A prince, his toy gun and a royal storm in a teacup
THESE days, is there anything more sure to offend than a boy and his toys? Not even being a royal is enough to earn immunity from the perpetually outraged who see the simplest playset as the training equipment for a life of violence and male domination.
By now you will have heard that over in England this past weekend, Prince George was photographed playing with “controversial” items from a plastic set of “SWAT Team” toys. These included a pretend pistol – probably of the water shooting variety – plus some handcuffs and a fake knife. He was photographed playing at a charity polo match while his parents watched the ponies.
And thus a royal family day out morphed into a blow-up about global gun and knife crime.
The unnecessary drama unfolded after Prince William played in the Maserati Royal Charity Polo Trophy at Beaufort Polo Club in Tetbury, Gloucestershire.
The event was to raise money for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and CentrePoint.
It was a scene of wellscrubbed rich folk in crisp, pastel linens sitting around on the grass and cheering ever so politely on a summer’s day.
William’s son George meanwhile followed a familiar routine for a four-year-old, running across the grass while laughing and joking with his younger sister Princess Charlotte.
It should be added that three-year-old Charlotte was also barefoot. And the smile on her face said it all.
As did the look on the face of her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, who was soaking up the happiness that only comes from watching your children play contently, toy weapons and all.
While the chukka carried on in the background and dad belted a few white balls astride his pony, George was drawn to the accompanying children’s fair.
Sure enough, a prize was won, in his case the plastic arsenal, and I wager you’d find plenty of kids’ bedrooms near your home stocked with the very same.
But George was happy to wave around his mock weapon, play a bit of “bang bang” with his privileged cohort, and even poked mum on the chin with it.
The story goes that a Christmas list from George featured one request – a toy police car.
There was not a device, tablet, or smartphone in sight at this polo event. It was a fun afternoon in the fresh air and then everyone got in their topof-the-range vehicles to be driven home. The end, right? Of course not. Online, one train of fury zeroed in on why on earth the Cambridges allowed the third in line to the throne to play with toy weapons when “the whole country/world has a gun/knife crime situation”.
“Completely tone deaf of Kate … to give Prince George a toy gun. Doesn’t she read the papers in her own country with all the gun deaths?
“If the Duchess of Sussex had done this, she would be excoriated in the media! Lucky George isn’t black or police would have shot him,” one tone-deaf keyboard warrior proclaimed.
Of course the issue here is not the damage done by kids playing with toy guns but the hysteria from deluded adults. Piece of plastic or not, how many boys and girls have you seen make a gun out of their fingers, aim it at anything and make a shooting sound?
Exactly. It doesn’t desensitise them to violence and turn them into angry young men or women because kids get the difference between imagination and “real life”.
Don’t they? And if they don’t, isn’t that something their parents can help with?
Kids reprimanded for playing with guns will believe they are doing something wrong so they will start playing in secret.
Just what every parent wants.
Isn’t the other elephant in the room the exposure our kids have to violence in video games?
I give you Fortnite, which combines elements of shooting games and building games, and is spreading like an anger plague through teens in Australia. Ask a psychologist and they will confirm that children will find a way to create a gun no matter how hard you try to keep guns out of their world.
Everyone has an “informal causation theory” that playing with guns leads to the use of guns in adulthood, according to child psychologist Michael Thompson, author of It’s A Boy! Your Son’s Development From Birth To Age 18.
“There’s no scientific evidence suggesting that playing war games in childhood leads to real-life aggression,” Thompson says.
Contrast the treatment meted out to young Prince George and his parents to the scene that played out in Sydney recently, when it was reported a teenage girl in what appeared to be a hijab wandered around the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick carrying what appeared to be a replica machine gun.
While she sparked concern among visitors who weren’t sure if the would-be weapon was a fake or not, security was slow to react and some reports suggest she roamed the grounds for as long as 45 minutes.
And the usual suspects who were so outraged about Prince George’s playtime were far quieter about what could have easily been a far more sinister incident.
It’s tempting to say maybe they both should have carried Barbie dolls instead. But you can just imagine the outrage that suggestion would stoke.