February 19, 2008
Nerf Sniper Rifle
My first Nerf basketball hoop, back around 1972 was not a whole lot more than a wire about the thickness of a coat hanger (a wire one, of course, not that plastic crap we have now), with some yo yo string to make a net. The foam was so lightweight you could hardly shoot with any kind of accuracy at all.
I loved it. A ball I could throw in the house!!
Soon thereafter, my dad brought home another Nerf product. This was a foam plane. Think paper airplane "grown up" a wee bit. Another toy I could throw in the house without getting into too much trouble, although my mom cringed every time, I think. I had friends who had the little Nerf "cars" as well.
Eventually there was the obligatory extra Nerf balls ... Nerf football ... and then Nerf got really cool. Nerf ping pong! You could set up the Nerf ping pong on ANY table and not damage it. Nerf pool! One of my all time favourite games ... and we had never had a pool table. Once again, you set it up on a regular table and played without damaging it. Nerf "air" hockey! Eventually there was even an outdoor set which included Nerf badminton, volleyball and "tennis." Nerf mini-golf.
Of course, there were then Nerf soccer balls, different kinds of Nerf basketballs, included correct weight ones to use outside.
So far as I was concerned, Nerf could do no wrong. Their toys were creative and fun.
Then came the Nerf bow and arrow set. Crossbow. These were also fun ... shooting darts at targets. And then Nerf "guns." Nerf tag. All good fun.
But over the last five years or so, it's gotten completely out of hand. Nerf has turned more and more to only weaponry, various styles of guns. This past year, in my opinion, given the number of school shootings the U.S. has experienced, Nerf has gone too far.
Their new N-Strike Longshot is, plain and simply, a sniper rifle for children.
I don't want to hear "we make what people buy." Children do not need play sniper rifles which actually fire 35 feet. Children do not need a play sniper rifle with a targeting scope to increase accuracy at 35 feet. Children do not need 2 quickload ammunition clips to increase their firepower.
Now look. If we're talking about adults playing with it ... I have somewhat less of a problem. I own two airsoft pistols and an airsoft "machine gun" (sadly, not an automatic, though). I enjoy playing target games. I have no issue with people who hunt and eat what they kill (or sell the meat to others).
But if we are serious about reducing gun violence in schools, then I'm not sure children should be practicing with toy weaponry which can hone rapid-fire skills.
A sniper rifle has one clear purpose. Long range assassination. I do not want my child on the ground, N-Strike Longshot set up on its fold-down bipod (for stability and better accuracy) and practicing sniping. Now, my kid grows up and goes into the armed forces and wants to be a sniper ... you know, I may not always agree with it, but there is a serious purpose for that. I'm fine with an adult making that decision. Police snipers ... there are damn good reasons for those. That's fine.
My 10 year old laying down in the backyard firing at the dog? No.
I know about Nerf Wars and Nerfers. As with airsoft wars and bb guns wars and paintball, there are fun war/shooting games you can play.
The difference is that airsoft guns, BB guns and paintball guns are all marketed in the sporting goods section ... there are restrictions and most parents (certainly not all ... and I've heard plenty of abuse of the system) but most parents treat the stuff as equipment that needs some rules. You really need safety gear to play paintball and while sure, your 15 year old can get away without it in the back lot, if the kid wants to go to a paintball tournament, the kid will have to wear the gear. It's a sport with protective gear. Got it. BB guns and airsoft are a little different, but most parents tend to treat them with some amount of respect.
Nerf guns are sold in toy stores and the toy aisles. Their name at one time meant Nerf basketball and safe indoor toys. Even some of the first dart weaponry was kind of a safe, indoor extension of squirt guns or cops-n-robbers.
Now they have gatling guns and automatic revolvers.
And a sniper rifle.
Look at the commercial. (Will pop up in new window)
Now, the Nerfers are modifiying their Nerf guns ... I've seen several people who have developed darts which are more accurate and fly further. There's a way to modify the guns to get better airflow to the darts so they will fly further and faster.
