Fri, 26 Sep 2025 04:40:44 -0700WeeblyTue, 21 Jan 2014 03:46:13 GMThttp://www.iherc.org/blog/toy-guns-cause-real-deathYou watch as two children tumble to the ground, clutching their stomachs and rolling
around in the grass, as a third stands, hand outstretched, thumb and index finger in the
shape of a sideways L, and shouts "Pow, pow, pow." The two on the ground keep their
eyes shut, stifling giggles, until they can no longer hold their silence and burst out in
laughing fits.

Sure, it all seems like child play now, as they laugh and tumble and take turns being the
"good guy" who must "kill" the "bad guys." However, what children don't always
understand, are the consequences that their careless little games can have.
Those pretend guns that they create with their fingers might one day be replaced with toy
guns. What's the harm in a toy gun? Toy guns can cause deaths that are very real.
Countless children are killed each year, when a toy gun is accidentally mistaken to be a
real one.

Playing their gun games, children don't realize how real their actions can become.
Handling a toy gun might one day lead them to handle a real one. And then, it is not just a
game when one can fall to the ground, pretend to be shot, and then get back up and
laugh it off. It becomes a matter of life and death.

Every single day in the United States, eight children and teenagers under the age of
nineteen die as a result of gun violence, and fifty are shot. This includes those who were
murdered with guns, those who committed suicide using a gun, those who were
accidentally killed by one, those who are hurt with guns because of police intervention,
and those hurt during assaults with a gun.

Every year in the United States, over 100,000 people die in cases with the involvement of
a gun.

While the number of people dying because of gun violence seems to increase every year
in the United States, other countries do not seem to be having the same problems. This is
because, in America, children are exposed to toy guns from such a young age, that they
become desensitized to the general idea of guns and gun violence. Children who grow up
around weapons categorized as "toys," often do not find anything wrong with the violence
that comes along with it.

Putting an end to children's exposure to guns and toy weapons will stop the
desensitization of children and put an end to gun violence in America. Only WE can make
a difference. Let's make change happen.

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