“I’ll Shoot you” and other kids games

The other day I was guilty of a knee-jerk reaction. I was disgusted with myself. One of my life rules is “Act. Never re-act.” But I did it anyway.

Here’s what happened.  The four-year-old Grandson came in the office. Using a stick for a gun he pointed it at someone and said, “I’ll shoot you dead.”  My knee jerked and I took his “gun” and gave him a lecture on not pointing guns at people and on not threatening to kill people.  Then he looked at me and said, “Faux Pa, you know this isn’t a real gun, don’t you?”

The school shootings and mass murders have taken a toll on all of us, but is it really necessary to take away kids’ games?  Did the perpetrators of these crimes start out with sticks and then progress to guns and mass murder?

There is no doubt that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have mental problems but instead of attempting to discover the cause we attempt to treat fantasies, the symptoms and the tool used.

If you are around my age you remember those “gateway drug” ads. They warned if you took one toke on a joint, the next week you would be mainlining heroin. Not only did the ads do more harm than good, there were millions of us who proved them wrong.

The same is true with the gun hysteria.  In spite of all of my childhood friends that I “killed” with toy guns I did not progress to mass murder or even singular murder nor did anyone I know.

Along the same line I was “killed” hundreds of times and yet remain alive to write this editorial. I was killed as a pirate, a bank robber, a rustler, an Indian, a cowboy, a knight, a giant and I was even “killed” as a troll under the bridge.

We were burned at the stake, staked out on anthills, forced to walk the plank and run a gauntlet. We were hung, whipped and beaten.   After visiting Jamestown we built stocks and a pillory – and we used them. We were stranded on desert islands, burned and pillaged towns, kidnapped women, stole horses, robbed banks and rustled cows.

Still none of us progressed to murder, much less mass murder, and only a few of us actually committed real crimes later in life.

I am often warned to “never think my life and experiences are an example of normality” but I’m certain the play mayhem we committed as children was shared with many millions of American boys (and girls) of my generation.

Back when my son was about ten years old I was salvaging some materials from a building that was under demolition.  He asked if he could break the windows.  As we were only a few hours ahead of the bulldozer and the windows were not worth salvaging I gave permission.

He was having a glorious time throwing rocks through windows when we were accosted by one of those folks who objects to anything that looks like it might be fun.  “You are teaching him to be a vandal,” I was told.  I replied, “He is smart enough to know the difference between breaking a window with the permission of the owner in a building that is being demolished and randomly breaking windows.”

The boy is now thirty and has never vandalized a building in spite of the “gateway” window-breaking spree.

I am only certain of one fact. That is, the solution to the mass murder situation is not to jerk our knees, react and address the tools used. The solution (as always) is to discover the cause and treat the cause.

Part of the problem with mass murderers may be that they missed the games that teach us the difference between fantasy and reality.