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

Toy guns, see, are examples of "functional fixedness"; Tinkertoys could be fashioned into an AK-47. They could also become a house, a car, a Ferris wheel. Guns have one purpose: shooting things.

The other parental fear has been that cops will react to realistic-looking toy guns the way they are taught to react to real guns: by firing.

The squirt gun on steroids, that celebrated star of the 1990s, addressed this problem with bright colors and cartoony designs. (The first "liquid pistol" was introduced by Daisy in 1913. "Designed after the latest automatic pistol and would readily be taken for one," read the jaunty ad copy. "When dilute ammonia is used, it makes a very effective weapon against vicious men or animals.")

Hasbro's 1991 neon-hued Super Soaker -- now that was a gusher; the company sold 27 million in its first three years on the market.

Then in 1992 gang members in Boston filled their Super Soakers with, yes, ammonia.

Politicians called for a ban.

"I find it fascinating . . . ," Hasbro's then CEO Alan Hassenfeld says in "Timeless Toys," a history, "how we can legislate toy guns, but we can't legislate real guns."

And legislate they did. The same year as the ammonia attacks, federal regulations known as the Marking of Toy Look-Alike and Imitation Firearms went into effect, requiring that all guns come equipped with an orange plug or a brightly colored paint job.

It worked, sort of, until kids discovered Sharpies and spray paint, and until cops reacted the way cops are taught to react.

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Nintendo Wii Zapper, this is your history, the foundation that readers of the New Jersey Star-Ledger stand on as they ask questions like, "Could we make it squirt blood, too?"

Wii cannot make it squirt blood, reader. And Link's Target Practice, the Zelda game the Zapper is packaged with, is not particularly bloody either. In early levels, the shooter fires only at wooden bull's-eyes in a peaceful country setting, losing 100 points for each wayward blast that accidentally kills a chicken.

More advanced levels see their fair share of skeletons, Bulblins and other Zelda usual suspects, including a particularly nasty round of fireball-hurling Kargaroks, which disappear with a benign poof after being slain, rather than hanging around all mangled and gory. (Link's Crossbow training is rated T for teens and is not recommended to children under 13.)

It's just a game, and a highly social one at that, judging from the yelps and boos of non-playing onlookers when we tried it out.

It's just a kick to get all medieval with a sleek, white, sculpted Zapper.

Relax, you can't shoot your eye out.