The Word War Over Realistic Toy Guns Is Getting Hotter

A knot of four scuzzy-looking men hanging out in a downtown Los Angeles alley drew Forrest Melton’s immediate attention.

“They were waving around these Uzi-type machine guns and a bunch of handguns,” recalled Melton, regional sales manager for a travel agency.

“I thought they were going to rob somebody, or maybe knock over the store next door.”

Frightened and concerned, Melton rushed back to his nearby office and telephoned the police.

The response was reassuring.

“In about three minutes there were about five cop cars surrounding these guys,” Melton said. “I waited a couple of minutes and then walked over there.

“The cops were laughing with these guys who had the guns.”

Melton paused, shocked even by his memory of police officers laughing it up with a bunch of hoods brandishing guns.

Then, still sounding surprised several weeks after the incident, he added, “They were squirt guns.”

Those water guns that Melton mistook for the real things represent a new generation of fast-selling toys: realistic simulated weapons. “They are the among the hottest toy categories on the Christmas market, along with armies of plastic action figures that come complete with military histories and job descriptions,” said Rick Anguilla, editor of Toy and Hobby World, a national magazine that publishes toy trade news.

Toy guns have fooled people who know a lot more than Melton about weaponry.

In Orange County, four years ago, a City of Stanton policeman shot to death a 5-year-old boy when the child pointed a toy revolver at him in a poorly lighted room.

Massad Ayoob, the Boston-born director of the Lethal Force Institute in Concord, N.H., told of a New York cop who described how four children nearly were shot by police after pointing toy guns at the officers, and of a Las Vegas policeman who held his service revolver to the head of a driver until he realized the gun on the floor of the man’s car was a replica.

‘Strongly Opposed’

Ayoob, whose institute trains police and others in survival and the use of lethal force, said in a telephone interview that one of his daughters owned a .22-caliber rifle at the age of 6, won her first marksmanship medal a year later, and by the age of 8 had a .22-caliber Beretta automatic pistol.

Nonetheless, Ayoob declares himself “strongly opposed” to realistic toy guns.

“I don’t like children playing at killing each other,” he said. “Children playing against each other pulling the trigger are setting the stage for some very tragic accidents.”

Some experts say the proliferation of toys promoting violence will leave its mark on today’s youth, creating violent children who are likely to become violent adults. Others say not to worry.

The experts transcend the usual child-oriented fields of education, psychology and psychiatry.

“I don’t have any problem with youngsters playing with toy soldiers and tanks and cannon and those kinds of things,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. “But I have a real problem with those replica-type firearms.” He would blackball toy guns that are so realistic they “can actually be utilized in the commission of crimes” because they are, indeed, so used, he said.

Block also reserves harsh judgment for the newly popular “laser guns” that fire infra red light beams at targets strapped to children’s bodies or built into hats or helmets. When hit, the targets emit noises ranging from gun-like sounds to electronic beeps.

“The laser thing really concerns me,” Block said, noting that his department has a “Laser Village” to train deputies because the system helps create such realistic gun fighting scenarios.

‘Negative Aspect’

“But,” the sheriff added, a laser gun has a “serious negative aspect when it is utilized for ‘fun and games.’ I can’t say with any degree of certainty, but . . . I believe (there is) a real potential for individuals to take this make believe and translate it into real world situations that would be real violence. I don’t think play is what that’s really all about.”

One man who does think play is what it’s all about is Don Kingsborough, chief executive officer of Worlds of Wonder, the Fremont toy company that makes Lazer Tag, a game consisting of pistol-shaped infra red projectors (called “StarLytes” by the manufacturer) and targets. In its first year of production, Lazer Tag already is the company’s best selling toy. Its wholesale receipts stand between $75 and $100 million, Kingsborough said.

“We did a survey, and of the people we surveyed, 73% really perceived it as a game,” Kingsborough observed. “The way kids play with it, it is a game. It’s tag. They shoot somebody six times and you lose the game. You shoot somebody six times in a war, and you’re dead.”

Kingsborough said Lazer Tag encourages group play, competition and teamwork. “What it really does is spark the imagination of kids,” he added.

Miguel Sawaya, an 8-year-old Santa Monica youth, thinks of the game as “fighting a battle like in Star Wars . . . it’s like playing cops and robbers when you shoot.” In his mind, “playing cops and robbers” is similar to playing tag. “I don’t think of it as a war game,” Miguel said. “I think of it as a game of tag.”

His brother Matthew, 5, agreed that the game is similar to both cops and robbers and tag. “Most of the time the cops put robbers in jail,” he said. “They don’t kill them.”

A Matter of Opinion

Whether 5-year-olds and 8-year-olds who equate shooting with playing tag are developing a tolerance for violence is a matter of opinion.

“The more our culture condones violence, the more likely it is for children to see (war toys) as justifying violent ways of conflict resolution . . . the justification becomes internalized, part of a way of thinking. By 12 years old I think kids have internalized their viewpoint of conflict resolution,” said Greta Fein, a psychology and education professor at the University of Maryland, who recently completed a book called “The Young Child at Play,” which reviews research in the child play field.

Fein emphasized that her particular concern about war toys stems from her feeling that “in the very act of giving them to children, I believe adults are tacitly condoning these objects and making them acceptable . . . there are many people in child development or early childhood education who would ban any form of violent play, so children would not be allowed to take a stick and pretend it’s a gun. I don’t agree with that.

