Alarming spike in toy gun sales stokes worries

ISLAMABAD:

This year's Eid celebrations witnessed kids spend their Eidi [a tradition in Muslim countries in which elders gave money to children on Eidul Fitr] purchasing toy guns, playing with them while pretending to be robbers and policemen and more.

Despite the ban by the administration, the public display of all kinds of toy weapons remains a question mark for the future of children.

Due to the rise in the sale of toy weapons, the kiosks selling these toy guns have been set up in the streets and local marketplaces of the city and cantt areas.

The shopkeepers selling toy weapons made reaped good profits and several of them had to order fresh stock after all the toys were sold out.

According to experts, exposure to and purchase of the most dangerous weapon-like toys among children between the ages of five and 15 years does not bode well for the future of the country.

These toy guns came in various shapes and sizes, and they were also outrageously priced. Not only did the older children purchase the artificial firearms and flaunted them in the streets but the young children also continued to purchase the toy weapons.

According to sources, the toys included the Kalashnikov, triple two, light machine gun, rifle, Mauser, standard pistol, 30-bore pistol, and 32-bore pistol. Their plastic bullets were sold separately.

The children kept spending their Eidi to purchase these toy guns and ammunition for three days of Eid.

Groups of children appeared in the streets as they played with their toy weapons while acting like thieves and policemen and shooting at each other like police encounters.

On the other hand, citizens and teachers expressed their concern about this tendency among kids and labelled it the aftermath of excessive social media usage and unneeded parental indulgence.

According to the President of the Punjab SES Teachers Association, Muhammad Shafiq Bhalwalia, it is the fault of the parents that their kids are playing with toy weapons in the streets. Teachers cannot give them a lectures at home and streets.

According to Ilyas Qureshi, President of the Professors and Lecturers Association, children are impacted by exposure to guns on social media. “The government must outlaw the sale and production of dangerous toy weapons as well as the exhibition of weapons on all platforms, including social media,” he said.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2023.