Toy story warns that it isn’t all fun and games

Dan Buckley sounds a note of caution to parents about toy safety in the run-up to Christmas.

IT’S a scene that is played out every day of the week in fields, parks and housing estates, on pavements, in schoolyards and backyards. A gun-wielding cop is chasing a fleeing robber. He raises his super-duper, turbo-charged firearm and takes aim. Within seconds, the robber has dropped, ‘dead’ as a dodo.

For most parents it is a relief to see that, despite so many solitary electronic playthings, their children still like to engage in a bit of rough and tumble. Every kid on the block has heard someone go ‘bang, bang, you’re dead’ at one time or another and most of the time it’s harmless fun. The only thing that gets hurt is a little pride in being caught off-guard by the ‘gun-wielding’ super-hero.