I do not have an issue with this. I love playing paintball, and Nerf Wars sounds like fun to me, too. It can be cathartic to play such games ... but they can also attract unstable people as well.
I do not have a problem with Hasbro/Nerf marketing directly to the Nerfers. Perhaps actually making Nerfer guns for the sport. But sell them in the sporting goods section. Sell them next to the paintball guns and the airsoft pistols. Because even though the modified guns are safer shooting darts than a paintball or airsoft weapon ... they are still weapons. Give parents that much of a reminder that the kid is not idly looking at some funny little foam version of a squirt gun. Shoot, develop a new logo for Nerfer Guns or Nerfer Wars. Something, anything to remind people that these are not the little foam balls we threw into a wire hoop. A new logo will help parents and kids differentiate between the inaccurate, low-powered toys that kind of throw darts around ... and the more accurate, more powerful guns which shoot darts.
A subtle difference, perhaps. But if we are going to squawk about our children shooting each other ... I feel it's a step we need to take. One that might remind us to look at ourselves and our lives and lifestyles ... and reflect on what we're really teaching our children - that we are paying attention to them and their interests ... and that we are teaching limits and boundaries ... and the morals we want them to espouse.
This, for me at least, is not about left-wing/right-wing. It's not about gun control. It's about taking responsibility for our actions on a personal level (really thinking about our children and their toys) ... and most especially, about corporate and marketing responsibility.
If you didn't view the commercial before, please take the 30 seconds to view it now. Do you want your child practicing to be a sniper?
Look at the commercial. (Will pop up in new window)
Posted by Red Monkey at February 19, 2008 5:41 AM |
Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity
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Yikes. I find this disturbing.
February 19, 2008 11:12 AMPandoraWilde said:
Cool guns!
But I'm an adult. I'm not a kid. I have enough common sense to use these safely. Kids just don't.
And do we really need them playing Commando? Granted that the same arguments about kids pretending to be wizards and warriors by playing Dungeons and Dragons can apply, but D&D had a dice-based combat system, NOT a fucking detachable scope and clips for your pretend gun!
This isn't a kid's product. Sure, they'll love it and so will their parents but look at the ammo--how hard does that actually hit the target? Especially if the target's an eye?
Your idea would save this toy--I wonder how long it'll be before the complaints start?
February 19, 2008 1:26 PMI don't like guns. At all.
February 19, 2008 3:51 PMJoe said:
I think they rule and kids are ok as long as the parents have fun with them and teach safety. Candidly, I have the revolver and the gatlin gun and a little mini gun. My daughters love shooting the darts at the duct work in our unfinished basement, we just do target practice. I don't tell them that we are shooting people or anything, just innocent darts suctioned against metal duct work...and sometimes the windows upstairs.
February 20, 2008 11:37 AMBusyDad said:
I guess I'm just old school, but I played with ultra realistic guns when I was a kid and turned out ok. These were the kids that cops would take you down for these days.
I really don't think it's toy guns that cause school violence because in the 70s and 80s you could buy totally realistic guns that today would cause picket lines outside of Target.
That being said, I have to chime in about how cool these guns are (yes, we have one, could you guess?). My son like to snipe his bionicles off the couch. The rule in the house is not to ever point a toy gun at an animal or person (basic respect reasons rather then it'll cause him to shoot up a school). But in sanctioned battle time he can shoot at me, and I him.
It all comes down to parenting. Being involved in your kid's life. Teaching him basic respect for people, animals, property, feelings etc.
Cool toy guns don't cause crime. Detached, uncaring parents do. That is my strong belief.
But in all honesty, these things don't fire that well. My kid is already bored of it.
February 20, 2008 4:53 PMXeno Nuggets said:
Give a child a toy gun and he has a toy gun.
Give a child a stick and he has a toy gun.
Personally I have had a far more enjoyable experience on the receiving end of a toy gun then I have had from a stick.
Foam bullets don't sting quite as much as sticks do.
The gun itself is not cause of violence it is only the tool used to create it. Even if you took away that tool, those intending to inflict pain and suffering on others will only find another method to do so.
