R.I. There, liberal public officials recently held a “Toy Gun Bash,” at which parents were urged to turn over their children’s toy guns and have the “weapons” pulverized. The children were told horrifying stories about guns, and in exchange for surrendering the toys, they were given “presents that were indisputably not violent,” such as dolls and teddy bears, The Boston Globe reported.
One unhappy 8-year-old who was forced to hand over a toy gun – his favorite toy – had tried in vain to hide it under his pillow before his mother confiscated it and turned it over to authorities to be destroyed.
The Boston Globe reported that “Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, said police and parents coming together to destroy toy guns sends a powerful message to children.”
Oh, it sends a message all right. But we’re afraid that message is one of silliness and misguided priorities. We do not believe that young people who gun down others do so because they were allowed to play with toy guns as children. Far more often, that behavior stems from being brought up in unstable, one-parent homes where the basics of right and wrong are not taught.
Gun safety is obviously a worthwhile value to instill in children in homes where real firearms are kept. But it’s nonsense for government officials to squander limited resources on a program to destroy toy guns in the vain hope that that will cut down on violence involving guns.