Little-Bang Theory of Violence: It All Begins With a Toy Gun

Says Damian Crisafulli, 14, who is fluent in Nintendo: "I mean, you may only be buying a piece of plastic that reshapes what's already there, but it comes with a free game. Plus it's a cool tool for game developers to build in, plus you get to shoot zombies in REUC [Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles], plus it comes bundled with Zelda." Plus, he adds, "it will be awesome to use in a 32-player match in Medal of Honor Heroes 2."

People who suggest it will promote violence are, he says, "paranoid.

"It's plastic that clips to a video game controller."

Ah, but it's plastic that travels with its own posse: The Zapper arrives at our offices accompanied by a PR rep and a peroxide-blond handler who carried it in a padlocked briefcase.

And yes, Jonathan and Damian, it feels very sweet when we cradle it in our hand and then slowly raise it toward . . .

* * *

Ralphie Parker, give us guidance.

Last month the city of Springfield, Mass., sponsored a toy gun buy-back, offering free ice cream to the 50 children who agreed to relinquish their squirt guns and fake laser pistols.

The history of objections to toy guns is almost as long as the history of the toy, from Rose Simone, concerned Chicago citizen, who organized toy-gun-burning bonfires in 1934 and 1935, to the state senators in New Jersey who are currently stumping for a statewide ban on selling imitation firearms to those under age 18.

Toy guns, in the forms of sticks, scraps and the always-reliable thumb-and-forefinger, have likely been around nearly as long as the real thing, which debuted in the mid-14th century.

Toy guns, in the form of things you could go out and buy, arrived much later. After the Civil War, weapons factory owners realized that no war meant no profits. Light bulb! Replace the bullets with sound-making caps and sell the guns as a novelty item!

Those guns were loud, but they didn't shoot anything. That joykill was fixed by harnessing pneumatic technology to make air rifles that blasted ball bearings of .18 inches (a size halfway between B and BBB shotgun shot, hence the BB gun). In 1888, the floundering Plymouth Iron Windmill Co. in Michigan decided to include a BB gun as a freebie with every farmer's order, and in two years, Plymouth had shut down windmill production and was manufacturing 50,000 Daisy Air Rifles a year, "daisy" being the "awesome" of 1888.