Episode 6: Dangerous Play and the Block 19 Pistol

• An NPR article about the Block 19 pistol kit: A Toylike Gun Covered In Legos Sparks An Uproar
• Visit the (Re)Search for Solutions podcast website.

Nathan Holbert:

We’ve had a whole season of pop and play where we celebrated and defended people’s right to play - to be creative, imaginative; and work through possibilities and tensions while knowing the benefits and the limitations of play to imagine a way forward in a world fraught with violence, racial tension, a global pandemic, …the list goes on.
We originally recorded this crossover episode with Sonali Rajan, host of Research for Solutions, almost a year ago. Our hope was to explore these same issues of play related to gun access, and in particular a real glock-19 made to look like a LEGO toy. While we all agreed that this was such an egregious and dangerous use of a child’s toy the recent shooting at Robb Elementary School makes this problem - of unfettered access to dangerous weapons - glaringly obvious.
 
Sonali Rajan:

As we have iterated repeatedly on Research for Solutions, our society–and more explicitly adults– have yet to deal with and appropriately take responsibility for the crisis of gun violence.
We watch our grandparents, friends, children die over and over again in gun-related deaths, and we have yet to witness any serious effort to support even the most basic, common sense, and evidence-informed gun reform, minimal funding to meaningfully invest in the well-being of children and youth, and the continued inequitable distribution of resources.
Instead the talk is of more guns, more police, bulletproof backpacks, and armed teachers.
And yet, as a nation, we have witnessed lives being stolen, destroyed by guns. Repeatedly.

Haeny Yoon:

We are astounded at how much easier it is to pass policies that limit, surveil, and regulate children and their right to play…their right to be children. We blame “play” for why children can’t read, why US test scores are lower than those of our global peers, we even go as far as to blame play for violence! Children’s play isn’t the problem, it’s the “work” that adults do— or, too often, don’t do —to create the conditions for children to be safe, joyful, and really…just BE.
Thank you for joining us here to listen, engage, and - we hope - be inspired to action…

Sonali Rajan:
So the challenge with this particular product is now you're taking this deadly weapon and turning it into something that is colorful and attractive and looks very appealing. So, my six year old who loves LEGOs and would adore the idea of playing with something that had LEGOs on it would not be able to help himself, I'm sure, if that kind of weapon was lying around.

Nathan Holbert:
This is a special crossover episode with our friend, Sonali Rajan, from the (Re)search for Solutions podcast. A quick content warning; this episode is a bit more serious than a typical pop and play conversation, as we'll be discussing gun violence.

Haeny Yoon:
We talk a lot about dangerous play in our podcast. And by that we mean play that adults worry about. The kind that makes them want to make rules, restricting kids from playing in certain ways.

Nathan Holbert:
We decided to make this crossover episode to discuss the Blockn19, a real handgun that's designed to look like a LEGO toy. We discuss what makes the Block 19 problematic, reflect on the ways privilege and marginalization dictates who is allowed to engage in this dangerous play and consider the responsibility of the adults that design objects and spaces encountered by kids.

Haeny Yoon:
This episode is guest hosted by Lalitha Vasudevan. She's our good friend and fellow teacher's college professor, as well as the managing director of the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Okay. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us. We have a special crossover episode today featuring hosts of the Pop and Play podcast. We're going to start with Haeny Yoon. Hi Haeny.

Haeny Yoon:
Hey. Good to be here, Lalitha.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Thanks for joining us. And Nathan Holbert.

Nathan Holbert:
Hey everybody.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Hey Nathan. And we are also joined by (Re)search for Solutions host, Sonali Rajan. Hi Sonali.

Sonali Rajan:
Hi guys. Good to be here.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
So, thanks to everyone for being here today. The story we're going to discuss has to do with a gun manufactured by a company that's made to look like it is made of LEGOs. To introduce this episode, I'm going to turn it over to Sonali to tell us a little bit more about this issue.

