Thursday, July 17, 2008

one of those things

The other day as I walking around downtown I came up to a blind spot. I could see two young guys kind of in the corner and was thinking - what are they up to. No kidding I get to the corner and he is cocking a gun. The gun was low and I just glanced and kept walking. I looked back over my shoulder to see them joking around with it and made out that it was plastic. It could have been real - certainly at first glance I thought it was real.

So here's the question - do we need play guns? With less people hunting what is the need for guns. Are we, as a society, so afraid of life? Do little boys have to play with guns... is it all about power? I'm sure little boys played with the object that made them powerful before guns... bows and arrows, rocks... but is it necessary to make replica items that can be so easily confused for the real deal.

When it happened, it was surreal. I had one of those second takes of that situation as I kept walking up the street. My general anxiety disorder had a field day with it, but that part of me realized that it wasn't real and has gone on with worrying about everything else.

1 comment:

The Jaded Bee said...

We didn't even have water guns in our house growing up. We had hunting rifles and shotguns, and we were aware of the consequences of shooting a gun. They weren't toys. This house has one toy gun. It attaches to the original Nintendo game systerm for the game "Duck Hunt." It's in a box in the crawl space.

A father at daycare was attempting to tease my son. Something about his daughter. Anyways, he said he was going to show my son his gun collection, then went on to list the water guns and bb-guns, etc. I'm so glad Quentin gave him the look that he did - the "Why would you possess such things and why would I want to see them?" look. I then explained that guns weren't toys to us and he had difficulties understanding that. Another mother had to join in the conversation to make him understand that I wasn't an oddball believing this.

(I also haven't figured out why guns, and to be fair - swords, are permitted in "G" movies without any sort of warning.)

Weaponry, Barbies and Bratz (one of them is named Jade, so that is going to be fun avoiding) are all not welcome gifts here.