toy gun: Bubble Gun and Water Pistol

Guns for children have been made for more than a century. Early toy guns were finely crafted cast-iron pieces often manufactured by the same companies that made firearms. The Daisy air rifle, first built in 1888, was marketed door-to-door to farm families. Manufacturers sought realism in toy guns as children wanted to emulate their favorite war heroes or cowboys.

Toy gun sales soared after wars, and during the 1930s era of Hollywood gangster films. In the 1940s, the Lone Ranger movie serials were credited for record sales of cap guns. Sales of ray-guns skyrocketed with the introduction of science-fiction characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Mattel introduced state of the art Dick Tracy weapons in the 1960s. Manufacturers have produced cap guns, prop guns, water guns, pop guns, Nerf guns, paintball guns, and laser tag guns, among others.

There has always been signs of social unease with regards to toy guns as playthings. In the 1930s, mothers’ movements threw toy guns into bonfires. Following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Francis Kennedy, Sears Roebuck removed toy guns from their 1968 Christmas catalog. Federal law and regulations indicate that all toy guns transported or imported into the country must have a blaze orange tip or stripe on both sides of the barrel to indicate that it is a toy. However, historian Gary Cross, has noted that “the mystique is in the realism.”