Toy guns’ sales rampant despite ban
Despite the country’s struggle with gun violence, the promotion of guns to tender aged individuals by toy shops has never seen any significant crackdown. Resultantly, children have an obsession with buying fake guns and reenacting scenarios from their favourite video games or movies
Although in Punjab there is a ban in place on the sale of toy guns, in Lahore a visit to wholesale markets or toy shops shows prop firearms of various shapes and sizes sitting in all their glory for children to purchase. For instance, in Shah Alami, which is the city’s largest wholesale market, fake ammunition is imported in mammoth quantities every year to meet demand.
A trader from Shah Alami, who has been selling toys for several decades, while talking to The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity, said that traders in the inner city sell imported toy guns to shops not only in Lahore but in markets across the country. “The demand for prop firearms has never hit a snag so the toy guns business is actually worth millions of rupees.” When asked about the ban on the sale of such toys, the trader snickered and said that police visit from time to time but no action is taken. “The ban which was enacted in 2015 is only on paper not in actual,” he cheekily remarked. Elaborating further, the trader said that some shopkeepers bribe their way out of action being taken and that has created a precedent. “Cases are usually made against toy shop owners who do not give bribes, so now everyone knows what they must do to remain in business,” the trader alleged.
According to various vendors in the wholesale market, the average price of a plastic pistol ranges from a minimum of Rs 50 and a maximum of Rs 1500 and most traders sell plastic bullets and shells separately to further increase their profits.
While shops are only concerned with the profits and not the hazards that toy guns pose, Dr Javed Maher, an opthamologist based in the city said that every year he gets hundreds of children who get hit in the eyes with plastic bullets. “There is always an upsurge in children visiting with injuries during Eid days. The plastic shells cause severe damage to the pupils and I have had many patients who have lost their eyesight.” Dr Maher was of the view that the government needs to be more proactive in getting toy guns out of the hands of children.
Rafi Rafique, Head of Department of Psychology, Punjab University, concurs with this view. “Toy guns create a negative impact on children’s psyche and increase criminal tendencies in children.” Rafique said that the university had carried out numerous research projects on the issue which always came to the same conclusion: “toy guns have a negative effect on children.” He was of the view that with violent shooting video games now the norm, children want to be able to play out those video games in real life and that is where toy guns become a necessity. Rafique further said that since young minds are so impressionable and real guns are so easily accessible in the country, it could create chaos if bans are not enforced on sale of toy guns. “This access to toy guns from a young age will in some cases result in children later picking up real guns and not having any aversion to them. So the government should really do more to put a permanent end to prop firearms,” Rafique said while talking to The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 29th, 2022.