Sonali Rajan:
What happened was a Utah gun company called Culper precision basically revealed a design of a Lego themed pistol kit, and they were marketing this for about $600. At the time, they, the company said, and I quote, here's one of those childhood dreams coming to life. The Block 19 prototype. Yes, you can actually build LEGOs onto it. And for our listeners, if you haven't seen a picture of this, it really is a very colorful looking firearm. And what then happened was that there was immediate backlash and public pressure placed on the company to remove this LEGO theme pistol kit from the market. And that has since been what has happened, but in the context of those few weeks, when people were really debating whether or not this is a safe or even reasonable product to be selling, a lot of conversation around the risk that firearms posed to children came up.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
So the there's an article that was published on the NPR website and the quote says, with the colorful Block 19 pistol kit, owners would have been able to use LEGO blocks to create their own sites and designs on top of a Glock 19 pistol slide. And are there alarm bells that go off for you?

Sonali Rajan:
Yes. So, mostly, and I'm saying this with my mom hat on. So I have a soon to be six year old and who you all know very well. And all of us, anybody who's spent time with children know how curious they are, how very good they are at finding tiny little things to play with or sharp things to play with. And so part of our job as adults is to help provide an environment in which they can be reasonably safe. And I'm not talking about safe from every single little thing, but certainly major things and being safe from a loaded gun seems like one of those things we probably want to be mindful of. And so the challenge with this particular product is now you have an instrument, a weapon that is... it's only purpose is to inflict harm on somebody or someone or oneself.

Sonali Rajan:
And if mishandled in some way, a child could hurt themselves or hurt someone else, and I'll talk later in the episode about some of the numbers around that. You're taking this deadly weapon and turning it into something that is colorful and attractive and looks very appealing. So, my six year old who loves LEGOs and would adore the idea of playing with something that had LEGOs on it would not be able to help himself, I'm sure, if that kind of weapon was lying around.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Nathan reminds us that this wasn't just a toy. It was a gun that would look like a toy.

Nathan Holbert:
It's not even that like, oh, it looks like a toy. It actually is one of their toys and it would be recognizable as one of their toys right away. So it's further even from it just being kind of an interesting thing, right? It's actually putting this very dangerous instrument into the toy that kids are already playing with and already feel a sense of ownership over. So there's the danger here is just kind of like off the charts. I grew up in rural Missouri and my friends and I talked about guns a lot. We had BB guns, we talked about rifles and what kind of rifle we'd get when we were older. And occasionally even with adult supervision, we had a chance to shoot guns.

Nathan Holbert:
There's all these times where we see kids engaging in activities, engaging in play that we see it and we think, man, that's, I don't know about that. That maybe they're playing guns and... cops and robbers or something and they're shooting each other, or maybe they're maybe they're using language or words that we find to be problematic. And it's very difficult, I think, to know how do we respond to that. I think this gun, this particular Lego gun, that's like a whole nother ballgame, right? That's just bad across the board. But how do we think about gun play and how do we think about activities that kids engage in, even if it's making using LEGOs to make pretend guns, right? How do we think about that as academics and as educators and as parents?

Sonali Rajan:
So I think about this so much with my little one who is fascinated that his Star Wars LEGO kits come with and we have reframed them as blasters. And I when... and you all know, when he's asleep, I'm all digging through his LEGO box, pulling out the toy guns and throwing them in the garbage. So, but I think part of it, I have thought a lot about this recently, which is the ways in which violence or just various things do get embedded in play. And is that necessarily even a bad thing, just imaginary, just from an imagination perspective.

Sonali Rajan:
And so do we just open that, like as a parent, do we say, I want you to explore this and have these... think about these things and talk to me about it and not make such a big deal about one versus another, or do we have some clear boundaries? And one of the things that came to mind was this LEGO gun was the way in which now we're just normalizing both the gun itself and also the fact that it's a thing to play with. Like the two, the normalization of both of those things for me didn't sit right, but I also come at this with a very specific perspective.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
And I know when you look at really young children, this idea of playful violence or things that are read as violent comes up in their play all the time, and what do we do with children's imaginations, right? If they veer into these dangerous territories. And how do we think about that in the context of the fact that this very real weapon is now looking like a toy?

Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. I think I was thinking about how... I was trying to make a list of all the times that I've seen young children play with guns and how they don't actually need this LEGO, colorful, whatever toy to make their own LEGO version of guns. I feel like every classroom I've been in, I have photographic evidence of some kid making a gun with LEGOs. Right. I have a kid who made a gun with base 10 blocks, right? They were just like math things. And I remember this other kid was making, was doing his writing and he was doing this narrative and he was in the corner talking about how this guy is shooting a gun at the house. And then when the teacher came, he's like, oh, my mom is spraying this water hose onto the grass.

Haeny Yoon:
For me, I'm like thinking about the larger issue and will... I'm always surprised, and Sonali, I'm sure that you could speak to this, how easy it is for people to ban things or regulate things or do something that feels like a very surface level solution to a very, to a larger problem. I think just because you got rid of these LEGO Block 19 or whatever it's called, the kit, doesn't mean that you actually get rid of gun violence, right. Just because you make these things not accessible to kids doesn't mean that they're not also thinking about these very adjacent ideas related to it. Whether it's like mental illness, whether it's poverty, whether it's the state of how they're living in their neighborhoods or communities or families. I feel like there's so many other issues that are a lot bigger that we don't actually want to solve.

Haeny Yoon:
And so we want to solve that micro thing, right? Like, okay, everybody has to go to school in a metal detector. Right. Or we have to get rid of these gun kits because they're not allowed, or we have to tell kids in kindergarten that you cannot write about guns or violence, that you cannot play guns or violence, that you can't play anything with war, that you can't say the magic words. Right. And it's like, yeah, they're not saying those things to your face because they're smart. Right. But they're also doing these things on the side. Right. And part of it, I think, Sonali, to your point, it is imaginative, right? Some of it is imagination. Like a lot of times like young children are not going to act on those things. Right. But then sometimes they give us a deeper understanding of the things that are actually going on in their lives.

Nathan Holbert:
I was just going to say, one thing that was worth clarifying is this gun wasn't made for children, right, it was made for adults, but it's made in a way that reads as if it's a child's story. And so there is this sense of, who's it for that's just way too messy. Right? And even in the articles that I read, I read a couple different articles about it. Even gun owners and pro gun rights people were like, dude, this is terrible. What are you thinking? Even they were feeling like this was really problematic, but reading about the people who made the gun and produced the gun, this idea of, ah, it's a sport and we want people to enjoy and get a sense of the joy that comes with this sport, okay. But also people are dying, tons and tons and tons and tons of people are dying. How do we wrestle with those tensions? What are some of the actual policies or ways of thinking that we can be trying to enact to address this problem?

Sonali Rajan:
Where the conversation in this country has gotten a little out of hand in the context of firearms, is that any amount of regulation or oversight in the context of firearms feels like a “infringement” on one's rights, even though we regulate all sorts of other things. The majority of gun owners in this country would agree with this, which is a gun is a like a car, is something that we have a responsibility to own, to take care of, to make sure we… you wouldn't let your five year old drive your car.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
All three of you are bringing up I think a few things that have really connected both podcasts, right? That you're thinking about what responsibility we have to children. And it's hard to hear this conversation that's presumably about a real weapon that's made to look like a toy and not think about the differential ways that gun laws are applied to people in this country and who is kept safe. So, one story that often comes to mind for me, when I think about children and guns, is the story of Tamir Rice, who was 12, when he was playing in the park with a BB gun. Now this is not fully in the weapon range, but it's a BB gun. It's a thing that Nathan I'm sure you played with when you were younger and growing up in Missouri, as you were talking about. But within seconds of police being called on him, he was shot and killed. Now this was a BB gun that was made to look, they say, more like a real gun. And so you have in a way, a contrasting situation.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Haeny reflects on how the example of Tamir Rice illustrates not only how policies and laws are differently applied, but the ways in which identity categories like race and gender can lead to differing implications for children's play and responses to young people.

Haeny Yoon:
I think every time we talk about gun violence or children's play with guns, you can't help but think about black boys, right? And gun play. Right. So when you think about things like LEGOs, or when you think about when a black boy in a early childhood classroom plays with some kind of toy gun or whatever it is, a little part of your heart stops, right? And you start thinking about the implications of that and how it gets read and all of that. So I think on the one hand, it's a really sobering moment for adults and teachers and educators to think about that in their own classrooms.

