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Parents Up In Arms About Wii Zapper

The Wii Zapper (which looks nothing like the one in this picture) has attracted criticism from some US parents.

“toys guns of yesteryear were red, blue and whatever… no ligitimate [sic] reason to risk anyones life.”

Said one disgruntled parent.

The post originally had the above picture as being the Wii Zapper and as you can see it does look alot like a handgun (they changed it when their mistake was pointed out.) However the actual Zapper looks about as much like a gun as a banana does. Hyperbole, ignorance and misinformation abound in the article, with parents worried that the Zapper will train their kids to kill, and one grandparent saying:

“….Why don’t they enclose an application to the NRA in every box as well….the marketing person who came up with this brain child of an idea should be fired.”

Guns and games have been bedfellows for ages. From Operation Wolf’s arcade cabinet with attached Uzis to the GCon guns for the PS2 and all the games that go with them, the light gun has been an integral part of gaming culture since Duck Hunt. Thankfully there are people out there who appreciate this, and are capable of making the distinction between reality and fantasy:

“….I really hope that those people out there who believe that a gun-shaped remote will turn every kid that touches one into a homicidal maniac, don’t ruin the fun for us Wii-playing adults who can handle the reality. I grew up with toy guns and also shot a rifle in the sixth grade and never killed anyone….If you don’t think it’s a good idea, then please, feel free to exercise your right to protest by not purchasing the product…..”

Another heartening thing is the number of comments on the piece from readers, upbraiding the editor and writer for stirring up a storm in a teacup. To many people it seems this is a non-issue, as it should be, and the real issues are the increasing reluctance of parents to take responsibility for the upbringing of their children. The Wii Zapper will never prepare your child for a shooting spree, the differences between it and real guns are far too great, though it seems the MSM still can’t let the whole “games are evil” idea go.
(From Joystiq.)

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Tags: beyond gaming, Censorship, community, Culture, hardware, Joystiq, Nintendo, peripherals, Wii

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About this Post
Posted on September 17, 2007 by Mandrill | Filed Under News
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Comments

2 Responses to “Parents Up In Arms About Wii Zapper”

Tom Donald on September 19th, 2007 11:01 pm

All very well, but do you like to see small boys playing with toy guns? I don’t! There was a wee chap pretending to shoot everyone going into tesco’s the other day, I would like to have shoved his toy gun up his dad.
Mandrill on September 20th, 2007 1:52 am

That’s not the point, parents will quite happily let their children play with toy guns, whereas they only get all het up if a video game is involved (I’m generalising of course). It smacks slightly of hypocrisy

As to whether children (boys or girls) should play with toy guns, I did, and it never did me any harm. What’s important is that children are brought up with an appreciation of the distinction between reality and fantasy. That is ultimately the parents responsibility and no-one else’s.

Blaming such things as toy guns, video games, rock’n'roll, for the ‘corruption’ of children is merely giving people a scapegoat, allowing them to say “Its not my/their failt, it was that gmae that made me/them do it.” In my opinion this strikes at the root of society’s problems, we’ve gradually given up our responsibilities in favour of letting others make our decisions for us and denying that we are to balme for anything that happens to us.