Pfleger Is Right

CST:

Pfleger fires on toy guns in Easter baskets

There was a time when kids wanting toy guns had limited media images of cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers to emulate. Today, not so.

So the Rev. Michael Pfleger said he is challenging the sale of the toys — in Easter baskets — to a generation plagued by more violent and rampant use of guns in their own neighborhoods.

“I am writing to express my concern and outrage that Kmart is selling Easter baskets, which are obviously for children, with toy guns in them,” Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in Auburn-Gresham, wrote to officials at the big box retailer, in a Mar. 9 letter obtained by the Sun-Times.

(snip)

“As a Christian I’m insulted that Kmart or any store would use this celebration of life to have images of guns in Easter baskets, encouraging parents to buy them for their children. But equally important is that any psychiatrist will tell you a child who gets comfortable playing with toy guns and pointing them at people as a child becomes comfortable picking them up as an adult. In a nation that’s plagued with gun violence, neither Kmart nor any other store should be selling guns in Easter baskets to our kids.”

He’s right, you know.  I had all sorts of toy guns when I was a kid, a few of them actually looked real.  I got comfortable with them, and pointed them at other kids, and they pointed theirs at me.  As a result, I did become comfortable picking up real guns as an adult.

Only I’ve never gotten around to killing anyone.