Plus I for one have never been able to see the world in just black and white. I have only ever been able to see it in shades of gray. So to simply blame bad parenting seems a little foolhardy to me.
Red Monkey says: you've missed my point entirely! Playing with toy guns is a fact of childhood life for every child I've ever met. And yes, they'll play with stick guns and finger guns and I can recall building "guns" out of tinker toys. However, there is no call for a child to have a sniper rifle. That's not the type of gun that you do sports shooting with. It's not the type that you hunt with. It's the type used for one very specialized military or police action: taking out a very bad person in order to protect a lot of people.
Nerf wants to make toy guns? I am a little squeamish about them being sold in the toy aisle, yes. It didn't really bother me until recently when they've changed their ad campaigns to something approaching a sport/mock war scenario. They want to hit that market? Fine. But they really ought to market the product differently. It's a sporting goods "toy" at that point, safer than paintball and BB wars, but still in the realm of sporting goods - not toys.
There's nothing wrong, in my opinion, with teaching older children the sport of target shooting or skeet. It's a fun skills-based sport. However, there's no point in arming children with sniper rifles, Nerf or otherwise. To my way of thinking, yes, equipping a 10 year old with a Nerf sniper rifle is bad parenting. Not because the kid has a Nerf gun - but because of the type of gun it is. And I say that having already had this discussion with a dear friend who bought that gun for his 10 year old. That child is not mature enough to handle it - first thing he did was lay in wait and pick off his aunt the moment she walked in the room - after a long discussion about how he was to never even point the thing at a person.April 7, 2008 4:29 AM
Xeno Nuggets said:
Firstly, I don't think I missed your point. I got it. I just failed to agree with it.
Secondly, I still see these Nerf guns as toys. They fire foam darts with a rubber or Velcro tip. The overall damage that these items inflict is next to nothing. The welts and bruises that I have sustained from a friendly game of paint ball however tends to make the distinction pretty clear.
As to your claim that the Long Shot is a sniper rifle for kids with no civilian counterpart to somehow validate this design, I think you should go take a closer look at what the people who hunt are using these days. The optics alone are reaching a near military grade.
But even if the Long Shot is a sniper rifle for children the fact remains that the gun itself won't make the child want to climb to the top of the local water tower in order redecorate the city streets with corpses.
Also the sniper rifle is in the very least a skill based weapon. You wait, line up your target, figure in the wind and distance, control your breathing, and then fire. The sniper rifle is a weapon that requires patience and discipline to become good at.
As to your friend's child whom shot his aunt with a Nerf gun. I don't see any way of weighing in on this one effectively. I don't know the child in question or the methods used for disciplining him. As far as I can tell giving this child a spoon might be a grievous error, no matter how long a talk you have with him. Or maybe he fully weighed out the pros and the cons before making his now infamous shot. I don’t know. But I highly doubt that this Nerf gun will be the thing that turns him into a raving loon with an itchy trigger finger.
Red Monkey says: With the last paragraph, you begin to make the same point as I do. Nerf guns are not inherently bad things. I don't say that they are. I worry about a culture of violence and parents who don't think about their kids' games and toys. To me, a responsible company would move Nerf guns to a slightly re-designed brand as a reminder to parents that this is a skillset, not "just" a toy. However, I think responsible parents can get their kids BB guns, Nerf guns, paintball guns, Airsoft guns and still raise a perfectly healthy kid who's not going to climb a water tower. We are seeing more and more frequently parents who are at fault for not paying enough attention to their children and their children are acting out in very violent ways. If these kids are used to playing with violence, if they are angry and frustrated, if they are on the edge, they are more likely to act out violently. Are Nerf guns or BB guns to blame? No. There are thousands of kids who play with toy guns with no acting out violently. HOWEVER, I find it irresponsible to market Nerf guns as TOYS. Yes, I'd rather get hit by a foam dart than even a plastic BB from an Airsoft, but it doesn't change the fact that these sporting goods items need a little more supervision and forethought than buying a Nerf basketball hoop.
Beyond that, I think we may just have to agree to disagree.April 7, 2008 8:33 PM
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Momo Fali said: