Publication Date: Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Toys or tools of violence?
Toys or tools of violence?
(July 02, 2003)Becky Beacom didn't like playing cowboys and Indians when she was a child.
"I hated the feeling of someone shooting me and I carry that with me as a parent. Things feel real to me," said Beacom, who wouldn't buy toy guns for her 16-year-old son, Jack, when he was a child.
Jack has paintballed once or twice, but not in a few years, Beacom said. While she doesn't forbid Jack to paintball, she doesn't endorse the sport either.
"I believe he could play paintball and be OK with it, but if he were to play on a regular basis it would make me uncomfortable," Beacom said.
Toy gun play also concerns Dr. Farideh Kioumehr, founder of the Anti-Violence Campaign in Sherman Oaks, Calif, a group that educates youth and adults about gun violence and encourages children to turn in toy guns for use in art installations.
"The only thing we encourage by giving a toy gun to them is aggressiveness, violence," Kioumehr said.
Psychologists say there is a link between what kids are exposed to and their behavior. Violent video games, much like paintballing, simulate real situations. In a 2002 study by psychologists Craig A. Anderson and Karen E. Dill published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, violent video games were linked to aggressive behavior. Their results support the General Affective Aggression Model that predicts exposure to violent video games will increase both short term aggression and long term delinquency.
"Whatever we teach them at a young age ... they learn. I believe that no one comes out of a mother's tummy with a gun in hand and are violent."
But Santa Clara Paintball co-owner Mike Decorra believes youth will inevitably be exposed to gun culture.
"They're gonna (sic) play with this stuff anyways. So why not do it in a safe, supervised, legal environment," Decorra said. He opened Santa Clara Paintball in January.
Decorra is quick to disassociate guns from paintballing, despite his attendance at local gun shows to promote the sport. He doesn't own a gun, he said.
"It's not like shooting guns. It's like tag. I don't get into that, I'm not the G.I. Joe. This is a game, it's like football to me."
But many people in Palo Alto don't perceive gun games that way. Peter Giovannotto's mother, Stella, said there seems to be a stigmatism against guns. Her son, Peter, is on a local precision shooting team, which has had a hard time recruiting kids.
"In the Central Valley, shooting is sort of an OK sport. It's not OK in Palo Alto," Stella said.
Peter is trained in gun use and gained his hunting license at 13. Despite having grown up around guns, Stella said Peter and his friends aren't violent.
"They are exemplary people. ... These are not the kids who are going to go out and do something crazy. These are good kids," Stella said.
-- Grace Rauh
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