Gun scrutiny spreads to toy shelves
Nerf guns and violent video games are targeted, but manufacturers note that they don't cause shootings in other countries.
The gun debate hasn't reduced stockpiles of Nerf rocket launchers or "Call of Duty" games one bit.
After the killings in Newtown, Conn., last month, the gun-control debate migrated from gun shops to toy and video game stores with a little help from the National Rifle Association. While many American parents have begun questioning the merits of toy guns on the playground, the NRA put video games in its crosshairs a week after the elementary school shooting that killed 26 people -- including 20 young students.
"There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said during a press conference on Dec. 21. "Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse."
Don't forget Activision's (ATVI) "Call of Duty," Wayne. The most recent installment of that first-person shooter series -- "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" -- grossed $1 billion worldwide just 15 days after its Nov. 13 release and is still the second-best-selling game on the planet behind Capcom's "DMC." AdAge notes that the game's "Revolution" downloadable expansion pack, releasing Tuesday, gives players four new maps, the ability to play as zombies and a new weapon, the Peacekeeper hybrid SMG assault rifle.
Activision has refused to comment on accusations made by the NRA, which just released a shooting video game of its own, but maintains that "Call Of Duty" itself shouldn't shoulder the blame for violent incidents. As the game maker points out, “Call of Duty” is similarly popular in the United Kingdom, where the World Health Organization says there are 0.25 gun deaths per 100,000 people compared to 10 per 100,000 in the U.S. In France, where the gun death rate is only 3 per 100,000, "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" is still the most popular game in the land, according to video game tracking site VGChartz.
Hasbro (HAS), maker of Nerf guns, argued a similar point to AdAge about that toy's popularity in the U.K. Nerf products brought in roughly $410 million for Hasbro in 2011 and the company says the shooting in Newtown didn't diminish demand during the most recent holiday season.
"Nerf is all about active play and active fun. If you ask kids as young as when they're able to play, up through parents and grandparents, everyone understands that these are toys,” John Frascotti, Hasbro's chief marketing officer, told AdAge.
It also helps that the toy industry has its own set of gun-control laws on the books. Federal and state laws require toys like Nerf and water guns to be made in non-gun neon colors or at least to have an orange tip for the muzzle. Toy guns like the far more authentic Airsoft guns, meanwhile, can only be marketed to ages 14 and older and are confined to store gun departments away from toys.
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During the late 1960s and early 1970s this country transformed made serious social changes when it came to families. The values and morals began a decline that has yet to stop even now. Children have grown up for 45 years without learning manners, watching excessively violent movies that many try to emulate in real life, drugs are now being legalized, and to many citizens have gotten away from the Christian values and morals that guided this country since 1776. Check the declaration, constitution and historical documents that are alluded in these writings. We rapidly declining as a nation as a result. Speaking of which: there is no amendment in the constitution that requires a separation of church and state.
PS: Never in the history of the world has any government disarmed it's citizens with "their" best interests in mind. They have an adgenda of their own which does not include "your safety""
PS: Why do you suppose that Communist China is praising Obama for trying to destroy the second ammendment? The Japanese avoided invasion of our country in WWII because they knew most Americans were armed and they would not be able to run rough-shod over them!
Wake up you naive people.
The biggest loophole in all this Gun Control Talk is the lack of effective dealing with the criminal elements of this society by our so called Criminal Justice Systems.
Criminals committing violent crimes are continually being released back into society, with little or in some cases no punishment because of all the laws that have been enacted to protect their rights, at the cost of the rights of the people they victimize.
Logic would dictate that prosecution of criminals be stepped up, with more sever punishment, including execution of the most violent offenders.
Trials/punishment should be reduced to weeks if not days, instead of years, and if the death penalty should be the same, complete as soon as possible not years later, like the woman in Texas who was convicted in 1997 and her it is 2013. That is 16 years, what kind of deterrent is that There are others that have been waiting even longer.
It is the prosecution of offenders that needs to be address before banning gun, knives, toys, and violent video games and movies.
I remember as a child my father buying me a mattel imitation colt revolver cap gun. The attention to detail was amazing. Now if a child were to walk around a neighborhood or playground with this toy he/she would be arrested or maybe shot by a police officer. Easily mistaken for the real thing.
Leave the toys alone. I have many fond memories of that toy gun and I don't plan on going to a school to shoot children. If the mother in Connecticut were still alive she would be looking a very long prison sentence for negligence. Guess that goes without saying.
The media holds a large portion of the blame for the "one-upsmanship" in mass shootings. They keep score of the dead and injured and give the killers the notoriety they could never achieve by doing something positive with their lives. We know more about the past of these killers than we do of our Commander-in-Chief. If their names were never published and their past not revealed in every detail, the glamor of their deeds would no longer be such of an incentive to try to outdo the past events.
Is it true that the past group of mass killers all have the Democratic Party in their roots?
Why is Mr. Obama and his whole administration not criticizing the extremely violent Hollywood Movie crowd and all the celebrities who support him and his ideology and contribute money to his cause?
Only toys and video game violence affect people and make them imitate what they see? illogical as heII.
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