Violent Toys
Complete list of 12 violent toys
The Lion and Lamb Project Webpage
A children's advocacy group is puting a dozen popular toys on a black list --hoping parents will stay away from them this holiday shopping season. News Specialist Pamela Davis has the story.
One of the toys is a toy gun with a double-barrel blaster. The box even brags about the speed and power of the gun. Some people say toys like this are teaching kids to be violent.
The children's advocacy group known as the Lion and Lamb project is condemning twelve toys it says are unusually violent.
Daphne White/Lion & Lamb Project: "If you're buying them one of these things, it's going to say violence every time they look at it."
Most of the toys on the list of the "Dirty Dozen" involve shooting, killing, or hurting.
A Nerf gun fires up to six hard foam balls.
The packaging on Bashin' Brawlers urges children to punch the doll to make it holler.
The Chip Hazard action figure comes with "blow-apart legs."
One playset includes a blood-spattered Dr. Frankenstein, clutching a knife.
Daphne White/Lion & Lamb Project: "I don't remember ever seeing so much blood-splattered as I do this year. I think the amount of realism in these ads, and the weapons and these hand-held guns, you would think after so many children have been shot running around the street with real guns that they wouldn't make things like this anymore."
Members of this group argue that toys like these cause kids to become de-sensitized to violence.
They say that's why each year toy manufacturers strive to make toys that are bigger, better, and more violent than last year's toys.
Lion and Lamb is also pushing a national initiative to collect 10,000 violent toys by next summer, to keep them out of children's hands.