“To me the major distinction is between the adult providing the toy, which I believe implies condoning all that goes with the toy, and the children thinking about these things and expressing them in a manner appropriate to children to the degree children conduct their own expressive forms. I believe we adults have to be very tolerant.”

But, Fein observed, “I don’t want to say the experience (of playing with war toys) at age 4 or 5 is going to forever incline this child toward violent behavior.”

Psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith, one of the nation’s most highly regarded child play scholars, observed that he is “very much against the people who have guns in their homes, against the high expenditures on warfare.”

In a telephone interview from his Wayne, Pa. home, the psychologist noted that there is “absolutely no evidence” children who play with war toys are especially prone to becoming violent adults, adding that “I would like to remind everyone, though, that we are talking about children’s play. . . . I feel playful aggression is important for children because they have to deal with all kinds of anger and aggression in their lives.”

‘Simply Bad Taste’

As for the negative side of war toys, Sutton-Smith said, “I don’t for a moment excuse the toy makers for making these things. It’s simply bad taste. But if they are only toys and are only played with, then it has no necessary negative consequence. If it has consequence it has to be connected with with other pressures in the society.”

Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park), a member of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, thinks family relationships are among pressures in society that create situations where war toys have negative consequences.

“If in the family life there are positive influences, the war toys are just games,” Martinez said, “But if in the family life there are distrust and fighting and men deserting the family and the children feeling they are at fault, those influences are going to have some kind of negative impact and then the toys could be a negative factor. But where there is good influence and love and caring in the home, I don’t think war toys are anything more than just that: toys.”

Carol Chamberlin, coordinator of the Child Development Program at Santa Monica College, contends that “ultimately, toys change the way people act.

“Most preschools have rules that say children can’t bring war toys to school because when they do it escalates fighting, kicking and biting--behavior that is intended to inflict physical and psychological pain.”

Chamberlin also objected to many war toys on grounds that they stunt problem solving ability.

She maintained that ideas for violent use of war toys develop in children’s minds because of television, toy packaging, peer influence, and parents who, in children’s eyes, endorse war toys simply by presenting them as gifts.

When a child turns a stick into a gun, it can become a magic wand or a violin bow a split second later, Chamberlin said. She noted another advantage of using sticks and fingers as imaginary guns: “Then you’re using ingenuity. The focus is not so much on hurting someone, but on concocting the weapon and then concocting the game plan.”

Packaged toy weapons, on the other hand, “cut off all opportunity for devising novel ways to play, ways that are novel in that they are not directed by recall of what children have already seen . . . if you want a child to grow up to be a problem solver, an innovator, a person who can come up with a novel response, then you need more than a person who just spews back what’s been seen. You need a person who can look at things in new ways.”

Research Is Sparse

Chamberlin noted several times that research is sparse on the relationship between children and war toys.

Psychologist Sutton-Smith agreed with her. “We have very little research on toys alone,” he said. “We don’t have as yet studies that tie toys to TV. The studies are split. Some say there is no subsequent effect and others say there is some effect at that time. None of them say there is any carryover back to the classroom. None of the studies are very good though. There is a general lack of awareness about how difficult it is to do this kind of research.”

Manufacturers of many war-related toys, particularly action figures like GI Joe and Masters of the Universe, have helped develop children’s television shows that use the toys as heroes and villains.

Action for Children’s Television may be the world’s leading consumer group concentrating on the effects of TV on children.

Peggy Charren, the organization’s founder and president, thinks that war toys and related TV shows do not create lawbreakers, but they probably do lead to acceptance of violent solutions to problems.

“I think that war toys do not turn children into criminals,” Charren said in a telephone interview from her Cambridge, Mass. home. “They probably don’t even turn children into Washington diplomats that get wrapped up in Star Wars ideas, though I’m not as sure of that. But what a steady diet of these toys in the playroom and the programs on television probably do for the nation’s kids is convince them that violence is a reasonable solution to problems . . . I feel concerned that children are growing up thinking that war is a reasonable solution to problems. It’s a kind of Rambo mentality that is developing.”

One notable exception to violent children’s television is Zoobilee Zoo, which Charren called “the only such show I’ve seen developed in the world of commercial television.” She observed that “It would be a miracle if it were a weekly show, and it’s a daily show.” The nationally syndicated program, which debuted three months ago, can be seen on Channel 5 in Los Angeles. Recommended by the National Education Assn. and endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, the program stars Ben Vereen in colorful, action episodes that manage to be creative and fun without being violent.

But advertising on Zubilee Zoo is another story. A recent episode included ads for toy vehicles that looked innocent enough, but at the touch of a child’s hand transformed into gun-bristling war machines.

‘Enemy’ Figures to Fight

Beverly Hills psychiatrist Carole Lieberman points out that many war toys come with “enemy” figures, and more often than not the enemy is somehow “different,” either in color or configuration, from the good guys.

Lieberman argues that the prevalence of “different” looking toy enemies leads to xenophobia, which includes fear or hatred of foreigners and strangers.

She added that the problem strikes close to home: “The enemies are these people from different cultures who are not just in their countries any more. They are the people in the children’s neighborhoods and their classes at school. Children are feeling as if the enemy is all around.”

Marilyn Smith, executive director of the 54,000-member National Assn. for the Education of Young Children, said it has no official position on war toys, but “it is difficult to see what constructive use they serve. Children in their normal development are going to play games about good and evil, good guys and bad guys, and games that will put them in positions of power. They’ll do that with cloth, with sand, with sticks. They’ll make things up. But to put in their hands toys that demonstrate actual violence, why stimulate that?”