Haeny Yoon:
And I think that applies not just to black boys when we think about race, but when we think about gender, right, when we think about dolls, right, and how certain children picking up certain kinds of dolls can have really devastating effects for them. Right? So it's not just a gun per se. It's not just that as a toy, but it's also other toys, right, that have implications for how young people will move through their schooling, how they'll get read by their teachers and educators, right. How they'll get read by their peers. And I think there is a responsibility that teachers have to talk and think about that with children, right? With young people, with the people that are around them.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Haeny brings us into pragmatic ways we can “kids safe” and what should be on people's minds as they make choices about the kinds of designs they create in support of children's learning, children's wellbeing and children's ability to just live in this world. Let's hear more from her followed by Nathan and Sonali.

Haeny Yoon:
Okay, I've been watching 13 Reasons Why, which I'm not even sure why I keep watching it, because I'm like, it feels very dramatic and a soap opera and a very dark version of Veronica Mars. But I think the one part that I keep thinking about is as these young people are trying to navigate that space that is totally toxic, that is filled with all this toxic energy, where are the adults? Right? Where are the adults in trying to help them navigate that space, not taking over that space and doing it for them. Right? But helping them and thinking together with them and collaborating with them and all of that. Right. And so as we move back into our classrooms, we should think about how different children and different people depending on race and class and ethnicity and abilities, right, how they get read when they pick up certain kinds of toys and it's something to consider. Right. And something to think about as a teacher in your classroom is how that differentiated treatment plays out, right, in certain spaces.

Nathan Holbert:
Whenever we create something for a young person to play with, we have a set of choices that we have to make and I think we need to be substantially more thoughtful about what those choices are and what values are packed up in those choices. There's absolutely no reason for a BB gun to look like a machine gun or a pistol or something like that. Right? But they do. And why do they do that? I don't know because adults think it's cool and they think that the kids will think it's cool. And then kids do think it's cool and whatever. Right. And you end up with this cycle of messiness. And I think we have to do better as we continue to move forward. I don't think it's a lost cause.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
We don't have answers to all of this, but Sonali does give us at least one small thing we can do.

Sonali Rajan:
So on average, about 40,000 people die from firearm injuries every single year. But out of all of the people who die from gun violence, the accidental gun deaths account for maybe 1% of that, like about 450 or so gun deaths every year are what we consider accidental shootings. And most of those are children. And the main thing is that people leave their firearms unlocked and loaded and, or hidden somewhere hidden. I'm putting this in air quotes, “hidden” somewhere where they think a child or their friends can't find it. The thing that we basically, and there's a lot of research that talks about this, is the best way to prevent this is to teach gun owners how to store their guns locked and unloaded.

Sonali Rajan:
And there's a whole lot of research that has talked about how physicians and pediatricians and school nurses and all sorts of people can engage in what we call safe firearm storage efforts or gun safety education to basically A, normalize conversations around safe gun safety, to teach families to ask each other. So if my little one's going down to Nathan's house, I would sit for the first time, I could ask Nathan, do you have a gun at home? And if so, is it locked and unloaded? Normalizing that is part of just parenting conversations. So there's a lot of work, a lot of interesting research that has talked about and looked at these efforts as a way for us as a society to coexist safely or relatively safely with the 400 million guns that are in circulation in this country.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Thanks to Nathan and Haeny from Pop and Play, and Sonali from Research For Solutions, for joining us for this special episode. I think we left with more questions than answers, but we appreciated being able to discuss and think through the difficult intersection of firearm violence and children's play, together.

Haeny Yoon:
Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevan and Joe Riina-Ferrie at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. This episode was edited by Jen Lee, Joe Riina-Ferrie and Billy Collins.

Nathan Holbert:
For a transcript, and to learn more visit tc.edu/popandplay.

Haeny Yoon:
This episode was assistant produced by Lucius Von Joo.

Lalitha Vasudevan:
Original music in this episode was provided by Billy Collins.

Nathan Holbert:
Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Poddington Bear, used here under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial license. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.